Quotes about opening
page 26

Tanith Lee photo

“There were clouds like sharks with open jaws in the sky that morning.”

Tanith Lee (1947–2015) British writer

Source: Short fiction, The Winter Players (1976), Chapter 6, “Blue Cave” (p. 170)

Antonio Gramsci photo

“It is all a matter of comparing one’s own life with something worse and consoling oneself with the relativity of human fortunes. When I was eight or nine I had an experience which came clearly to mind when I read your advice. I used to know a family in a little village near mine: father, mother and sons: they were small landowners and had an inn. Very energetic people, especially the woman. I knew (I had heard) that besides the sons we knew, this woman had another son nobody had seen, who was spoken of in whispers, as if he were a great disgrace for the mother, an idiot, a monster or worse. I remember that my mother referred to this woman often as a martyr, who made great sacrifices for this son, and put up with great sorrows. One Sunday morning about ten, I was sent to this woman’s: I had to deliver some crocheting and get the money. I found her shutting the door, dressed up to go out to mass, she had a hamper under her arm. On seeing me she hesitated then decided. She told me to accompany her to a certain place, and that she would take delivery and give me the money on our return. She took me out of the village, into an orchard filled with rubbish and plaster; in one corner there was a sort of pig sty, about four feet high, and windowless, with only a strong door. She opened the door and I could hear an animal-like howling. Inside was her son, a robust boy of 18, who couldn’t stand up and hence scraped along on his seat to the door, as far as he was permitted to move by a chain linked to his waist and attached to the ring in the wall. He was covered with filth, and his eyes shone red, like those of a nocturnal animal. His mother dumped the contents of her basket – a mixed mess of household leftovers – into a stone trough. She filled another trough with water, and we left. I said nothing to my mother about what I had seen, so great an impression it had made on me, and so convinced was I that nobody would believe me. Nor when I later heard of the misery which had befallen that poor mother, did I interrupt to talk of the misery of the poor human wreck who had such a mother.”

Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) Italian writer, politician, theorist, sociologist and linguist

Gramsci, 1965, p. 737 cited in Davidson, 1977, p. 35.

John Irving photo
Gaurav Sharma (author) photo
L. Ron Hubbard photo

“There is more power in the open hand than in the clenched fist.”

Herbert N. Casson (1869–1951) Canadian journalist and writer

Herbert N. Casson cited in: The International Chemical Worker Vol. 13-15 (1953). p. 192
1950s and later

Calvin Coolidge photo
Henry Fountain Ashurst photo

“It is still an open question as to whether mankind or insects shall ultimately inherit the earth. It is my opinion that mankind … has about a 50-50 chance….”

Henry Fountain Ashurst (1874–1962) United States Senator from Arizona

"The Silver-Tongued Sunbeam" http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,848048,00.html. Time (August 7, 1939)

Theodoros Kolokotronis photo
James Russell Lowell photo

“Simple as it seems, it was a great discovery that the key of knowledge could turn both ways, that it could open, as well as lock, the door of power to the many.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

Literary Essays, vol. II (1870–1890), New England Two Centuries Ago

Wilson Chandler photo
Pat Conroy photo
Bun B photo

“Rolling up ho's like turtles in a half a shell open up my trunk, and let'z see what I have to sell”

Bun B (1973) American rapper from Texas; 1/2 of UGK

Short Texas
Too Hard to Swallow (1992)

Ursula Goodenough photo
Federico García Lorca photo

“But now he sleeps endlessly.
Now the moss and the grass
open with sure fingers
the flower of his skull.
And now his blood comes out singing;
singing along marshes and meadows,
slides on frozen horns,
faltering souls in the mist
stumbling over a thousand hoofs
like a long, dark, sad tongue,
to form a pool of agony
close to the starry Guadalquivir.
Oh, white wall of Spain!
Oh, black bull of sorrow!
Oh, hard blood of Ignacio!
Oh, nightingale of his veins!”

Pero ya duerme sin fin.
Ya los musgos y la hierba
abren con dedos seguros
la flor de su calavera.
Y su sangre ya viene cantando:
cantando por marismas y praderas,
resbalando por cuernos ateridos,
vacilando sin alma por la niebla,
tropezando con miles de pezuñas
como una larga, oscura, triste lengua,
para formar un charco de agonía
junto al Guadalquivir de las estrellas.
¡Oh blanco muro de España!
¡Oh negro toro de pena!
¡Oh sangre dura de Ignacio!
¡Oh ruiseñor de sus venas!
Llanto por Ignacio Sanchez Mejias (1935)

Mike Oldfield photo
Crystal Allen photo
John Woolman photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Manmohan Singh photo
Rudolf Höss photo
Jerry Fodor photo
Paul Cézanne photo

“Anyone who wants to paint should read Bacon. He defined the artists as homo additus naturae... Bacon had the right idea, but listen Monsieur Vollard, speaking of nature, the English philosopher, [Bacon] didn't for-see our open-air school, nor that other calamity which has followed close upon its heels: open-air indoors.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Quote in a conversation with Vollard in museum The Luxembourg, Paris 1897 - standing before the 'Olympia' of Manet; as quoted in Cézanne, by Ambroise Vollard, Dover publications Inc. New York, 1984, p. 36
Quotes of Paul Cezanne, 1880s - 1890s

Vangelis photo
Sri Aurobindo photo
Ben Witherington III photo
Samuel Butler photo
George W. Bush photo
Vanna Bonta photo
Tom Kean, Jr. photo

“Spring is in the air. In some places, that means longer days, blooming flowers and Opening Day. Here in New Jersey, the coming of spring means it’s the time of year when Trenton politicians ask us for more money. Not surprisingly, this year is no different.”

Tom Kean, Jr. (1968) Member of the New Jersey General Assembly and State Senate

On Jon Corzine's Budget (April 6, 2006); "The Corzine Budget: Same Old Tax and Spend ", Tom's Blog" (April 6, 2006) http://tomkean.com/today/index.cfm?e=user.about.blog&messageID=76.

Nathanael Greene photo
Max Beckmann photo

“Yesterday we came across a cemetery that had been completely destroyed by shellfire. The graves had been blown up, and the coffins lay about in the most uncomfortable positions. The shells had unceremoniously exposed their distinguished occupants to the light of day, and bones, hair, and bits of clothing could be seen through cracks in the burst-open coffins.”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

letter to his first wife Minna, from the front, 1915; as quoted in Max Beckmann, Stephan Lackner, Bonfini Press Corporation, Naefels, Switzerland, 1983, p. 14
1900s - 1920s

“I made the flags and targets to open men's eyes.... [they] were both things - which are seen and not looked at - examined.”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

John's own comment on his exhibition of the 'Flag, Target and Number' paintings in 1958
1950s

Brigham Young photo
Glen Cook photo
Aldo Capitini photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo

“Clouds that are grey
Can no longer be washed clean.
We open the umbrella
And simply paint the sky black.”

Gu Cheng (1956–1993) Chinese poet

"A Walk In The Rain" [Yu xing]

Immanuel Kant photo

“Mathematics, from the earliest times to which the history of human reason can reach, has followed, among that wonderful people of the Greeks, the safe way of science. But it must not be supposed that it was as easy for mathematics as for logic, in which reason is concerned with itself alone, to find, or rather to make for itself that royal road. I believe, on the contrary, that there was a long period of tentative work (chiefly still among the Egyptians), and that the change is to be ascribed to a revolution, produced by the happy thought of a single man, whose experiments pointed unmistakably to the path that had to be followed, and opened and traced out for the most distant times the safe way of a science. The history of that intellectual revolution, which was far more important than the passage round the celebrated Cape of Good Hope, and the name of its fortunate author, have not been preserved to us. … A new light flashed on the first man who demonstrated the properties of the isosceles triangle (whether his name was Thales or any other name), for he found that he had not to investigate what he saw hi the figure, or the mere concepts of that figure, and thus to learn its properties; but that he had to produce (by construction) what he had himself, according to concepts a priori, placed into that figure and represented in it, so that, in order to know anything with certainty a priori, he must not attribute to that figure anything beyond what necessarily follows from what he has himself placed into it, in accordance with the concept.”

Preface to the Second Edition [Tr. F. Max Müller], (New York, 1900), p. 690; as cited in: Robert Edouard Moritz, Memorabilia mathematica or, The philomath's quotation-book https://openlibrary.org/books/OL14022383M/Memorabilia_mathematica, Published 1914. p. 10
Critique of Pure Reason (1781; 1787)

Joan Maragall photo
Kirsten Gillibrand photo

“I find that when you open the door toward openness and transparency, a lot of people will follow you through.”

Kirsten Gillibrand (1966) United States Senator from New York

Proposing reforms to increase transparency and accountability in Washington.
[Reforming the Way Washington Works, Gillibrand, Kirsten, The Huffington Post, AOL, Inc., 2010-07-20, 2015-07-08, https://web.archive.org/web/20100807221953/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-kirsten-gillibrand/reforming-the-way-washing_b_652793.html]

Lloyd Kaufman photo
Chuck Jones photo

“A comedian is not a person who opens a funny door — he's the person who opens a door funny.”

Chuck Jones (1912–2002) American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films

John Lewell, "The Art of Chuck Jones: John Lewell Interviews the Veteran Hollywood Animator [1982]," in Animation - Art and Industry, ed. Maureen Furniss (John Libby Publishing Ltd., 2009), 134. Jones was paraphrasing Ed Wynn who was in turn paraphrasing Fred Allen.
Source: “A comic says funny things; a comedian says things funny”, Barry Popik, November 10, 2015, January 7, 2017 http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/a_comic_says_funny_things/,

Cary Grant photo
John the Evangelist photo
Miyamoto Musashi photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Pauline Kael photo

“Citizen Kane is perhaps the one American talking picture that seems as fresh now as the day it opened. It may seem even fresher.”

Pauline Kael (1919–2001) American film critic

"Raising Kane" http://www.paulrossen.com/paulinekael/raisingkane.html, The New Yorker (1971-02-20 and 1971-02-27); reprinted in Kael's The Citizen Kane Book (1971).

Henry Adams photo
Johan Jongkind photo

“I have another painting finished, a view near Rotterdam, and then another in process, and very far along. I made them from nature, that is to say I made watercolors [in open air] after which I made my [oil]-paintings.”

Johan Jongkind (1819–1891) Dutch painter and printmaker regarded as a forerunner of Impressionism

In a letter to his Dutch friend Eugène Smits, 22 Nov. 1856; as quoted in Master Drawings from the Yale University Art Gallery, by Suzanne Boorsch, John Marciari; Yale University. Art Gallery, p. 246 - note 7

Nick Hornby photo
Jack Kerouac photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Toby Keith photo
Miklós Horthy photo
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti photo
Learned Hand photo

“The mutual confidence on which all else depends can be maintained only by an open mind and a brave reliance upon free discussion.”

Learned Hand (1872–1961) American legal scholar, Court of Appeals judge

Extra-judicial writings, Speech to the Board of Regents (1952)

“I only feel close to you when I‘m under open sky, I only feel guided when I’m free to question why.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"Out Seeing The Fields"
Out Seeing The Fields (2007)

Ned Kelly photo
Neil Gaiman photo
T. E. Lawrence photo
Ian Bremmer photo
Octavio Paz photo
Maria Edgeworth photo

“Once Steve Jobs goes away, which is probably not far away, then Apple will have to make a strategic decision on whether to open up the platform. Ultimately a closed system just can't go that far.”

Netgear CEO: Apple Doomed Because Of Closed Platform, Jobs' 'Ego' http://huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/31/netgear-ceo-steve-jobs_n_816279.html in The Huffington Post (31 January 2011)

Neal Stephenson photo
Guy Lafleur photo
Christian Scriver photo
Joseph Warton photo
Vincent Massey photo

“In opening and conquering a country great and wild and rich - a country indeed not yet fully known or conquered - we have still to learn more about ourselves and each other.”

Vincent Massey (1887–1967) Governor General of Canada

Address to the Canadian Club of Ottawa, December 18, 1952
Speaking Of Canada - (1959)

Clive Staples Lewis photo

“When I attempted, a few minutes ago, to describe our spiritual longings, I was omitting one of their most curious characteristics. We usually notice it just as the moment of vision dies away, as the music ends or as the landscape loses the celestial light. What we feel then has been well described by Keats as “the journey homeward to habitual self.” You know what I mean. For a few minutes we have had the illusion of belonging to that world. Now we wake to find that it is no such thing. We have been mere spectators. Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face was turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted, welcomed, or taken into the dance. We may go when we please, we may stay if we can: “Nobody marks us.” A scientist may reply that since most of the things we call beautiful are inanimate, it is not very surprising that they take no notice of us. That, of course, is true. It is not the physical objects that I am speaking of, but that indescribable something of which they become for a moment the messengers. And part of the bitterness which mixes with the sweetness of that message is due to the fact that it so seldom seems to be a message intended for us but rather something we have overheard. By bitterness I mean pain, not resentment. We should hardly dare to ask that any notice be taken of ourselves. But we pine. The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory, in the sense described, becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory meant good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

The Weight of Glory (1949)

Richard Rodríguez photo
Valerie Jarrett photo

“Michelle was so mature beyond her years, so thoughtful and perceptive. She really prodded me about what the job would be like because she had lots of choices. I offered it to her on the spot, which was totally inappropriate because I should have talked to the mayor first. But I just knew she was really special.
Barack never grills. That's part of what is so effective about him: He puts you completely at ease, and the next thing you know he's asking more and more probing questions and gets you to open up and reflect a little bit. That night we talked about his childhood compared to my childhood and realized we both had rather…unusual childhoods.
Married in 1983, separated in 1987, and divorced in 1988. Enough said. He was a physician. He passed away. I want to say in about 1991.
We grew up together. We were friends since childhood. In a sense, he was the boy next door. I married without really appreciating how hard divorce would be.
I have to tell you: My daughter is in seventh heaven about me being in Vogue. Nothing else I have done has fazed her at all. But this! She's like, 'Oh, Mom. You don't understand. This is really big.'
I have never heard him yell, Ever. Not once in seventeen years. He's not a yeller.
Because my dad worked at the university, he could swing by and take Laura to school and pick her up from her first day of nursery school until the day she graduated from high school. They would often have breakfast and have these wonderful conversations.”

Valerie Jarrett (1956) Chicago lawyer, businesswoman, civic leader; senior advisor to U.S. Senator Barack Obama

September 2008 interview with Vogue https://web.archive.org/web/20080930190831/http://www.style.com/vogue/feature/2008_Oct_Valerie_Jarrett//

Colleen Fitzpatrick photo
Nico Perrone photo
Thomas Middleton photo

“Like pearl
Dropt from the opening eyelids of the morn
Upon the bashful rose.”

Thomas Middleton (1580–1627) English playwright and poet

A Game of Chess (1624).

Laisenia Qarase photo
Michael Swanwick photo
Lucy Aharish photo

“We have other things to get over besides the occupation and discrimination. We are fighters and don't give in. If you don't open the door for me, I will come in through the window, and if it is closed, down the chimney. We were too polite, but we learned Israeli chutzpah. It's easy to humiliate an Arab who kowtows, but when that person says 'Listen, pal, tone it down, don't talk to me like that,' you arrive at a dialogue.”

Lucy Aharish (1981) Arab-Israeli journalist

Source: [Halutz, Doron, A generation of Israeli Arabs nurtured on Jewish chutzpah, http://www.haaretz.com/a-generation-of-israeli-arabs-nurtured-on-jewish-chutzpah-1.279267, 5 April 2011, Haaretz, 3 July 2009, That strategy seems to be working. Aharish is a reporter on Good Evening, a program about the entertainment industry hosted by the veteran Guy Pines; the anchor of the children's news program on Channel 1 (state television); and twice a week she also anchors the morning show of the Tel Aviv-based Radio 99, alongside Emanuel Rosen and Maya Bengal.]

Neal Stephenson photo
Richard Dawkins photo

“Today the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes round the sun.”

Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 1. Why Are People?

Parker Palmer photo
Ezra Pound photo

“All other sins are open,
Usura alone not understood.”

Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic

Addendum for C
Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX-CXVII

Philip K. Dick photo
John Waters photo

“I would never want to film hard-core pornography, because it always looks like open-heart surgery to me.”

John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer

Books, Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste (1981)

George W. Bush photo
Alfred P. Sloan photo
Poul Anderson photo
Carlos Zambrano photo

“For me, mentally I'll prepare like a normal game, like I was the No. 4 starter. I just wanted to be focused for the game and not worry about anything else, not think about it being opening day.”

Carlos Zambrano (1981) Venezuelan baseball pitcher

Baum, Bob, http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/preview?gid=250404129, Yahoo! Sports, Referenced on June 15, 2007
2005

Stanley A. McChrystal photo
Roger Raveel photo

“As far as my exhibition concerned [opening was 8 May 1954, in Ghent].... there is however a recent and important painting hanging there 'Man met Boompje' [Man with tree, later titled 'The Gardener] - permettez-moi - with beautiful refracting matters and color: lemon-yellow spots and lacquerish black on white, (face) transparent pure light-blue with a very thin layer glacis over it (in the small wall) and strong-blue painted vertical line. Yellow brown and mauve brush-sweeps with small red dashes over it (for the small tree), and further a lot of beautiful white.”

Roger Raveel (1921–2013) painter

version in original Flemish (citaat van Roger Raveel, in het Vlaams): Wat nu mijn tentoonstelling betreft (opening was 8 mei 1954, in Gent].. .er is echter een recent en belangrijk werk bij n.l. 'Man met boompje' [later 'De Tuinman' getiteld] - permettez-moi- met mooie brekende materies en kleur: citroengele vlekken en lakachtig zwarte op wit, (gezicht) transparante zuivere lichte blauwe met een heel dunne glacis erover (in muurtje) en sterk blauwe geschilderde vertikale lijn. Geelbruine en mauve vegen met daarop kleine rode streepjes (voor boompje) verder veel mooi wit.
Quote of Raveel, in a letter to his friend Hugo Claus, from Machelen aan de Leie, May 1954; as cited in Hugo Claus, Roger Raveel; Brieven 1947 – 1962, ed. Katrien Jacobs, Ludion; Gent Belgium, 2007 - ISBN 978-90-5544-665-0, p. 164 (translation: Fons Heijnsbroek)
1945 - 1960