That was a lucky hit; I haven't read the book. I think I'll tweak things a bit. The next poser takes many people's votes as the best opening paragraph in English-language novels. Since it is so well known I ask people to PM me with your answers so it can stay open for longer. I'll reply on here.
[Placename] is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. [It] is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, [industrial works] of corrugated iron, honky-tonks, restaurants and whore-houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flop-houses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peep-hole he might have said: "Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men," and he would have meant the same thing.
