“The door dilated.”
This offhand mention has become the simplest (three words!) and often-quoted exposition of the wonders of a different world, where what would be novel today has become simply the way things work.
Source: Beyond This Horizon (1948; originally serialized in 1942), Chapter 1, “All of them should have been very happy—”, p. 5 and several other times
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Robert A. Heinlein 557
American science fiction author 1907–1988Related quotes
“Toughest job I ever had: selling doors, door to door.”
Is It Bill Bailey? (TV, 1998)
“The door was the way to… to… The Door was The Way.”
Source: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)
Context: The door was the way to... to... The Door was The Way. Good. Capital letters were always the best way of dealing with things you didn't have a good answer to.
“Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.”
Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!”
Source: Leaves of Grass
“A comedian is not a man who opens a funny door. He opens a door funny.”
Hedda Hooper, November 1 1960, “Comic Ed Wynn, Winning Still, Discusses Craft”, Buffalo (NY) Courier-Express, pg. 6, col. 1. Wynn was paraphrasing Fred Allen. “A comic says funny things; a comedian says things funny”, Barry Popik, November 10, 2015, January 7, 2017 http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/a_comic_says_funny_things/,
“I like to consider my mind an open door. It's just not a revolving door.”
[ATTN JMS: Are you a millionaire ?, J. Michael Straczynski, 2002-07-20, rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated, 20020720000422.11234.00000533@mb-fx.aol.com, http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated/msg/5d0fa989a5c65112]