First Lines of Richard Powers "The Overstory"

 "First there was nothing. Then there was everything.

Then, in a park above a western city after dusk, the air is raining messages. A woman sits on the ground, leaning against a pine. Its bark presses hard against her back, as hard as life. Its needles scent the air and a force hums in the heart of the wood. Her ears tune down to the lowest frequencies. The tree is saying things, in words before words."

- Richard Powers, "The Overstory"