You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analogous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the imagination. Hold the philosophy, hold the adjectives, just give us a plain subject and verb and perhaps a wholesome, nonfattening adverb or two.
ATTRIBUTION:
Larry McMurtry (b. 1936), U.S. screenwriter, novelist, essayist. Godwin, in Some Can Whistle, pt. 1, ch. 3 (1989).
