Piggybacking

Our project for the next two weeks is something called 'piggybacking', which is a writing exercise in which you steal a first line and go from there. (I've just been told the correct term is 'borrow' a first line, I disagree, but po-tay-to po-tah-to, right?) So anyway, I have considered a few:

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." This of course from Stephen King's The Gunslinger. I don't think I can do this one, it is one of my all time favorite stories and it is my favorite first line ever. I keep thining, 'how on earth can you go anywhere else with that?' Next:

"We all have flaws," said the Duke. "Mine is being wicked." This was in People magazine as 'thus begins' a book named 13 clocks, that I have not actually read, though I belive I will soon be picking up for the kids. I like it, but am not certain if that is the actual first line. If it is, I was thinking:

"We all have flaws," said the Duke. "Mine is being wicked."
He sipped wine from a jeweled goblet and stroked his hairy chin most thoughtfully. The gleam in his eyes turned from excited to down-right devilish.
"Of course, wickedness is awfully fun."

Okay, so whadda ya think? Huh huh huh?

Yeah, let's try one more just in case...I am going to randomly pick something off of my sister's bookshelf...hmmm, Nora Roberts' Sweet Revenge. This may take several tries. First line is - oh, this may be do-able. Here goes:

'Stuart Spencer hated his hotel room excessively.' Not marginally, not slightly, not even grievously. Excessively.
Stuart was well acquainted with excess. You might even say it defined him. He not only indulged himself with his every desire, he overindulged. He had never stayed in anything less than a five-star hotel suite. He looked around the grimy walls of his 15x15 room just as a fat, shiny cockroach skittered across the door. A shudder ran down his spine and he wondered how he had gone from there to here in just three days.

Hmmm. This is harder than it sounds. I keep second guessing myself, wondering if I am totally messing up someone else's work, if I am too close to the original work and thereby bordering on plagerism, if I am too opposite and thus losing the perfection of that first line's placement... gahhh! Anyway, this is my start, let me know what you think, please.