The Final Polish of the Shoe

In 1913, when Anthony Patch was twenty-five, two years were already gone since irony, the Holy Ghost of this later day, had, theoretically at leastm descended upon him.  Irony was the final polish of the shoe, the ultimate dab of the clothes-brush, a sort of intellectual 'There!' - yetat the brink of this story he has as yet gone no further than the conscious stage.  As you first see him he wonders frequently whether he is not without honour and slightly mad, a shamrful and obscene thiness glistening on the surface of the world like oil on a clean pool, these occasions being varied, of course, with those in which he thinks himself rather an exceptional young man, thoroughly sophisticated, well adjusted to his environment, and somewhat more significant than any one else he knows.

The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald, (published 1922). 

This is my new entry to the Open Sesame Challenge.  It is the opening paragraph to The Beautiful and Damned, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Isn't it so completely full of imagery?  It is bluntly but very brilliantly put, and I can see it all in my head, laid out like a domestic scene in a mouse's doll's house that represents the play of humanity.  Hmmm.  Where did that line come from? 

Please, my dears, enter your favourite opening line, paragraph or page from a book, and have a read of all the entries so far, (the list on the right hand side has links to all entries so far).  Let's hear what you like about the entries and what you value about your own.