Quotes about door (1711 quotes, page 11)

“Fortune rarely accompanies anyone to the door.”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

This is sometimes said to be by Torquato Tasso, and sometimes to be a quotation from Goethe's verse play Torquato Tasso, but it is from Joseph Jacobs' translation of Baltasar Gracián's Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia , maxim no. 59. In the original Spanish: Pocas veces acompaña la dicha a los que salen.
Misattributed

“If there is a sense of reality, there must also be a sense of possibility. To pass freely through open doors, it is necessary to respect the fact that they have solid frames. This principle, by which the old professor had lived, is simply a requisite of the sense of reality. But if there is a sense of reality, and no one will doubt that it has its justifications for existing, then there must also be something we can call a sense of possibility. Whoever has it does not say, for instance: Here this or that has happened, will happen, must happen; but he invents: Here this or that might, could, or ought to happen. If he is told that something is the way it is, he will think: Well, it could probably just as well be otherwise. So the sense of possibility could be defined outright as the ability to conceive of everything there might be just as well, and to attach no more importance to what is than to what is not.”

Robert Musil book The Man Without Qualities

The Man Without Qualities (1930–1942)
Variant: If there is a sense of reality, there must also be a sense of possibility. To pass freely through open doors, it is necessary to respect the fact that they have solid frames. This principle, by which the old professor had lived, is simply a requisite of the sense of reality. But if there is a sense of reality, and no one will doubt that it has its justifications for existing, then there must also be something we can call a sense of possibility. Whoever has it does not say, for instance: Here this or that has happened, will happen, must happen; but he invents: Here this or that might, could, or ought to happen. If he is told that something is the way it is, he will think: Well, it could probably just as well be otherwise. So the sense of possibility could be defined outright as the ability to conceive of everything there might be just as well, and to attach no more importance to what is than to what is not.

Way , Thinking , Reality , Sense

“We do not pay any more attention to the poor than we do to the balls; they are allowed to remain at the door and never come inside.”

François Béroalde de Verville (1556–1626) French writer

On ne fait non plus de cas de pauvres que de couillons: on les laisse à la porte; jamais n'entrent.
Le Moyen de Parvenir (1617).
Unsourced

“Why has he closed the door on Canada Post? Here's a guy who says he was a terrific manager of the economy and all things economic yet he's shut down our postal service. It's certainly the wrong thing to do and it sends a very bad signal out to the working people that tromp up and down our sidewalks and deliver our mail … that he doesn't really respect the bargaining process.”

Jack Layton (1950–2011) Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada

Layton nixes cutting NDP ties to labour unions http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20110618/ndp-layton-labour-movement-110618/ June 18,2011

People , Guy

“Who knocks?’ ‘I, who was beautiful,
Beyond all dreams to restore,
I from the roots of the dark thorn am hither,
And knock on the door.”

Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) English poet and fiction writer

The Ghost.

Beauty , Dreams

“The gospel of St. Matthew told of the angry Jesus driving the merchants and money-changers out of the temple, knocking over the tables of the money-changers and spilling their coins on the floor. Jesus was not opposed to capitalism and the profit motive, so long as economic activities were carried on outside the temple. In the parable of the talents, he praises the servant who used his master's money to make a profitable investment, and condemns the servant who was too timid to invest. But he draws a clear line at the temple door. Inside the temple, the ground belongs to God and profit-making must stop.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

Progress In Religion (2000)

Money , God , Motivation , Drawing

“When the wind blew from the south and the French doors had been opened, the sound of cheering carried from Ebbets Field into the apartment. It was astonishing, to hear cheers from a major league crowd while sitting at home.”

Roger Kahn (1927–2020) American baseball writer

Source: The Boys Of Summer, Chapter 1, The Trolley Car That Ran By Ebbets Field, p. 36

Home

“The key is so distant, I've opened doors.
Know when to listen, know what to listen for.”

Travis Meeks (1979) American musician

Shelf in the Room (Orange - 1998).
Lyrics

Distant

“Once animal exploitation was institutionalized and accepted as part of the natural order of things, it opened the door to similar ways of treating other human beings, thus paving the way for such atrocities as human slavery and the Holocaust.”

Charles Patterson (author) (1935) American author and historian

Source: Eternal Treblinka (2002), p. 12

Way , Nature , Animals , Parting

“When socialism comes through the door, employment jumps out the window.”

Esperanza Aguirre (1952) Spanish politician

Source: http://www.larazon.es/noticia/7874-aguirre-ni-zapatero-ni-sus-delfines-saben-arreglar-la-que-han-liado. 'La Razón' Diary. May 6th, 2011.

“I was walking tru Amsterdam when I heared I’m Outta Love blasting out of an open window. In that moment I rang their doorbell and when those people opened the door I said ‘Roomservice!’ Never I saw people dropping their jaws that much (laughs) I saw their eyes goin from me to their tv that had mtv on, back to me and back to the tv again, you saw they where thinking, how can this woman be in both places in the same time? But once they got over that shock they did not wanna let me go anymore, ‘come in, there is plenty to drink, there is plenty of everything (winks), what do you wanna eat, are u staying over…?’ Sweet people, real cute, only later I realized, oh my god, what if they were just making love to my music, they would have opend the door naked!”

Anastacia (1968) American singer-songwriter

Het stomende dubbelinterview: Natalia en Anastacia http://www.humo.be/humo-archief/29756/het-stomende-dubbelinterview-natalia-en-anastacia, Humo, September 27, 2010.
General Quotes

Love , God , People , Making love

“Imagination, of course, can open any door - turn the key and let terror walk right in.”

Truman Capote book In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood (1965)

Imagination

“White: You give up the world line by line. Stoically. And then one day you realize that your courage is farcical. It doesnt mean anything. You've become an accomplice in your own annihilation and there is nothing you can do about it. Everything you do closes a door somewhere ahead of you. And finally there is only one door left.”

Cormac McCarthy The Sunset Limited

The Sunset Limited (2006)

World , Courage

“A door opens to me. I go in and am faced with a hundred closed doors.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Se me abre una puerta, entro y me hallo con cien puertas cerradas.
Voces (1943)

“In Flossenbürg, you noticed things more; you had to notice every day so many people hanged in the courtyard. People were brought to their execution completely naked. They were driven into the courtyard and I could hear the noise of naked feet on the court ground right outside my window. Stretchers with corpses were carried past the doors of our cells. If by chance the peek holes were open, one could see them going by. In the courtyard where you took a walk, they had gallows arranged in such a way that you were obliged to look at them.”

Franz Halder (1884–1972) German general

To Leon Goldensohn, April 5, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.
Sourced Encyclopedia of the Third Reich Louis L. Snyder

People , Way , Chance , Past

“I learnt the true meaning of what was euphemistically described as close-quarters combat. No line-of-sight particle-beam weapons now; no delayed-detonation nano-munitions. What close-quarters combat meant was something which would have been infinitely more recognisable to a soldier of a thousand years earlier: the screaming fury of human beings packed so close together that the only effective way to kill each other was with sharpened metal weapons: bayonets and daggers, or with hands around each other’s throats; fingers pressed into each other’s eye-sockets. The only way to survive was to disengage all higher brain-functions and regress to an animal state of mind.
So I did. And in doing so, I learned a deeper truth about war. She punished those who flirted with her by making them like herself. Once you opened the door to the animal, there was no shutting it.”

Alastair Reynolds book Chasm City

Source: Chasm City (2001), Chapter 7 (p. 108).

War , Truth , Way , Learning

“If you cross Fox News Channel, it's not just me, it's Roger Ailes who will go after you… The person gets what's coming to them but never sees it coming. Look at Al Franken, one day he's going to get a knock on his door and life as he's known it will change forever. That day will happen, trust me.”

Bill O'Reilly (1949) American political commentator, television host and writer

alleged in Mackris v. O'Reilly, quoted in * Every which way but loofah
Salon
2004-10-14
http://www.salon.com/news/2004/10/13/o_reilly
2011-06-02
Disputed

Life , Change , Personality

“Now remember courage, go to the door,
Open it and see whether coiled on the bed
Or cringing by the wall, a savage beast
Maybe with golden hair, with deep eyes
Like a bearded spider on a sunlit floor
Will snarl—and man can never be alone.”

Allen Tate (1899–1979) American poet, essayist and social commentator

The Wolves, from Collected Poems (1970).

Courage

“Well they're breaking down doors in foreign countries,
Everybody thinks somebody's hiding something.
There's talk on the street and the nation is worried.
But you can't talk back when you're dead, when you're dead and buried.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Restless
Song lyrics, Breaking Hearts (1984)

Thinking , Dead , Country

“… I pounded the doors at the local IBM sales office until a salesman took pity on me. After we chatted for a while, he handed me a Fortran [manual]. I'm sure he gave it to me thinking, "I'll never hear from this kid again." I returned the following week saying, "This is really cool. I've read the whole thing and have written a small program. Where can I find a computer?" The fellow, to my delight, found me programming time on an IBM 1130 on weekends and late-evening hours. That was my first programming experience, and I must thank that anonymous IBM salesman for launching my career. Thank you, IBM.”

Grady Booch (1955) American software engineer

Grady Booch (2003-04-03) in interview "Grady Booch polishes his crystal ball", IBM

Thinking , Time , Reading

“I am not gonna die because some network executive thought I was fat! It's so wrong! It's so wrong that women are asked to live up to this skinny ideal that is totally unattainable. For me to be ten pounds thinner is a full-time job, and I am handing in my notice and walking out the door!!”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Tours and CDs, I'm The One That I Want Tour

Women , Time

“We rarely recognize how wonderful it is that a person can traverse an entire lifetime without making a single really serious mistake — like putting a fork in one's eye or using a window instead of a door.”

Marvin Minsky book Society of Mind

The Society of Mind (1987)

Personality

“When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed,
And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night,
I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Memories of President Lincoln, 1
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Star , Spring , Night

“Tommy locked his doors, armed his security system, replaced all the 9-volt batteries in his smoke detectors, made sure the gun in his dresser drawer was loaded, and went to bed where, before falling asleep, he recited a psalm from memory, with an emphasis on one line in particular: “yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me...””

Lis Wiehl (1961) American legal scholar

Source: Waking Hours: Book 1 in East Salem Trilogy with Pete Nelson (Thomas Nelson), p. 165

Death , Fear , Art , Memory

“Soon she saw the dining room light shining through the parted curtains. Its humble glow provoked a goodness in her heart that was no longer calculating or defiant, nor a kind of currency with which to barter and exchange; what she felt was an infinite, poignant affinity for this life that was her family’s. No longer did it seem harassed and restricting, but rather made beautiful from start to finish like a lighthouse beam before her. Home would take her in, home would cure her. Her hand on the doorknob, she paused for one long, ineffable moment. Then she pushed open the door. And it was as if an arctic wind chilled her frail efforts to make a fresh beginning.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 257

Life , Family , Beauty , Home

“The Sultan reached Jhain in the afternoon of the third day and stayed in the palace of the Raya… He greatly enjoyed his stay for some time. Coming out, he took a round of the gardens and temples. The idols he saw amazed him… Next day he got those idols of gold smashed with stones. The pillars of wood were burnt down by his order… A cry rose from the temples as if a second Mahmud had taken birth. Two idols were made of brass, one of which weighed nearly a thousand mans. He got both of them broken, and the pieces were distributed among his people so that they may throw them at the door of the Masjid on their return [to Delhi]…”

Amir Khusrow (1253–1325) Indian poet, writer, musician and scholar

About Sultan Jalalu’d -Din Khalji (AD 1290-1296) in Jhain (Rajasthan) Translated from the Hindi version by S.A.A. Rizvi included in Khalji Kalina Bharata, Aligarh, 1955, pp. 153-54.
Miftahu'l-Futuh

People , Birth , Time , Cry

“Under my leadership the Liberal Democrats would not be making polite interjections from the sidelines, we would be hammering on the doors of power.”

Menzies Campbell (1941) British Liberal Democrat politician and advocate

Birmingham Post, 21 January 2006

“This is worse than when Paul D came to 124 and she cried helplessly into the stove. This is worse. Then it was for herself. Now she is crying because she has no self… She doesn't move to open the door because there is no world out there. She decides to stay in the cold house and let the dark swallow her like the minnows of light above. She won't put up with another leaving, another trick. Waking up to find one brother then another not at the bottom of the bed, his foot jabbing her spine. Sitting at the table eating turnips and saving the liquor for her grandmother to drink; her mother's hand on the keeping-room door and her voice saying, 'Baby Suggs is gone, Denver.' And when she got around to worrying about what would be the case if Sethe died or Paul D took her away, a dream-come-true comes true just to leave her on a pile of newspaper in the dark.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved (1987), Ch. 12

World , Dreams , Drink , Light

“The numerous chimneys with their fantastic shapes rose grimly in the moonlight, like a strange band of goblin sentinels, perched of the roof to watch the mansion. The general effect was that of an ancient structure falling to decay, deserted by all inhabitants save the rats that gnawed the wainscot along the thick old walls. The door-plate that glittered on the faded door, half covered as it was with rust and verdigris, with its saintly name afforded the only signs of the actual occupation of Monk-hall by human beings: in all other respects it looked so desolate, so time-worn, so like a mausoleum for old furniture, and crumbling tapestry, for high-backed mahogany chairs, gigantic bedsteads, and strange looking mirrors, veiled in the thick folds of the spider's web.”

George Lippard (1822–1854) Novelist, journalist

The Quaker City; or, the Monks of Monk Hall, part 1, chapter 7 "The Monks of Monk-Hall" (1844)

Time

“Oh, for the farm where a man is truly independent, and where he deals with fundamentals, where the changing seasons brings changed work, and a man is out of doors all the time. It is on the farm that a man can devote his life to his investment and see the improvement and growth from year to year…I enjoy thinking of such things and there is no doubt that I am a midwesterner through and through.”

Nile Kinnick (1918–1943) College football player

Letter to his father (June 29, 1942)

Life , Thinking , Change , Time

“There are various reasons why an individual might habitually consume large quantities of alcohol, but they all effectively boil down to the same thing. Five years ago, my business partner was a happy drunk. Three years later, he had become a moody drunk. And by the last summer, he was fumbling at the knob of the door to alcoholism. As with most habitual drinkers, he was nice-enough, regular-if-not-exactly-sharp kind of guy. He thought so too. That's why he drank. Because it seemed that with alcohol in his syste, he could more fully embody this idea of being that kind of guy.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982), Chapter 7: Before the Strange Man

Alcohol , Guy , Idea , Business

“My whole area of art activity has always been addressed to working with other people... You see, I personally like the sensual contact of collaborating. Ideas are not real estate. In collaboration one can accept the fact that someone else can be so sympathetic and in tune with what you’re doing, that through this they move into depths that might not be obvious if that person had been working alone in a studio with the door shut.”

Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) American artist

Quote from Breaking Bounderies.., Robert S. Mattison, exhibition catalogue Whitney Museum, 1994, p. 3
1990's

People , Art , Idea , Personality

““Out of doors on a moonless night?” Mette sneered. “Only fools, footpads, and astrologers stray where there is no light.””

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 4, “Flight” (p. 57)

Fools , Light , Night

“Some signs of understanding are: clemency, knowledge, and silence. Silence is one of the doors to wisdom. It brings about love and is evidence for all good.”

Ali al-Rida (770–818) eighth of the Twelve Imams

Muhammad Kulayni, Usūl al-Kāfī, vol.2, p. 124.
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, General

Love , Wisdom , Understanding , Knowledge

“I pulled the huge door open and it gave a little cry like weeping. Above the altar sputtered the blood-red eternal light, illuminating in crimson shadow the quiet of almost two thousand years.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Source: Ask the Dust (1939), Chapter Two

Light , Cry

“The United Nations is an organization of extraordinary potential. As the United Nations rebuilds its headquarters, it must also open the door to a new age of transparency, accountability, and seriousness of purpose. With determination and clear purpose, the United Nations can be a powerful force for good as we head into the 21st century. It can affirm the great promise of its founding.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)

Age

“"What for you lie?" the Chief of Rostrums repeated in a glowering voice. "You say your name is Black. No es Black." He shoved him backwards toward the door. "You say you are a wrider." He shoved him again. "You no are a wrider." He pushed the Consul more violently, but the Consul stood his ground. "You are no a de wrider, you are de espider, and we shoota de espiders in Méjico."”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. XII (p. 371)

Lie

“Franz Kafka is dead.He died in a tree from which he wouldn't come down. "Come down!" they cried to him. "Come down! Come down!" Silence filled the night, and the night filled the silence, while they waited for Kafka to speak. "I can't," he finally said, with a note of wistfulness. "Why?" they cried. Stars spilled across the black sky. "Because then you'll stop asking for me." The people whispered and nodded among themselves. […] They turned and started for home under the canopy of leaves. Children were carried on their fathers' shoulders, sleepy from having been taken to see who wrote his books on pieces of bark he tore off the tree from which he refused to come down. In his delicate, beautiful, illegible handwriting. And they admired those books, and they admired his will and stamina. After all: who doesn't wish to make a spectacle of his loneliness? One by one families broke off with a good night and a squeeze of the hands, suddenly grateful for the company of neighbors. Doors closed to warm houses. Candles were lit in windows. Far off, in his perch in the trees, Kafka listened to it all: the rustle of the clothes being dropped to the floor, or lips fluttering along naked shoulders, beds creaking along the weight of tenderness. That night a freezing wind blew in. When the children woke up, they went to the window and found the world encased in ice.”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Source: The History of Love (2005), P. 187

Children , People , Books , World

“Many of us who read the literature of social science as laymen are conscious of being admitted at a door which bears the watchword “scientific objectivity” and of emerging at another door which looks out upon a variety of projects for changing, renovating, or revolutionizing society. In consequence, we feel the need of a more explicit account of how the student of society passes from facts to values or statements of policy.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

“Concealed Rhetoric in Scientistic Sociology,” p. 139.
Language is Sermonic (1970)

Feeling , Literature , Science , Change

“Any big hotels have got scandals,' he said. 'Just like every big hotel has got a ghost. Why? Hell, people come and go. Sometimes one of em will pop off in his room, heart attack or stroke or something like that. Hotels are superstitious places. No thirteenth floor or room thirteen, no mirrors on the back of the door you come in through, stuff like that.”

Stephen King book The Shining

The Shining (1977)

People , Hell , Heart

“What wonderful weather it has been today, I had not been outside for so long and so I spent the entire day out of doors. Wonderful. Nature is always fresh and new and to stay fresh she is the only thing giving all that is necessary. Everything is rich. I mean, not only the outdoors, landscape or something like that, but simply everything, yes everything except your workplace, and not even excluding that. 'Le spectacle est dans le spectateur' (the spectacle is in the spectator).”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

The Hague, 1881
version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner's brief, in het Nederlands:) Wat heerlijk wêer is 't vandaag geweest, ik was in geen tijd buiten geweest, en ben vandaag de heelen dag buiten gebleven. Maar heerlijk. Frisch en nieuw is de natuur altijd, en om frisch te blijven is zij de eenige die 't noodige geeft, Alles even rijk. ik bedoel niet bepaald het buiten, landschap of zoo iets, maar eenvoudig, ja alles, behalve je werkplaats, en ook die niet uitgezonderd. 'Le spectacle est dans le spectateur.' (Den Haag, 1881)
Quote of Breitner, in his letter to his Maecenas A.P. van Stolk, 12 August 1881, (location: The RKD in The Hague); as quoted by Helewise Berger in Van Gogh and Breitner in The Hague, her Master essay in Dutch - Modern Art Faculty of Philosophy University, Utrecht; Febr. 2008]], (translation from the original Dutch, Anne Porcelijn) p. 4.
this quote of Breitner dates from the years he spent in The Hague; a year later he would regularly sketch in the streets of this city with Vincent van Gogh.
before 1890

Nature , Weather

“…When he was on the eve of departure for one of his great expeditions the coachmaker said to him, "The carriage shall be at the door punctually at six o clock"; "A quarter before," said Nelson. "I have always been a quarter of an hour before my time and it has made a man of me."”

Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) Royal Navy Admiral

letter from Sir Thomas Buxton to his son quoted in "Life of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton" from Sylvanus Urban (ed.) The Gentleman's Magazine" July to December 1848, p. 577
1800s

Departure , Time

“During my first year at Berkeley I arrived late one day to one of Neyman's classes. On the blackboard were two problems which I assumed had been assigned for homework. I copied them down. A few days later I apologized to Neyman for taking so long to do the homework - the problems seemed to be a little harder to do than usual. I asked him if he still wanted the work. He told me to throw it on his desk. I did so reluctantly because his desk was covered with such a heap of papers that I feared my homework would be lost there forever.
About six weeks later, one Sunday morning about eight o'clock, Anne and I were awakened by someone banging on our front door. It was Neyman. He rushed in with papers in hand, all excited: "I've just written an introduction to one of your papers. Read it so I can send it out right away for publication." For a minute I had no idea what he was talking about. To make a long story short, the problems on the blackboard which I had solved thinking they were homework were in fact two famous unsolved problems in statistics. That was the first inkling I had that there was anything special about them.”

George Dantzig (1914–2005) American mathematician

Dantzig (1986) in: D.J. Albers and C. Reid "An interview with George B. Dantzig : the father of linear programming". In: The College Mathematics Journal Vol 17, nr 4, 1986, p. 293-314.

Fear , Idea , Problem , Thinking

“Harry Dresden: On the whole, we're a murderous race. According to Genesis, it took as few as four people to make the planet too crowded to stand, and the first murder was a fratricide. Genesis says that in a fit of jealous rage, the very first child born to mortal parents, Cain, snapped and popped the first metaphorical cap in another human being. The attack was a bloody, brutal, violent, reprehensible killing. Cain's brother Abel probably never saw it coming. As I opened the door to my apartment, I was filled with a sense of empathic sympathy and intuitive understanding. For freaking Cain.”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

Source: The Dresden Files, Dead Beat (2005), Chapter 1, opening lines

People , Understanding , Parent , Sense

“There’s no forgiveness built into the system. I told Barbara so, dozens of times. She was always marching off to save the whales, save the trees, save some goddamn thing. It was endearing. But in the back of my head I always heard Dad’s voice: ‘This is only a holding action. Nothing is ever really saved.’ Barbara thought the greenhouse effect was like a virus, something you could stop if you came up with the right vaccine. I told her it was a cancer—the cancer of humanity on the vital organs of the earth. You can’t stop that by marching.”
“Isn’t that a little like giving up?”
“I think it’s called acceptance.”
Archer stood and walked to the door, where his silhouette obscured the motion of the trees.
“Very bleak attitude, Tom.”

Robert Charles Wilson book A Bridge of Years

“Experience bears it out.”
Source: A Bridge of Years (1991), Chapter 3 (pp. 52-53)

Forgiveness , Thinking , Tree , Time

“He opened the door that so many of us went through, the door of possibility, by saying anything an artist makes is art.”

Peter Blake (1932) British artist

Serena Davies, "In the studio:Peter Blake, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2005/12/13/bastudio13.xml The Daily Telegraph, 2005-12-13
On Marcel Duchamp.
Art

Art

“Outside the door a group of men stood whispering while the less solemn parts of the Mass were being said. These men stared about them at the rolling country of little hills and commented on the crops, the weather, the tombstones or whatever came into their dreaming minds.
'Very weedy piece of spuds, them of Mick Finnegan's.'
'He doesn't put on the dung, Larry: the man that doesn't drive on the dung won't take out a crop.' A pause, 'Nothing like the dung.”

Patrick Kavanagh (1904–1967) poet

p13
Prose, Tarry Flynn (1948)

Men , Dreams , Parting , Weather

“"The door is locked, Captain." "Then I'll break it down." "It is a shrine." "Then I'll say a prayer of forgiveness after I've knocked it down."”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Major Pedro Ferreira and Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 13
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Escape (2003)

Forgiveness

“The laws which governed the spontaneous jumps of the kangaroos were shown to be of the simplest; out of any number of kangaroos a certain proportion always jumped within a specified time, and nothing seemed to be able to change this number. Also, before the jumps took place, there was nothing in the world of phenomena to distinguish those kangaroos that were about to jump from those that were not… to help fill the quota demanded by the statistical law. As discontinuity marched into the world of phenomena through one door, causality walked out through another.”

James Jeans (1877–1946) British mathematician and astronomer

Physics and Philosophy (1942)

World , Law , Change , Time

“Once she kidnapped me and drug me to the Methodist Church. I goes in, pious as Widow Bogart, and sits still and never cracks a smile while the preacher is favoring us with his misinformation on evolution. But afterwards, when the old stalwarts were pumphandling everybody at the door and calling 'em 'Brother' and 'Sister,' they let me sail right by with nary a clinch.”

Sinclair Lewis book Main Street

Main Street (1920)

Smile , Sister

“The North knows it cannot enjoy true security so long as the South is enjoying itself next door, be it ever so harmless in military terms and even free of US troops.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Confederation Again (July 2018)

“This contest has lasted now for more than four years. Were its scene at a distance from our neighborhood, we might be indifferent to its result, although humanity could not be unmoved by many of its incidents wherever they might occur. It is, however, at our door.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1870s, Fourth State of the Union Address (1872)

Indifference

“Credulity lives next door to Gossip.”

Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804–1845) British author and journalist

"That what Everybody Says must be True".
Sketches from Life (1846)

“Think of the federal government as a gigantic insurance company (with a sideline business in national defense and homeland security), which does its accounting on a cash basis, only counting premiums and payouts as they go in and out the door. An insurance company with cash accounting... is an accident waiting to happen.”

Peter R. Fisher (1956) American treasury official

While under secretary of the U.S. Treasury in 2002; frequently short-handed as "an insurance company with an army." A Fiscal Train Wreck, Paul, Krugman, Paul Krugman, March 11, 2003, The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/11/opinion/a-fiscal-train-wreck.html,
How government is like insurance, June 28, 2011, Thomas F., Schaller, Baltimore Sun http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-06-28/news/bs-ed-schaller-20110628_1_unemployment-insurance-premiums-government-insurance,
Who First Said the US is 'An Insurance Company with an Army'?, Economist's View, Mark, Thoma, January 17, 2013 http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2013/01/who-first-said-the-us-is-an-insurance-company-with-an-army.html,

Business , Thinking , Waiting

“By the door, a large red object with a mirror on the upper part of its front. Installed last fall. Japanese. On a plate at the side: Mitzuyama Corp., Osaka. Shaped like a weighing machine. Stand here and insert 25c. Do not smoke while using. Place mouth and nose to soft black flexible mask. Like an obscene animal’s kiss.
Usually he laughed at it because up here in the mountains the air was never so bad you needed to tank up on oxygen to make the next block. On the other hand some people did say it was a hell of a good cure for a hangover...”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

December “IT’S A GAS”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

People , Mountain , Hell , Kiss

“This bloke, I swear he's in any supermarket car park. He's great. He walks across the car park, and he's got one of those fobs, and he opens his car before he gets there. [posh voice] "Ha, ha, ha! I don't know if you saw what I just did there, but I actually opened my car door before I actually physically got there!"”

Lee Evans (1964) English stand-up comedian and actor

Wired & Wonderful at Wembley (2002)

Cars

“Perhaps it's done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)

Silence

“Liberty is on the march, and this year promises to be a great year in European history. Our Government is blind enough, and the Parliamentary majorities are more regarded than opinion out of doors. We must have another League of some kind, and our aristocracy must be made to submit again.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Letter to Jonathan Priestman (26 March 1848) on the Revolutions of 1848, quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), p. 183.
1840s

History

“All the funds simply can't get through the exit door at the same time.”

George Goodman (1930–2014) American author and economics commentator

Source: The Money Game (1968), Chapter 15, The Cult of Performance, p. 215

Time

“The clean clear colours [of a Shanty farm] were in my head. But one day as I looked at the brown burned wood of the Shanty, I thought 'I can paint one of those dismal-coloured paintings like the men. I think just for fun I will try — all low-toned and dreary with the tree besides the door.' In my next show [c. 1923], 'The Shanty' went up. The men seemed to approve of it. They seemed to think that maybe I was beginning to paint…. that was my only low-toned dismal-coloured painting.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

1970 - 1986, Some Memories of Drawings (1976)

Men , Thinking , Tree , Painting

“They had taken no more than a dozen steps away from the cottages when a musket barrel came smashing through an unbroken window in one of the cottages ahead. The door flew open, three more muskets poked out. The muskets boomed, killing two of th surprised soldiers a yard to Orry's left.”

John Jakes (1932) American historical novelist and fantasy writer

North and South Trilogy (1982-1987), Answer the Drum

“Entering through the double doors, I had to make my way through room after room of African masks and voodoo dolls dating from no particular time, as well as clay pots and things crafted by all sorts of third-world people. I'm happy for these people that they have their ways, though some of it gave me the creeps. But I want to know: why is all this primitive nonsense in a prestigious museum? Even more absurdly, why does it take up the first three rooms in a place that surely lacks sufficient space for exhibits? Clearly the nutty multiculturalists had prevailed here.”

Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer

Source: Letter From New England, archive.lewrockwell.com, 2016-05-22 http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig/tucker5.html,

People , World , Way , Time

“Like the Republican Party, CPAC has become heavily Trumpified. … So it has come to this: a conservative group whose worst fault in years past may have been excessive flat tax enthusiasm now opens its doors to the blood and soil nationalists of Europe.”

Mona Charen (1957) political writer

I'm Glad I Got Booed at CPAC (2018)

Past

“He felt himself melting away, but he still remained firm with his gun on his shoulder. Suddenly the door of the room flew open and the draught of air caught up the little dancer, she fluttered like a sylph right into the stove by the side of the tin soldier, and was instantly in flames and was gone. The tin soldier melted down into a lump, and the next morning, when the maid servant took the ashes out of the stove, she found him in the shape of a little tin heart. But of the little dancer nothing remained but the tinsel rose, which was burnt black as a cinder.”

Hans Christian Andersen The Steadfast Tin Soldier

The Steadfast Tin Soldier
Fairy Tales (1835)

Heart

“We send one species to the butcher and give our love and kindness to another apparently for no reason other than because it's the way things are. When our attitudes and behaviors toward animals are so inconsistent, and this inconsistency is so unexamined, we can safely say we have been fed absurdities. It is absurd that we eat pigs and love dogs and don't even know why. Many of us spend long minutes in the aisle of the drugstore mulling over what toothpaste to buy. Yet most of us don't spend any time at all thinking about what species of animal we eat and why. Our choices as consumers drive an industry that kills ten billion animals per year in the United States alone. If we choose to support this industry and the best reason we can come up with is because it's the way things are, clearly something is amiss. What could cause an entire society of people to check their thinking caps at the door—and to not even realize they're doing so? Though this question is quite complex, the answer is quite simple:.”

Melanie Joy book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows

Source: Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (2010), pp. 27-28

Love , People , Dogs , Way

“In that year [Einstein] had roughly equal numbers of large and small cats. Therefore, quite logically, he cut two holes in each door: a large one for the large cats, and a small one for the small cats. It made perfect sense. … A hole should have a meaningful existence, and the small cats might be offended if a personalized nothing was not prepared for them.”

João Magueijo (1967) Portuguese scientist

pg. 71
Faster than the Speed of Light

Cats , Sense , Personality , Perfection

“Some people stay far away from the door
If there's a chance of it opening up
They hear a voice in the hall outside
And hope that it just passes by.
Some people live with the fear of a touch
And the anger of having been a fool.
They will not listen to anyone
So nobody tells them a lie.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

An Innocent Man.
Song lyrics, An Innocent Man (1983)

People , Lie , Fear , Hope

“And then suddenly I would realize that I couldn’t remember, hadn’t actually consciously experienced, any of the last forty-seven properties I had visited, and didn’t know if I had left a paper or just walked up to the door, stood for a moment like an underfunctioning automaton, and turned around and walked away again. It is not easy to describe the sense of self-disappointment that comes with reaching the end of your route and finding that there are sixteen undelivered papers in your bag and you don’t have the least idea—not the least idea—to whom they should have gone. I spent much of my prepubescent years first walking an enormous newspaper route, then revisiting large parts of it. Sometimes twice.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

Source: The Life And Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006), p. 122

Disappointment , Idea , Sense , Parting

“I feeling pretty sensibly that it was not going by the right door and knocking desperately at the wrong one, I told him of it: "Pooh," says he "my dear, any port in a storm."”

John Cleland book Fanny Hill

Page 178
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

Feeling

“The Devil turns his back to a door that is shut.”

James Howell (1594–1666) Anglo-Welsh historian and writer

Lexicon Tetraglotton (1660)

“Americanization today is little more than an impulse, and its context, as popularly conceived, is both narrow and superficial. As French has been the language of diplomacy in the past, so English is to be the language of the reconstruction of the world. English is the language of 90,000,000 people living in America. The English language is a highway of loyalty; it is a medium of exchange; it is the open door to opportunity; it is a means of common defense. It is an implement of Americanization, but it is not necessarily Americanization. The American who thinks that America is united and safe when all men speak one language has only to look at Austria and to study the Jugo-Slav and Czecho-Slovak nationalistic movements. The imposition of a language is not the creation of nationalism. A common language is essential to a common understanding, and by all means let America open such a line of communication. The traffic that goes over this line is, however, the vital thing, and what that shall be and how it is to be prepared are matters to which but little thought has been given. Even those who urge the abolition of all other languages are indefinite about the restriction. Shall a man after he has learned English be allowed to get news in a foreign language paper and to worship in his native tongue; and if not, what becomes of the liberty which he is urged to learn English in order to appreciate? Are foreign languages to be encouraged as an expression of culture and to be denied as a means of economic and political expression? The English language campaigns in America have failed because they have not secured the support of the foreign-born. Men must have reasons for learning new languages, and America has never presented the case conclusively or satisfactorily. Furthermore, wherever the case has been presented, it has not been done with the proper facilities and under favorable conditions. The working day must not be so long that men cannot study.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

Men , People , World , Communication

“Terror in the house does roar,
But Pity stands before the door.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Terror in the House
1800s, Poems from Blake's Notebook (c. 1804)

Housing

“I don't believe that the average fellow has anything like a true line on the value of wrist action in hitting anything—a baseball, a golf ball, a tennis ball or a polo ball. If you watch most of them, you will see they are trying to hit with their bodies, with their shoulders, with their arms—with almost everything except their wrists. I think it comes because most of them are overanxious, all tied up, too tense. They start by gripping too tightly. That kills off the hands and wrists. Their wrists get locked and then they have to swing their shoulders and bodies in. You'd be surprised how far a fellow can hit a ball, using only his wrists. I know I've been caught off guard or out of position on a sharp breaking curve, have had to slap at the ball, using only my wrists and have now and then watched it sail over the fence. The wrist is the mainspring—both wrists in baseball and golf. If you get them to work the rest is fairly easy. If you don't get them to work you are not going to do any good hitting. You can't get any speed in closing a door if the hinges are rusty and won't work. Hack Wilson must have great wrist action, for no short, stocky guy is going to hit that many home runs without a lot of it.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

As quoted in "The Sportlight" by Grantland Rice, in The Baltimore Sun (August 22, 1930), p. 13

Guy , Home , Thinking , Speed

“This excessive love for "the balance of power" is neither more nor less than a gigantic system of out-door relief for the aristocracy of Great Britain.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in Birmingham (29 October 1858), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 273-274.
1850s

Love

“I was passing the doorman of the Biltmore, and I hated him at once, with his yellow braids and six feet of height and all that dignity, and now a black automobile drove to the curb, and a man got out. He looked rich; and then a woman got out, and she was beautiful, her fur was silver fox, and she was a song across the sidewalk and inside the swinging doors, and I thought oh boy for a little of that, just a day and a night of that, and she was a dream as I walked along, her perfume still in the set morning air.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Hate , Beauty , Dreams , Boy

“His meat craze had got out of hand. All day I heard him frying cheap steaks, the odor creeping under my door. It gave me a mad desire for meat…But he never offered me so much as the scraps from his plate.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Madness

“It’s always a joy to work with Spike. He creates an environment that’s wonderful for creativity. People leave their egos at the door and just we all come from different genres and different levels within the business. It’s kind of exciting to finally meet people like Common, John Cusack, Jennifer Hudson and work with them, and see what the flavors are. You know the most seasoned veterans, we always want to see what the young guys, the young crew, has to offer. If they learn something and if they bring something to the table or if they should just be written off.”

Wesley Snipes (1962) film actor, Martial artist, film producer

Wesley Snipes, Comic Con: Wesley Snipes On ‘Blade’ Marvel Talks, ‘The Player’ & Spike Lee http://deadline.com/2015/07/wesley-snipes-blade-comic-con-interview-blade-the-player-1201472733/, Deadline Hollywood, 9 July 2015

People , Guy , Business , Learning

“We cannot keep thieves from looking in at our windows, but we need not give them entertainment with open doors.”

Thomas Adam (1701–1784) clergyman, religious writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 582.

“I met Ranga on several occasions. He was a fascinating personality, highly organised, a tireless worker, a fierce enthusiast, a charming man. Speaking of his passion for work, he told me once how his young son had stuck a notice on his study door: “Librarianship is unfair to families”… It really was a privilege to have known him.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

B.C. Vickery (31 March 2008); Cited in Claudio Gnoli (2011) " Vickery’s late ideas on classification by phenomena and activities http://www.iskouk.org/conf2011/papers/gnoli.pdf".

Family , Study , Passion , Personality

“I wonder at a man who loses hope of salvation when the door of repentance is open for him.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Hope

“When I saw him, he was at the door, but it did not matter,
he was already sliding along the wall of the night, losing himself
in some crack of the ruins. That it should have been he who said, “The kingfishers!
who cares
for their feathers
now?” His last words had been, “The pool is slime.””

Charles Olson (1910–1970) American writer

Part I, 2
The Kingfishers (1950)

Night

“So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.”

Sylvia Plath The Colossus

"Mushrooms" http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/mushrooms.html
The Colossus (1960)

“Tell me the truth, girl: how does the man next door ship out trailer-loads of material from a building ten times too small to hold the stuff?”

R. A. Lafferty (1914–2002) American writer

"He cuts prices."
"In Our Block" (1965); later in Nine Hundred Grandmothers (1970)

Truth , Girl , Time

“I'll say, ‘Hi, I'm Michelle Visage and I'm a drag queen' and that usually opens the door to the conversation. This is how I get my reputation. If you look on Google it'll say Michelle Visage is a man, the list goes on and on, but I am 100 per cent biological female, but RuPaul says it best when he says you're born naked and everything else is drag.”

Michelle Visage (1968) American singer, radio DJ, TV host

"Who is Michelle Visage? Everything you need to know about the Celebrity Big Brother contestant", Daily Mirror (7 January 2015) https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/who-michelle-visage-everything-you-4935427.

“I never go outside unless I look like Joan Crawford the movie star. If you want to see the girl next door, go next door.”

Joan Crawford (1904–1977) American actress

Interview, Los Angeles Times (1937)

Girl , Star

“As I opened the door — I heard cattle — many — in the pens over by the track — lowing — I wonder if you ever heard a whole lot of cattle lowing — it sounds different here — too — just ground and sky — and the lowing cattle — you hardly see — either them or the pens — the pens are of weather beaten boards — take on the color of the ground it seems — I like it and I don't like it — its like music — I made up a tune this morning — Well — I heard the cattle — as I opened the door — and I liked it and I didn't liked it — then I read your letter as I walked to breakfast — a great letter — Anita”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Canyon, Texas, (November, 1916), p. 216
1915 - 1920, Letters to Anita Pollitzer' (1916)

Music , Color , Reading , Weather

“You know what, Punk? You been knockin' at my door at the palace of wisdom ever since I became the ECW champion. But sittin' right there with your lame tattoos and that little chair is as close as you're ever gonna get to earthly paradise.”

John Hennigan (1979) American professional wrestler

Wisdom , Tattoo

“Iron Pillar: “…In our opinion this pillar was made in the ninth century before (the birth of) Lord Jesus… When Rai Pithora built a fort and an idol-house near this pillar, it stood in the courtyard of the idol-house. And when Qutbu’d-Din Aibak constructed a mosque after demolishing the idol-house, this pillar stood in the courtyard of the mosque…
”Idol-house of Rai Pithora: “There was an idol-house near the fort of Rai Pithora. It was very famous… It was built along with the fort in 1200 Bikarmi [Vikrama SaMvat] corresponding to AD 1143 and AH 538. The building of this temple was very unusual, and the work done on it by stone-cutters is such that nothing better can be conceived. The beautiful carvings on every stone in it defy description… The eastern and northern portions of this idol-house have survived intact. The fact that the Iron Pillar, which belongs to the Vaishnava faith, was kept inside it, as also the fact that sculptures of Kirshan avatar and Mahadev and Ganesh and Hanuman were carved on its walls, leads us to believe that this temple belonged to the Vaishnava faith. Although all sculptures were mutilated in the times of Muslims, even so a close scrutiny can identify as to which sculpture was what. In our opinion there was a red-stone building in this idol-house, and it was demolished. For, this sort of old stones with sculptures carved on them are still found.
”Quwwat al-Islam Masjid: “When Qutbu’d-Din, the commander-in-chief of Muizzu’d-Din Sam alias Shihabu’d-Din Ghuri, conquered Delhi in AH 587 corresponding to AD 1191 corresponding to 1248 Bikarmi, this idol-house (of Rai Pithora) was converted into a mosque. The idol was taken out of the temple. Some of the images sculptured on walls or doors or pillars were effaced completely, some were defaced. But the structure of the idol-house kept standing as before. Materials from twenty-seven temples, which were worth five crores and forty lakhs of Dilwals, were used in the mosque, and an inscription giving the date of conquest and his own name was installed on the eastern gate…“When Malwah and Ujjain were conquered by Sultan Shamsu’d-Din in AH 631 corresponding to AD 1233, then the idol-house of Mahakal was demolished and its idols as well as the statue of Raja Bikramajit were brought to Delhi, they were strewn in front of the door of the mosque…”“In books of history, this mosque has been described as Masjid-i-Adinah and Jama‘ Masjid Delhi, but Masjid Quwwat al-Islam is mentioned nowhere. It is not known as to when this name was adopted. Obviously, it seems that when this idol-house was captured, and the mosque constructed, it was named Quwwat al-Islam…””

Syed Ahmed Khan (1820–1898) Indian educator and politician

About antiquities of Delhi. Translated from the Urdu of Asaru’s-Sanadid, edited by Khaleeq Anjum, New Delhi, 1990. Vol. I, p. 305-16
Asaru’s-Sanadid

Books , Faith , Beauty , History

“And he walks round blocks and blocks looking for the door of the humming tinsel windowed skyscraper, round blocks and blocks and still no door. Every time he closes his eyes the dream has hold of him, every time he stops arguing audibly with himself in pompous reasonable phrases the dream has hold of him. Young man to save your sanity you've got to do one of two things… Please mister where's the door to the building? Round the block? Just round the block… one of two unalienable alternatives: go away in a dirty soft shirt or stay in a clean Arrow collar. But what's the use of spending your whole life fleeing the City of Destruction? What about your unalienable right, Thirteen Provinces? His mind unreeling phrases, he walks on doggedly. There's nowhere in particular he wants to go. If only I still had faith in words.”

John Dos Passos book Manhattan Transfer

Source: Manhattan Transfer (1925), pp. 365-366

Life , Faith , Dreams , Time

“While the lime-burner was struggling with the horror of these thoughts, Ethan Brand rose from the log, and flung open the door of the kiln. The action was in such accordance with the idea in Bertram's mind, that he almost expected to see the Evil One issue forth, red-hot, from the raging furnace.
Hold! hold!" cried he, with a tremulous attempt to laugh; for he was ashamed of his fears, although they overmastered him. "Don't, for mercy's sake, bring out your Devil now!"
"Man!" sternly replied Ethan Brand, "what need have I of the Devil? I have left him behind me, on my track. It is with such half-way sinners as you that he busies himself. Fear not, because I open the door. I do but act by old custom, and am going to trim your fire, like a lime-burner, as I was once."
He stirred the vast coals, thrust in more wood, and bent forward to gaze into the hollow prison-house of the fire, regardless of the fierce glow that reddened his face. The lime-burner sat watching him, and half suspected this strange guest of a purpose, if not to evoke a fiend, at least to plunge into the flames, and thus vanish from the sight of man. Ethan Brand, however, drew quietly back, and closed the door of the kiln.
"I have looked," said he, "into many a human heart that was seven times hotter with sinful passions than yonder furnace is with fire. But I found not there what I sought. No, not the Unpardonable Sin!"”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

"Ethan Brand" (1850)

Fear , Way , Idea , Business

“The first deaths will barely swell the daily count, and no one in the statistics bureau will notice that extra zero. But after a while everyone will begin to look at each other and ask: what's happening? Because for months doors and windows are going to rattle, furniture and trees will creak.”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

The Clerk's Vision (1949)

Death , Tree

“If your work reflects not only your technical skills, but also who you are and more importantly what you have to say, then it will do the talking in your stead. I agree that networking and meeting people is very important, but a foot in the door doesn’t always stop it closing.”

John Howe (illustrator) (1957) Canadian illustrator

In the Artist's Studio interview (2010)

People

“My God, what am I doing here? It's weird. How do you get to the Met? Money! Lots and lots of money! I can imagine Pavarotti next door at the improv going, "Two Jews walk into a bar…"”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

A Night at the Met (1986)

Money , God , Imagination

“God gives us the power to act for ourselves, but let me tell you something. At five in the morning I have never heard this [he says mimicking a knock on the door]. Hello Jack, this is Jesus. I will work out today.”

Jack LaLanne (1914–2011) American exercise instructor

In "Live Young Forever: 12 Steps to Optimum Health, Fitness and Longevity", pp.10-11

God

“Only another writer, someone who had worked his heart out on a good book which sold three thousand copies, could appreciate the thrill that overcame me one April morning in 1973 when Dean Rivers of our small college in Georgia appeared at my classroom door.”

James A. Michener book Centennial

Centennial (1974) First lines

Books , Appearance , Heart

“Jesus never let me down
You know Jesus used to show me the score
Then they put Jesus in show business
Now it's hard to get in the door, angel.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

"If God Will Send His Angels"
Lyrics, Pop (1997)

Angels , Business

“It is true that the Impressionists perhaps gave a more faithful representation of nature through their discoveries in out-of-door painting. But that they increased their statute as artists by so doing is controversial... If the technical innovations of the Impressionists led merely to a more accurate representation of nature, it was perhaps of not much value in enlarging their powers of expression.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

1911 - 1940, Notes on Painting - Edward Hopper (1933)

Faith , Nature , Painting

“A man knocking on the door of a brothel is looking for God.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

The source is actually a 1945 book by Bruce Marshall, The World, The Flesh, and Father Smith, in which he says, "...the young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God."
Misattributed

God

“Lord Goschen tells you that France only takes 2 per cent. of its corn from abroad, that it is self-sufficient, and that Germany only takes 30 per cent., whereas, he says, we take four-fifths. That is not a comforting reflection…it is not a comforting reflection to think that we, a part of the British Empire that might be self-sufficient and self-contained, are, nevertheless, dependent, according to Lord Goschen, for four-fifths of our supplies upon foreign countries, any one of which, by shutting their doors upon us, might reduce us to a state of almost absolute starvation. … the working man has to fear the result of a shortage of supplies and of a consequent monopoly. If in time of war one of the great countries, Russia, Germany, France, or the United States of America, were to cut off its supply, it would infallibly raise the price according to the quantity which we received from that country. If there were no war, if in times of peace these countries wanted their corn for themselves, which they will do, or if there were bad harvests, which there may be in either of these cases, you will find the price of corn rising many times higher than any tax I have ever suggested. And there is only one remedy for it. There is only one remedy for a short supply. It is to increase your sources of supply. You must call in the new world, the Colonies, to redress the balance of the old. Call in the Colonies, and they will answer to your call with very little stimulus or encouragement. They will give you a supply which will be never failing and all sufficient.”

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman

Speech in Newcastle (20 October 1903), quoted in The Times (21 October 1903), p. 10.
1900s

War , World , Fear , Peace

“As with all dwellings,” she said, “of mortals and immortals both, it is the living that makes a house—not the doors, not the walls.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Stone of Farewell (1990), Chapter 25, “Petals in a Wind Storm” (pp. 626-627).

Housing

Quotes about door page 11

Quotes about door
page 11