Quotes about opening
page 7

Source: Invisible Monsters

“That was the crux. You. Only you could work on you. Nobody could force you, and if you weren't ready, then you weren't ready, and no amount of open-armed encouragement was going to change that.”

Norah Vincent (1968) American journalist

Change

“That was the worst thing about having a relationship with someone, even a pretend relationship. You opened up, let someone in, and when it was over, they had all the ammunition they needed to completely destroy you.”

Sarra Manning (1950) British writer

Source: You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

“Footfalls echo in the memory
down the passage we did not take
towards the door we never opened
into the rose garden. My words echo
thus, in your mind”

T.S. Eliot book Four Quartets

Variant: Footfalls echo in the memory, down the passage we did not take, towards the door we never opened, into the rose garden.
Source: Four Quartets

Memory

“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

Happiness, Way, Happy

“Stars open among the lilies.
Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?
This is the silence of astounded souls.”

Sylvia Plath book Crossing the Water

Source: Crossing the Water

Soul, Star, Silence

“How many times… have you encountered the saying, 'When the student is ready, the Master speaks?' Do you know why that is true? The door opens. The Master is everywhere, but the student has to open his mind to hear the Masters Voice.”

Robert Anton Wilson book Masks of the Illuminati

Source: Masks of the Illuminati

Time

“What she had long believed was not true, and now the world was wide open to discover what was.
It is like all my life I thought the sky was green.”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

Life, World

“A book is a gift you can open again and again.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Attributed to Keillor in The Miracle of Language‎ (1999) by Richard Lederer, p. 149, this statement also appears in What‎? (1988) by Ronald Silliman, p. 28:
A book is a gift you can open again and again especially when you're writing it yourself.
Disputed

Books

“She had opened a door… and now she was walking with demons. And at the end of her travels, she would have her revenge… Pain had made a sadist of her.”

Clive Barker book The Hellbound Heart

Source: The Hellbound Heart

Pain, Travel, Revenge

“Child of Hades, what more could I do to you? You are perfect! So much sorrow and pain!’ Nico gasped. His eyes flew open.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Pain, Perfection

“The gym is always open, except when it's closed.”

Trenton Lee Stewart (1970) Novelist

“You will show that thing to me and from now on, I will deal with them."

I opened my eyes really wide and fluttered my eyelashes at him. "I'm sorry, I must've missed your coronation ceremony. Silly me.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Clean Sweep

“The difference between a dreamer and a visionary is that a dreamer has his eyes closed and a visionary has his eyes open”

Martin Luther King, Jr. I Have a Dream

Source: I Have a Dream

“Perhaps the things that break our hearts are the very things that serve to open them.”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Source: The Greatness Guide Book 2: 101 More Insights to Get You to World Class

Heart

“Simon didn’t think Meg really wanted to know how to eviscerate a rabbit. He could be wrong about that, but he just couldn’t picture Meg pouncing on a bunny and ripping it open with her teeth.
Maybe if he tried harder to picture it?”

Anne Bishop book Written in Red

Source: Written in Red

Thinking

“Rose. Roza. Open your eyes." I've never heard heard his voice so strained, so frantic. "Don't go to sleep on me. Not yet.”

Richelle Mead Vampire Academy

Source: Vampire Academy

Sleep

“Are we, like, having a conversation?"
"Did you just, like, ask me for advice and listen with an open mind? If so, then yes, I would call this a conversation”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

“What was it like… to have someone who knew you would always return and who welcomed you with open arms?”

Kate DiCamillo The Magician's Elephant

Source: The Magician's Elephant

“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

“A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory.”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Life, Youth, Beauty, Angels

“[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

Reading

“Feelings can be like wild animals-we underrate how fierce they are until we've opened their cage”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: The Sunflower

Feeling, Animals

“Pritkin kissed like he did everything else, straightforward, accepting no prisoners and with an intensity that left me breathless. It was hot and hard and desperate, like he was starving for it, and I opened my mouth and took it, because,.”

Karen Chance American writer

Source: Embrace the Night

Kiss

“Always sleep with one eye open. Never take anything for granted. Your best friends might just be your enemies.”

Sara Shepard The Lying Game

Source: The Lying Game

Sleep

“She is like the wind, open and free. If I cage the wind, would it die?
-Then don't cage it, Mikhail. Trust it to stay beside you.”

Christine Feehan book Dark Prince

Source: Dark Prince

“The door opened, and we were met by a fifty-something man with a grizzled blond beard. He was wearing Bermuda shorts and a Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt. Also, he had an eye patch. "This is incredible," I heard Adrian murmur. "Beyond my wildest dreams.”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

Dreams

“Before Clary could respond, Jace’s eyes slid open. He looked up at the warlock, dazzled and dizzy. “What are you doing here?”
Magnus grinned down at Jace, and his teeth sparkled like sharpened diamonds.
“Hey roommate,” he said.
-pg. 128-”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

“Love is taking chances when every rational part of you screams, ‘Don’t risk it.’ Because it’s only when your heart has been ripped open that you get a chance to find the one person capable of making it whole.”

Sabrina Jeffries (1960) American writer

Source: A Lady Never Surrenders

Love, Chance, Heart, Parting

“Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love you will find that you are left holding only yourself.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

Love

“I glanced up to see Liz and smiled. "Thank you."

"I just went along for the ride. After that happened-" She waved at Derek. "You know how blind people need Seeing Eye dogs? Well, apparently werewolves could really use Opening Door poltergeists.”

Kelley Armstrong The Reckoning

Source: The Reckoning

People, Smile, Dogs

“As Logan walked towards her, he smiled as if reading her mind and opened his arms.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Lucky One

Source: The Lucky One

Smile, Reading

“Don't wait for it," I said. "Create a world, your world. Alone. Stand alone. Create. And then the love will come to you, then it comes to you. It was only when I wrote my first book that the world I wanted to live in opened to me.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: The Diary of Anais Nin Volume 1 1931-1934: Vol. 1

Love, Books, World, Waiting

“we would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Moveable Feast

Variant: Where we would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright. That was where we could go.
Source: A Moveable Feast

Books, Star, Night

“Because that's what heaven is… it's opening the door of a house in twilight and everyone you love is there.”

Justin Cronin book The Twelve

Source: The Twelve

Love, Housing

“To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.”

Anne Rice book The Vampire Lestat

The Vampire Lestat (1985)

Question

“What is this "heart"? If I tear open that chest of yours, will I see it there? If I smash open that skull of yours, will I see it there?
~ulquiorra”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Tear, Heart

“The desire to never leave your side, the desire to never see you again. The desire to see your face asleep on the pillow beside my face and to see your eyes open in the morning when I lie next to you—just watching you, waiting for you to wake up.”

John Irving book Until I Find You

Source: Until I Find You

Lie, Waiting

“somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence.
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you always open petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously)her first rose or if it be your wish to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly
as the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending; nothing we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries
rendering death and forever with each breathing”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

W [ViVa] (1931) LVII

Life, Death, World, Travel

“In the quiet spaces opened up by the prolonged, undistracted reading of a book, people made their own associations, drew their own inferences and analogies, fostered their own ideas. They thought deeply as they read deeply.”

Nicholas Carr (1959) American writer

Source: The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains

People, Books, Idea, Reading

“As the rain falls
so does
your love

bathe every
open
object of the world”

William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) American poet

Love, World

“Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during a moment.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

"Tentative (First Model)" Definitions of Poetry" in Complete Poems (1950)

“it's doors I'm afraid of because I can't see through them, its the door opening by itself in the wind I'm afraid of.”

Margaret Atwood book Surfacing

Source: Surfacing

“Dandelion wine. The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered… sealed away for opening on a January day with snow falling fast and the sun unseen for weeks…”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Wine, Sun, Summer

“The window was still open,” Mr Lisbon said. “I don’t think we’d ever remembered to shut it. It was all clear to me. I knew I had to close that window or else she’d go on jumping out of it forever.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

Thinking

“Any altruistic system is inherently unstable, because it is open to abuse by selfish individuals, ready to exploit it.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene

Selfishness

“He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Intelligence

“Halt Halt," said Gilan stepping out into the open.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Ruins of Gorlan

“If you know what you're looking for, that's all you'll get - what's previously known. But when you're open to what's possible, you get something new - that's creativity.”

Alan Alda (1936) actor and United States Army officer

“It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you've made, and there's this panic because you don't know yet the scale of disaster you've left yourself open to.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go (2005), Chapter 10

“your lives be as full and happy as ours, and may the seasons be kind to you and your friends. The door of our Abbey is always open to any travellers roaming the dusty path between the woodlands and the plains.”

Brian Jacques (1939–2011) British fiction writer known for Redwall animal fantasy novels

Happiness, Travel, Season

“Fantasy is totally wide open; all you really have to do is follow the rules you've set. But if you're writing about science, you have to first learn what you're writing about.”

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) American science fiction writer

Learning, Science

“When things get unbearable, I wrap myself into a tight ball and shut my eyes. Every muscle in my body is tense. I open my eyes and I'm still where I was when I closed them to escape. Nothing's changed.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel (1967–2020) American author and journalist

Change

“I took the volume to a table, opened its soft, ivory pages… and fell into it as into a pool during dry season.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Season

“I walked 500 miles just to see a halo, when I opened my eyes I was blind as can be.”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

“Seth hustled over. “What’s the password?”
“Passwords are for sissies,” Warren’s muffled voice responded.
“Works for me,” Seth said, unlocking the door and opening it.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary

“When at last I came upon the right book, the feeling was violent: it blew open a hole in me that made life more dangerous because I couldn't control what came through it.”

Nicole Krauss book Great House

Source: Great House

Life, Books, Feeling

“Books were this wonderful escape for me because I could open a book and disappear into it, and that was the only way out of that house when I was a kid.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

Books, Way, Housing

“Who’s there?”
“The scratcher of your itch,” he said.
She opened the door a crack and stuck her nose out. “Was that supposed to be romantic?”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Instant Attraction

“I wanted to pull down a book, open it proper, and gobble up page after page”

Laurie Halse Anderson book Chains

Source: Chains

Books

“In life, there are only four kinds of girls:
The girl who played with fire.
The girl who opened Pandora's Box.
The girl who gave Adam the apple.
And the girl whose best friend stole her boyfriend.”

Candace Bushnell book The Carrie Diaries

Variant: In life, there are only four kinds of girls:
The girl who played with fire.
The girl who opened Pandora's Box.
The girl who gave Adam the apple.
And the girl whose best friend stole her boyfriend.
Source: The Carrie Diaries

Life, Girl, Box

“(opening lines) The terror, which would not end for another 28 years-if it ever did end-began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.”

Stephen King book It

Source: It (1986)

“The best revenge, like the best sex, is performed slowly, and with the eyes open.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Sex, Revenge

“There are so many doors to open. I am impatient to begin."

--Charlie Gordan”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon

“We must begin our practice by walking the narrow path of simplicity, the hinayana path, before we can walk upon the open highway of compassionate action, the mahayana path.”

Chögyam Trungpa (1939–1987) Tibetan Buddhist lama and writer

Source: The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation

“Please,” Alec said, pulling out his stele. “I can read your face like a very open, very pornographic book. I wish I couldn’t.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Books, Reading

“There is a difference between WISHING for a thing and being READY to receive it. No one is ready for a thing, until he believes he can acquire it. The state of mind must be BELIEF, not mere hope or wish. Open-mindedness is essential for belief.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

Hope

“No rescue boat can save the touches I left bobbing in the wild ocean of your flesh, but if they cut open your heart, like the belly of a shark, dumped its contents on a table—would there be any trace of me?”

Jeffrey McDaniel (1967) American writer

Source: The Splinter Factory

Heart

“Memories are bullets. Some whiz by and only spook you. Others tear you open and leave you in pieces.”

Richard Kadrey (1957) San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer

Source: Kill the Dead

Tear, Memory

“To see truth as truth, we don't need a lot of study. It's not complicated. What we need is pure observation. An open mind and fresh eyes will serve us well.”

Ilchi Lee (1950) South Korean businessman

Source: Change: Realizing Your Greatest Potential

Truth, Study

“The door swung open and Kate walked in. Her jeans and T-shirt were splattered with blood and she was carrying a severed vampire head. The T-shirt has a smiley face on it.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Gunmetal Magic

“As you see the opening get closer, you just can't get fast enough. And finally, just when you think you'll never get there, you see the opening right in front of you.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Thinking

“A man fell in love with Jeanne, and she tried to love him. But she complained that he uttered such ordinary words, that he could never say the magic phrase which would open her being.”

Anaïs Nin book Under a Glass Bell

Source: Under a Glass Bell

Love

“Forgetting oneself is opening oneself”

Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher

Forgetting

“Jump into an open grave? What kind of idiot are you?" Butters replied. "I might as well put on a red shirt and volunteer for the away team. There's snow and ice and slippery mud down there. That's like asking for an ironically broken neck.”

Jim Butcher book Ghost Story

Source: Ghost Story

“I want to know if you've touched the center of your own sorrow, if you've been opened by life's betrayals, or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.”

Oriah Mountain Dreamer (1954) Canadian author

Life, Pain, Fear, Betrayal

“The moment Eve bit into the apple, her eyes opened and she became free. She exposed the truth of what every woman knows: to find our sovereign voice often requires a betrayal.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

Truth, Betrayal

“Wha-what?" Her eyes fluttered open.
"Nothing," I shouted. "We're being followed by a slaying machine. Go back to sleep.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Sleep

“I had read a Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life… her voice slid in and curved down trough and over the words. She was nearly singing.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Life, Singing, Time, Reading

“We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

Love, God

“Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can't sleep with the window open.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Marriage, Sleep, Anniversary

“It's good to leave behind all that is comfortable and known every so often. It opens one's mind to the wide world.”

Kristen Britain book Blackveil

Source: Blackveil

World

“You see things less clearly when you open your eyes too wide.”

Italo Svevo book Zeno's Conscience

Source: Zeno's Conscience

“Camille leaned forward. When she did, the neckline of her black silk blouse gaped open. If Simon had still been human, he would have blushed. "Will you let me see it?"
Simon could actually feel his eyes pop out. "See”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Feeling

“He who looks through an open window sees fewer things than he who looks through a closed window.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

“Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Stay Fit and Healthy Until You're Dead (1985)

Clothes

“My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness. When I changed my view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 281
Context: Is the truth depressing? Some may find it so. But I find it liberating, and consoling. When I believed that my existence was a further fact, I seemed imprisoned in myself. My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness. When I changed my view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air. There is still a difference between my life and the lives of other people. But the difference is less. I am less concerned about the rest of my own life, and more concerned about the lives of others.

Life, Change

“You don't blast a heart open," she said. "You coax and nurture it open, like the sun does to a rose.”

Melody Beattie (1948) American writer

Source: The Lessons of Love: Rediscovering Our Passion for Life When It All Seems Too Hard to Take

Sun, Heart

“The bell jar hung, suspended, a few feet above my head. I was open to the circulating air.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 18