An interview with Stephen King, in which he talks about effective opening sentences:
In The Atlantic, here.
(Stephen King on writing is always worth listening to, in my opinion, because — also, of course, in my opinion — he’s pretty much the Charles Dickens of our modern era.)
Dr. Doyle's Blog 
I’m entertained, because at Readercon I went to a panel where Jim was talking about realism-in-fantasy, and I brought up Stephen King and “This is what happened.” Which he acknowledges adopting himself, for “The Mist.”
I could remember “The Mist”. I couldn’t remember Douglas Fairbairn, but I remembered Stephen King talking about how it was his favorite first line ever.