Quotes about door
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“Sin is the Monster we love to deny. It is crouching at the door and it wants you, but you must overcome it.”

Frank E. Peretti (1951) American writer

“I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Fear

“You weren't afraid of me when I was Wolf," he said. "Why are you afraid of Nathan?"
"He's got big feet!"
"What?"
An insulted-sounding arrroooo came from the other side of the door, a reminder that Wolves also had big ears.”

Anne Bishop book Written in Red

Source: Written in Red

Wolf

“Paul patted Mrs. O'Leary's snout. The living room shook —BOOM, BOOM, BOOM—which either meant a SWAT team was breaking down the door or Mrs. O'Leary was wagging her tail.
I couldn't help but smile.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

Smile, Help

“Well, just remember--all your misery will be waiting for you at the door upon your exit, should you care to pick it up again when you leave.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Waiting

“The major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions. The door that slams shut, the plan that got sidetracked, the marriage that failed. Or that lovely poem that didn't get written because someone knocked on the door.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Love, Life, Marriage, Problem

“Be prepared for the worst, my love, for it lives next door to the best.”

Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

Love

“He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Happiness, Way, Girl

“Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.”

William Blake Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Source: Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Angels

“Gregori strutted toward the door. "I'm too sexy for my cape, too sexy for my fangs. Too sexy." He whirled in a circle, then struck a disco pose with a hand pointing at the ceiling. "Too sexy!" He left with a flourish of his cape.”

Kerrelyn Sparks (1955) American writer

Source: How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire

“Libraries allow children to ask questions about the world and find the answers. And the wonderful thing is that once a child learns to use a library, the doors to learning are always open.”

Laura Bush (1946) First Lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009

As quoted in The 21st Century Elementary Library Media Program (2009) by Carl A. Harvey, p. 3

Children, World, Question, Learning

“Open the pod bay doors, Hal.”

Arthur C. Clarke book 2001: A Space Odyssey

Source: 2001: A Space Odyssey

“I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. You’re all locked up in that little world of yours, and when I try knocking on the door, you just sort of look up for a second and go right back inside.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

World, Sadness, Madness

“Hinged to forgetfulness like a door,
she slowly closed out of sight,
and she was the woman I loved,
but too many times she slept like
a mechanical deer in my caresses,
and I ached in the metal silence
of her dreams.”

Richard Brautigan (1935–1984) American novelist, poet, and short story writer

Source: Rommel Drives on Deep Into Egypt

Love, Dreams, Silence, Time

“She had the look in her eye when you kick and kick at the door and it doesn't open, when you write a boy letters and letters and he never loves you, not ‘til the day he dies. Not even then.”

Daniel Handler book The Basic Eight

Source: The Basic Eight

Love, Boy

“One expects decent people to stand up for the good of all. Decent people shut their doors and hide behind them as decent people do. Massacres could never happen if it weren't for decent people.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

People

“Good actions are the invisible hinges on the doors of heaven.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

“Reading is a private pursuit; one that takes place behind closed doors.”

Siri Hustvedt book The Summer Without Men

Source: The Summer Without Men

Reading

“Wet towel under the door,' said Barry. 'It's what you do when you're smoking weed in a hotel and you don't want everyone calling security. You're always supposed to have a towel. I read about it in a guide for hitchhiking through the galaxy.”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

Source: Bite Me

Reading

“A book had always been a door to another world… a world much more interesting and fantastical than reality. But she had finally discovered that life could be even more wonderful than fantasy.

And that love could fill the real world with magic.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Scandal in Spring

Love, Life, Books, World

“If she know how strongly he felt, she'd have run out the door. He wasn't used to the possessive, or the savage joy she brought to his heart. It ate at his control, so he turned his attention to the music. He understood music.”

Patricia Briggs book Cry Wolf

Source: Cry Wolf

Music, Heart, Joy

“It depends. If I don't let you in, will you huff and puff and blow my house down?"
She had no idea. "I'm more of a kick the door open and cut everyone inside to ribbons kind of wolf.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Bayou Moon

Idea, Wolf, Housing, Dependency

“Sometimes when you open the door to the past, what you confront is your destiny.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

Past

“There is how we
were before, and how we are now, and the time between is spent choosing
which doors to open, and which to close.”

Karen White (1964) American writer

Source: The Time Between

Time

“I hung up.
It was a step in the right direction, but it didn't go far enough. I ought to have locked the door and hid under the desk.”

Raymond Chandler book The Little Sister

Source: The Little Sister (1949), chapter 1

“Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything; it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through anyone that suits you.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

“Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

Life, Time

“And I have no desire to get ugly,
But I cannot help mentioning that the door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Good Intentions (1942), Seeing Eye to Eye is Believing

Help

“You left me."
Not realizing until I've said my final good-bye and closed the door behind me, that he's not referring to the past.
He's prophesying our future.”

Alyson Nöel book Blue Moon

Source: Blue Moon

Past, Future

“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.”

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

A Memorable Fancy
1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793)

Appearance

“And you are never to stir out of doors till you can prove that you have spent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“The closet door is open for me, where I left it, since I left it open, it has graciously stayed open.”

Allen Ginsberg book Howl and Other Poems

Source: Howl and Other Poems

“Sometimes maybe you need an experience. The experience can be a person or it can be a drug. The experience opes a door that was there all the time but you never saw it. Or maybe it blasts you into outer space.”

Melvin Burgess (1954) British children's writer

Source: Smack

Time, Personality

“Late last night and the night before, tommyknockers, tommyknockers knocking on my door. I wanna go out, don't know if I can 'cuz I'm so afraid of the tommyknocker man.”

Stephen King The Tommyknockers

Source: The Tommyknockers

Night

“Evie ” came his faint whisper “I’m going to your mother see…she’s got ’em to leave a back door open…so I can steal into ’eaven.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Devil in Winter

“We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. The writer's job is to turn the unspeakable into words - not just into any words, but if we can, into rhythm and blues.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

“They [Percy and Annabeth] held the Doors shut as the elevator shuddered and the music played, while somewhere below them, a Titan and a giant sacrificed their lives for their escape.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Music

“I tell you, there are more worlds, and more doors to them, than you will think of in many years!”

George MacDonald book Lilith

Source: Lilith

World, Thinking

“At the most difficult moments of my life, when it seemed that every door was closed to me, the taste of those apricots comes back to comfort me with the notion that abundance is always within reach, if only one knows how to find it.”

Isabel Allende book Paula

Source: Paula

Life

“I lock my door upon myself,
And bar them out; but who shall wall
Self from myself, most loathed of all?”

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) English poet

Source: Complete Poems

“I had to nurture those doubts as if they were tiny, sickly kittens, until eventually they became sturdy, healthy grievances, with their own cat doors, which allowed them to wander in and out of our conversation at will.”

Nick Hornby book High Fidelity

Source: High Fidelity

Cats

“I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had taken to nailing weasels to my front door again.”

Warren Ellis (1968) English comics and fiction writer

Madness

“There is one who remembers the way to your door:
Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.
You shall not deny the Stranger.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

Life, Death, Way

“You are the most boring teacher ever."
He grinned and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, just as a knock sounded at the door. "It all depends on what you me to teach you.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Storm Born

Kiss, Teachers, Dependency

“We do not pass through the same door twice
Or return to the door through which we did not pass”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

“You're always in the kitchen," Alianora said when she poked her head through the door a moment later. "Or the library. Don't you ever do anything but cook and read?”

Patricia C. Wrede Dealing with Dragons

Source: Dealing with Dragons

Reading, Cooking

“… because he had been waiting for someone to come back to him, so every time someone knocked on the door, he couldn't stop himself from hoping it might be that person, even though he knew he shouldn't hope.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Hope, Time, Waiting, Personality

“This is the shade of meaning: the door of a physician should never be closed; the door of a priest should always be open.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Variant: A doctor’s door should never be closed, a priest's door should always be open.
Source: Les Misérables

“Truth can break the gates down, truth can howl in the street; unless truth is pleasing, personable and easy to like, she is condemned to stay whimpering at the back door.”

Hilary Mantel Bring Up the Bodies

Source: Bring Up the Bodies

Truth, Personality

“Seven half-bloods shall answer the call
To storm or fire the world must fall
An oath to keep with a final breath
and foes bear arms to the doors of death”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

Death, World

“Maggie scoffed. "Denial will not save you when Cupid's arrow find its mark."
"If i see Cupid anywhere in the vicinity, I'm ripping his chubby little arms off." Vanda yanked the door open to Romatech.”

Kerrelyn Sparks (1955) American writer

Source: Forbidden Nights with a Vampire

“They never opened the door which leads to the soul.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Soul

“opened the door a crack wide enough for the entire world to pass through.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

World

“That one,"-he nodded toward the closed door-" will rule more than just Attolia before he is done. He is an Annux, a king of kings.”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

“All I know is a door into the dark”

Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer

“This was the time in her life that she fell upon books as the only door out of her cell. They became half her world.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Life, Books, World, Time

“There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.”

Graham Greene book The Power and the Glory

Pt. I, ch. 1
The Power and the Glory (1940)

Future, Childhood

“Tess?” A soft voice at the door; she looked up and saw Will there, silhouetted in the light from the corridor.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Light

“You never know when, and you never know who, but someday a stranger will burst through the door of your life and transform it utterly. The world will be turned upside down, and you will be happier for it.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Nothing but Shadows

Life, World

“Don't answer the door in a wedding dress and veil, he might not think you're joking.”

Amy Sedaris (1961) American comedian

Source: I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence

Thinking, Wedding

“If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door”

Milton Berle (1908–2002) American comedian and actor

Variant: If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.

Inspirational, Graduation

“Knowledge was not meant to be locked behind doors. It breathes best in the open air where all men can inhale its essence.”

Louis L'Amour The Haunted Mesa

Source: The Haunted Mesa

Men, Knowledge

“Mistakes are something that happen by accident. You didn't walk out the door one morning and fall into some guy's bed. You thought about it, for a while. You made that choice.”

Jodi Picoult book The Tenth Circle

Source: The Tenth Circle

Guy

“We've both got into the blue beetle. He got into the red door, I got into the white one.”

Jim Butcher book Grave Peril

Source: Grave Peril

“I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison.”

T.S. Eliot book The Waste Land

Source: The Waste Land (1922)

Thinking

“We live, we love. These are the choices we are given, to open doors or to close them. It is all we have, and it is enough”

Karen White (1964) American writer

Source: The Time Between

Love

“That girl,' tutted Alsana as her front door slammed, 'swallowed an encyclopedia and a gutter at the same time.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

Source: White Teeth

Girl, Time

“That's the difference between family and friends. Family is always there, no matter what, even when it's not right next door. Which means that you'll find a way to keep the connection alive. Especially since you realize how important it is.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Longest Ride

Source: The Longest Ride

Family, Way

“The front door shut, leaving Alec sitting in the half-lit garden, alone. He closed his eyes for a moment, the image of a face hovering behind his lids. Not Jace's face, for a change. The eyes set in the face were green, slit-pupiled. Cat eyes.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Cats, Change

“Be an opener of doors”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“Like walking through a door. Our relationship immediately attained a sepia tone: the past.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Past

“There will always be a door to the light.”

Shiro Amano (1976) Japanese manga artist

Source: Kingdom Hearts, Vol. 1

Light, Good Night

“All the time you spend tryin to get back what's been took from you there's more goin out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it.”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

Source: No Country for Old Men (2005)

Time

“… crazy world or maybe it's just the view we have of it, looking through a crack in the door, never being able to see the whole room, the whole picture.”

Judith Guest Ordinary People

Source: Ordinary People

World

“Can I see you outside for a second?" Kat glared at Hale, then walked to the patio doors and out onto the veranda.
As Hale closed the door behind him, Kat heard Angus say, "Ooh, Mom and Dad are going to fight now.”

Ally Carter book Heist Society

Source: Heist Society

Moms, Fight

“He strode to the wall and tore aside one of the velvet hangings. “You want to tell me what this is?” he demanded.
“It’s a door, Jace,” said Clary.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn't matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.”

Paulo Coelho book The Zahir

Source: The Zahir

Life, Past

“When Rydstrom shut the door, Cade stared at it for long moments.
At length, he turned for the steps. "Fuckall," he said on a stunned breath. "Does this mean I'm no longer the bad brother…?”

Kresley Cole American writer

“But just as the river is always at the door, so is the world always outside. And it is in the world that we have to live.”

Gillian Rubinstein Tales of the Otori

Source: Across the Nightingale Floor

World

“Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic

Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are

Intelligence, Freedom

“By the way, I know about the kiss." Then the door clicks shut behind him.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Way, Kiss

“She mediated, by turns, on broken promises and broken arches, phaetons and false hangings, Tilneys and trap-doors.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

Falseness

“What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

Books, Reading

“The door slammed open. Vivenna jumped, putting a hand to her chest.

Vasher walked in. 'Start reaching for that sword when you're startled,' he said. 'There's little reason to grab your shirt, unless you're planning to rip it off.”

Brandon Sanderson book Warbreaker

Source: Warbreaker

“He leaned against the door frame, ignoring the kick of adrenaline the sight of her produced. He wondered why, not for the first time. Isabelle used her beauty like she used her whip, but Clary didn't know she was beautiful at all. Maybe that was why.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Beauty, Time

“There are things known
and there are things unknown
and in between are the doors.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Aldous Huxley, using the term "the doors of perception" which originated with William Blake in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. It is sometimes credited to Morrison because he cited it in interviews as the inspiration for the name The Doors and without always crediting Huxley as the source.
Misattributed
Variant: There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.
Source: Letters from Joe

“Robert wondered if any of Harvard's revered Egyptologists had ever knocked on the door of a pyramid and expected an answer.”

Dan Brown book The Da Vinci Code

Source: The Da Vinci Code

“Books are keys that open many doors.”

James Rollins (1961) American writer

Books

“Honestly, darling," she said. "Do you even look in a mirror before you walk out the door? Your hair's a mess."

He dodged her as she reached toward his head. "Are you kidding? I spend hours in front of the mirror toit look this way.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Way

“Boy, you knock on the devil's door and he will head slam you through the wall.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: No Mercy

Boy

“And suddenly solitude fell across his heart like a dusty reflection. He closed his eyes. The dark doors within him opened and he entered. The next performance in the theater of Grenouille's soul was beginning.”

Patrick Süskind (1949) German writer and screenwriter

Source: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Soul, Solitude, Heart

“don't be ashamed of
anything; I guess God meant it all
like
locks on
doors.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

God

“Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

Shirley Jackson book The Haunting of Hill House

Source: The Haunting of Hill House (1959), Ch. 1
Context: No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

Silence, Housing