Quotes about lock
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“Failure is hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever.”

Po Bronson (1964) American writer

Money, Failure, Success

“Everything we need to know is locked up in your head, under those pretty red curls."
Clary reached up to touch her hair protectively. "I dont think-"
"So what are you going to do?" Simon asked sharply. "Cut her head open to get at it?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Thinking

“What thief does not fight to hold what he has?"

"One that has something better," said Locke.”

Scott Lynch The Lies of Locke Lamora

Source: The Lies of Locke Lamora

Fight

“Pick-a-lock, Pick-a-lock, you'll regret the day,
When you took a mouse thief and locked him away,
Silly cat, look at that, it's two for one,
A thief and a warrior, by dawn will be gone.”

Brian Jacques book Mossflower

Source: Mossflower

Cats

“But it is just two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark.”

John Updike book Rabbit, Run

Source: Rabbit, Run

Cars, Lovers

“You're not an idiot. You're just eccentric. (Selena)
That's what they said about Mary Todd Lincoln. Until they locked her up. (Grace)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

“Are you afraid of me?
Uh… yes.'
The smile stayed fixed in place. 'You should be. You locked me in a refrigerator truck with three dead people. Sooner or later I'm going to get you for it.”

Janet Evanovich book One for the Money

Source: One for the Money

People, Smile, Dead

“I am well protected
Too locked up
Inside myself
To get free”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

“A prison does not only lock its inmates inside, it keeps all others out. Her strongest prison is of her own construction.”

Margaret Atwood book Alias Grace

Source: Alias Grace

“If I try to summon back his face, the sound of his voice, and the sensation in my stomach like a key turning in a lock when he touched me, I lose everything.”

Joyce Carol Oates book First Love: A Gothic Tale

Source: First Love: A Gothic Tale

“He let her get almost all the way there, just staring, before he stumbled towards her. They ended in a rush and then fell to the ground together, arms locked around each other, each holding on as tightly as possible. Niether of them said a word.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Dark Reunion

Way

“I’d had a key to the marina’s locks at one time, but I’d lost track of it when I got shot, drowned, died, got revived into a coma, haunted my friends for a while, and then woke up in Mab’s bed.

(My life. Hell’s bells.)”

Jim Butcher book Cold Days

Source: Cold Days

Life, Hell, Time

“When you're alive, people can hurt you. It's easier to crawl into a bone cage or a snowdrift of confusion. It's easier to lock everybody out.

But it's a lie.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

People, Lie, Hurt

“I want to hug you. And I want to tear your gods-damned head off. Both at once."

"Ah," said Locke. "Near as I can tell, that’s the definition of 'family' right there.”

Scott Lynch book Red Seas Under Red Skies

Source: Red Seas Under Red Skies

God, Family, Tear

“In a fair fight, the don's man would almost certainly paint the walls with Locke and Calo's blood, so it stood to reason that this fight would have to be as unfair as possible.”

Scott Lynch The Lies of Locke Lamora

Source: The Lies of Locke Lamora

Fight, Painting

“She walked to the rear door and took out a bobby pin from her pocket. Hugo watched as she fiddled with the pin inside the lock until it clicked and the door opened. "How did you learn to do that?" asked Hugo. "Books," answered Isabelle.”

Brian Selznick book The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Source: The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Books, Learning

“I do all this alone, everything I achieve, I achieve alone, because it's my head I'm locked into, and I share this space with nobody but myself.”

Alex Garland book The Coma

Source: The Coma

“Being locked up is one thing, but to have no concept of confinement, to be ignorant of its terms and never understand that struggle is useless - that's what hell must be like.”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

Hell, Understanding

“I can pick a lock. How do you think I got into my parents' liquor cabinet in middle school?”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

School, Thinking, Parent

“How'd you get in here?"
She raised her eyebrows. “You pick pockets.” Kat watched his hand fly to his back pocket. “I can pick locks. Looking for this?” she asked, holding up his wallet. “Oops. Maybe I can pick pockets too.”

Ally Carter book Heist Society

Source: Heist Society

Flying

“My lips are just forming his name when his fingers lock around my throat.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

“So when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit.”

Alan Moore book Batman: The Killing Joke

Batman : The Killing Joke (1988)
Source: Batman: The Killing Joke
Context: When you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit. You can just step outside, and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened.
Forever.

Past, Training, Madness

“Mothers, lock up your daughters, then lock up your maidservants, then lock up yourselves. Lord Montgomery is on the prowl”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Daughters

“Don't confine yourself to a select group of friends, often known as a clique. Cliques by definition leave people out. Lock yourself into one, and you'll never know how many terrific friendships you may be missing.”

Jerry Spinelli (1941) American children's writer

Source: Today I Will: A Year of Quotes, Notes, and Promises to Myself

Friendship, People

“That's what real love amounts to- letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending- performing. You get to love your pretence. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act”

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

Love, People, Personality

“This is love, I think. A place where people who have been alone may lock together like hawks and spin in the air, dizzy with surprise at the connection. A place you go willingly, and with wonder”

Jodi Picoult book Keeping Faith

Source: Keeping Faith

Love, People, Thinking

“Don't simply knock and wait for the door to be opened. Go look for the keys. Some fit the lock better than others.”

Christopher Pike book Sati

Source: Sati

Waiting

“Silver eyes met hers and locked. “I didn’t like Dani.”
“At least you’re consistent,” she said coolly.
His silver eyes were ice. “I loved her.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Feverborn

Love

“When a child is locked in the bathroom with water running and he says he's doing nothing but the dog is barking, call 911.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Dogs, Water

“I didn’t know what was more disturbing—the fact that something was obviously wrong, or that three faculty members of the world’s premiere spy school had forgotten to lock the door.”

Ally Carter I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Source: I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

World, School

“So, there was this beautiful princess.
She was locked in a high tower(…)She was stuck up there(…)So the only thing was to jump.”

Scott Westerfeld book Pretties

Source: Pretties

Beauty, Princess

“It runs in the family. And don't expect me to be ashamed. Yankees lock away loony relatives, but down here, we prop 'em up on parade floats and march 'em through the middle of town.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Ain't She Sweet

Family

“Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

“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

“On the moon we have everything. Lettuce, and pumpkin pie and Amanita phalloides. We have cat-furred plants and horses dancing with their wings. All the locks are solid and tight, and there are no ghosts.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Cats, Horse, Dance

“The idea of formulated 'rights… comes not from John Locke and Thomas Jefferson… but from the canon law of the Catholic Church.”

Thomas E. Woods Jr. (1972) American academic

Law, Idea

“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

“Throwing blondes at Locke Lamora was not unlike throwing lettuce at sharks.”

Scott Lynch The Lies of Locke Lamora

Source: The Lies of Locke Lamora

“If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

BankRate.com Interview (1 November 2004) http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/investing/20041101a1.asp <br class="br">2000s

“When you fear to fail, you fear something that has not happened yet. You predict your own failure, and by inaction, lock yourself into it.”

Robin Hobb book Ship of Destiny

Source: Ship of Destiny

Fear, Failure

“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

“A crafty nightrunner died of late,
And found himself at Bilairy’s Gate.
He stood outside and refused to knock
Because he meant to pick the lock.”

Lynn Flewelling Shadows Return

Source: Shadows Return

“None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

Understanding

“Let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to a Mr. Hazard (18 February 1791) published in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1853), Vol. 2, edited by Henry Augustine Washington, p. 211
1790s
Context: I learn with great satisfaction that you are about committing to the press the valuable historical and State papers you have been so long collecting. Time and accident are committing daily havoc on the originals deposited in our public offices. The late war has done the work of centuries in this business. The last cannot be recovered, but let us save what remains; not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.

Time

“Sorrow and loss never die. We can put them away in a chest and lock it tight, but whenever it is opened, even a crack, the aroma of lost sweetness will rise to fill our lungs to heaviness.”

Robin Hobb book Fool's Quest

Source: Fool's Quest

Loss

“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

“I'd watched too many schoolmates graduate into mental institutions, into group homes and jails, and I knew that locking people up was paranormal - against normal, not beside it. Locks didn't cure; they strangled.”

Scott Westerfeld book The Last Days

Source: The Last Days

People, Home

“(Jeez, get a locked room on unsanctified ground, you two.)”

Cassandra Clare book The Shadowhunter's Codex

Source: The Shadowhunter's Codex

“People are locked up in all sorts of ways.”

Emma Donoghue (1969) Irish novelist, playwright, short-story writer and historian

People, Way

“Maxilan, darling." Locke raised one eyebrow and smiled. "I knew you were driven, but I had no idea you could smoulder. Come, take me now! Jean won't mind; he'll avert his eyes like a gentleman.”

Scott Lynch book Red Seas Under Red Skies

Source: Red Seas Under Red Skies

Smile, Idea

“Wherever love is, I want to be, I will follow it as surely as the land-locked salmon finds the sea.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Love, Sea

“Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.”

Ray Bradbury book The Golden Apples of the Sun

The Meadow (1947), originally a radio play for the World Security Workshop; later revised into a short story for this anthology.
The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953)

Dependency

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

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

God

“Anyone who can steal the king's seal ring can manage the locks on his record room.”

Megan Whalen Turner The Thief

Source: The Thief

“Done time in the lock-up, done time on the streets. Done time on the upswing, and time in defeat. I know what I'm askin'. I know it's a lot. Just to say that I love you. Believe it or not.”

Jerry Garcia (1942–1995) American musician and member of the Grateful Dead

Love, Time

“And put me down right this minute or I'll scream bloody murder, then do the job for real!"

"I already hid all the electrical appliances, and I'm not taking a shower without locking you in the closet first.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips book Nobody's Baby But Mine

Source: Nobody's Baby But Mine

“Ranger locked eyes with me. "Please," he said.
Tank and Hal were goggle-eyed. They weren't used to "please." I wasn't used to it either. But I liked it.
Okay," I said. "Be careful. He's insane.”

Janet Evanovich (1943) Novelist

“I went down to the 24-hour grocery. When I got there, the guy was locking the front door. I said, 'Hey, the sign says you’re open 24 hours. He said, 'Yes, but not in a row.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Guy

“This is your heart. Keep it locked until the chap turns up who has the key.”

Jean Webster book Just Patty

Source: Just Patty

Heart

“Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge book The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Source: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Life, Death

“For several long moments we remained locked together, and I think I covered her hair with small sacred kisses, her perfume crucifying me with memories.”

Anne Rice book Merrick

Source: Merrick

Kiss, Thinking, Memory

“Too many locks, not enough keys.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

“Throughout his life the memory of that happy day stayed locked secretly in (his) heart.”

Brian Jacques book Martin the Warrior

Source: Martin the Warrior

Life, Happiness, Memory, Heart

“Oh God. Why, oh why, did I have to be the one to deliver this news? Why couldn’t I be locked away in my room or the library doing something enjoyable, like homework?”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

God

“Let them go, I tell myself. Say good-bye and forget them. I do my best, thinking of them one by one, releasing them like birds from the protective cages inside me, locking the doors against their return.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Katniss, p. 189
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire (2009)

Bird, Thinking, Forgetting

“YOU COULD LOCK the Gasman in a padded cell with some dental floss and a bowl of Jell-O, and he'd find a way to make something to explode.”

James Patterson book Maximum Ride

Source: Max

Way

“Do you know how to pick a lock?"
"Not in the least, I'm afraid."
"I often wonder what we go to school for," said Wimsey.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Strong Poison

Source: Strong Poison

School

“The sun rises every day. What is to love? Lock the sun in a box. Force the sun to overcome adversity in order to rise. Then we will cheer! I will often admire beautiful sunrise, but I will never consider the sun a champion for having risen.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

Love, Beauty, Sun, Box

“His face was gaunt, scraped and bloody, his hair dusted with cobwebs, but when he locked eyes with her, she thought he had never looked more handsome.

Percy & Annabeth”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

“Wordplay hides a key to reality that the dictionary tries in vain to lock inside every free word.”

Julio Cortázar book Around the Day in Eighty Worlds

Source: Around the Day in Eighty Worlds

Reality

“It's not all of a sudden," he said, his eyes locked on mine. "It's always.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: We'll Always Have Summer

“I keep asking myself," whispered Sabetha, giving Locke's arm a squeeze, "ARE we smarter than that woman's chicken?"

"At the moment, it's an open question," said Locke.”

Scott Lynch book The Republic of Thieves

Source: The Republic of Thieves

Question

“Sucks to be left out of adolescence, sort of like getting locked in the closet on Venus when the sun appears for the first time in a hundred years.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Appearance, Time, Sun

“Are you smarter than a pig, Locke?”
“On occasion,” said Locke. “There are contrary opinions.”

Scott Lynch book The Republic of Thieves

Source: The Republic of Thieves

“When you're unhinged, things make their way out of you that should be kept inside, and other things get in that ought to be shut out. The locks lose their powers. The guards go to sleep. The passwords fail.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin

Way, Sleep

“Mystics are all a bit funny in the head anyway," the priest added cynically, "which is why the church locks them all up in mental hospitals and euphemistically calls these institutions monasteries.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

Source: The Eye in the Pyramid

“I've never had inner turmoil about all this. You find a lot of people these days who cannot stand to be alone. You could lock me up in solitary for weeks on end, and I'd keep myself amused.”

Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

People

“What kind of knife is this?” Locke held a rounded buttering utensil up for Chains’ inspection. “It’s all wrong. You couldn’t kill anyone with this.”

Scott Lynch The Lies of Locke Lamora

Source: The Lies of Locke Lamora

“When we lock things away," he said with conviction, "we're really imprisoning ourselves.”

Gordon Korman book Schooled

Source: Schooled

“If she were a writer she would collect her pencils and notebooks and favourite cat and write in bed. Strangers and lovers would never get past the locked door.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Cats, Lovers, Past

“I lock eyes with my reflection and don’t look away. The day you look away you start to lose yourself. I’m never going to lose myself. You are what you are. Deal with it or change.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Iced

Change

“It's a lot easier to be lost than found. It's the reason we're always searching and rarely discovered--so many locks not enough keys.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

“But paradise is locked and bolted….
We must make a journey around the world to see if a back door has perhaps been left open.”

Heinrich Von Kleist (1777–1811) German poet, dramatist, novelist and short story writer

Source: On a Theatre of Marionettes

World

“I am locked into the mirror and there is no door out.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

“Only love could pick a nested pair of steel Bramah locks.”

Michael Chabon book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Source: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Love

“Being pretty-minded is simply the natural state for most people. Theyto be vapid and lazy and vain… and selfish. It only takes a twist to lock in that part of their personalities.”

Scott Westerfeld book Pretties

Source: Pretties

People, Nature, Parting, Personality

“These problems never seemed to baffle my grandfather nor cause him any anxiety; difficulties which in most people's eyes would have led to endless complications were disposed of by my grandfather almost without thinking, with the easy assurance of a sleepwalker who strolls along a ledge halfway down a hundred-foot precipice—yes, I am tempted to say with the same disregard for the laws of nature as a ghost passing through locked doors.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

People, Law, Nature, Problem

“I think that what we need is to create policies which deal with immigration in a rational way. And a rational way is not locking children up in detention centers or separating them from their mothers. What we need is Trump to sit down with members of Congress and work on a rational program which deals with this serious issue.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Answering to Jake Tapper on if he is in favor of abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. [Mirkinson, Jack, Not Good Enough, Bernie Sanders, https://splinternews.com/not-good-enough-bernie-sanders-1827099565, 27 June 2018, Splinter News, 26 June 2018]
2010s, 2018

Children, Way, Thinking

“I got bored of the tedious conversations, talking to the dealer in a stairwell where you're not supposed to be, then going back to a depressing room and spending nine hours locked up going "eeerh", then going back to get more with what little money you have left.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On drugs.
Like, Totally (2006)

Money

“[Ricky asks what else he would do with the power of invisibility]Dunno, you could sort of go in shops when they're shut, just get in before they lock up.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Podcast Series 1 Episode 4
On Powers

“Beloved imagination, what I most like in you is your unsparing quality. There remains madness, 'the madness that one locks up', as it has aptly been described. That madness or another..”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Le Manifeste du Surréalisme, Andre Breton (Manifesto of Surrealism; 1924)

Imagination, Madness

“We don't believe it's possible to protect digital content … What's new is this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the Internet — and no one's gonna shut down the Internet. And it only takes one stolen copy to be on the Internet. And the way we expressed it to them is: Pick one lock — open every door. It only takes one person to pick a lock. Worst case: Somebody just takes the analog outputs of their CD player and rerecords it — puts it on the Internet. You'll never stop that. So what you have to do is compete with it.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

As quoted in "Steve Jobs: The Rolling Stone Interview" in Rolling Stone (3 December 2003) http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/5939600 <br class="br">2000s

Way, Personality

“Once the experience of war makes visible the possibility of death that lies locked up in each moment, our thoughts cannot travel from one day to the next without meeting death's face. The mind is then strung up to a pitch it can stand for only a short time; but each new dawn introduces the same necessity; and days piled on days make years. On each one of these days the soul suffers violence. Regularly, each morning, the soul castrates itself of aspiration, for thought cannot journey through time without meeting death on the way. Thus war effaces all conceptions of purpose or goal, including even its own "war aims." It effaces the very notion of war's being brought to an end. Consequently, nobody does anything to bring this end about. In the presence of an armed enemy, what hand can relinquish its weapon? The mind ought to find a way out, but the mind has lost all capacity to so much as look outward. The mind is completely absorbed in doing itself violence. Always in human life, whether war or slavery is in question, intolerable sufferings continue, as it were, by the force of their own specific gravity, and so look to the outsider as though they deprived the sufferer of the resources which might serve to extricate him.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), The Iliad or The Poem of Force (1940-1941), p. 181

Life, Death, War, Way

“The American Pie success has been so wonderful for me, but it's also locked me into a certain type of role. It's limited my options.”

Jason Biggs (1978) American actor

On debut in show Orange Is the New Black, interviewed in: — [December 4, 2014, http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/q-a-jason-biggs-changes-stripes-in-orange-is-the-new-black-20130710, Rolling Stone, Q&A: Jason Biggs Changes Stripes in 'Orange Is the New Black', July 10, 2013, James Sullivan]

Success

“"Marcus! I thought you must have been developing other interests, but I never expected to find you with your arms locked round a fish —"
Then the lull sank to a silence.”

Lindsey Davis book Venus in Copper

Venus in Copper

Fish, Silence

“Locke supposes that a person acquainted sensibly with the colours which compose a rainbow, can by the names of such colours in a verbal description, be made visually acquainted with a rainbow. The verbal description will give such a person's intellect a good verbal definition of the word rainbow, but it cannot communicate the sight to the extent that it differs, in any manner from the sights he already knows.”

Alexander Bryan Johnson (1786–1867) United States philosopher and banker

Part II. Of the Extent of Sensible Knowledge.
The Physiology of the Senses: Or, How and what We See, Hear, Taste, Feel and Smell (1856)

Communication, Personality