Quotes & Sayings About Doorways

Love is the only doorway from the prison of ourselves. — Peter Shaffer

A dingily bilious sun was seeping through a tent of black clouds. Passersby, spitefully elbowing elbows, were rushing along the pavement. People thronging the doorways of shops tried to pummel their way through and stuck fast, their faces flushed with spite and fury, their teeth bared. — Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky

Seoul is a city of layers and Jesse peels them back with his penetrating gaze, taking in the glitzy Western bars, the alleys sloping upward into cramped housing developments, the doorways leading to dark hallways that lead to offices and noodle shops the casual observer would never even know existed. — Paula Stokes

I believe confidence is all about being positive concerning what you can do
and not worrying over what you can't do. A confident person is open to learning, because she knows that her confidence allows her to walk through life's doorways, eager to discover what waits on the other side. She knows that every new unknown is a chance to learn more about herself and unleash her abilities. — Joyce Meyer

Larry said that Michelangelo was a poof, so I wondered why he'd sculpted a guy with a really tiny cock. But I know when you go to old houses, the doorways are much smaller, 'cause people were shorter then, so maybe cocks were smaller too. It makes me glad I wasn't born a few centuries ago. — J.L. Merrow

Whereas the structural trend toward increased inequality was gradual and went for a long time unobserved, the crises in the lives of the urban poor were public and dramatic. The new armies of the homeless that seemed suddenly to materialize in every major city in the early 1980s, sleeping in doorways, camped under elevated highways, spreading their temporary cardboard shelters over office tower heating grates, were a startling and disturbing sight. Not since the Depression had the least-advantaged Americans been so starkly visible to the rest. — Daniel T. Rodgers

I grew up in rural Tennessee. There were no bookstores in the town, but the school had a little library, and the town had a little library, each with a patient and enthusiastic librarian, and I raced into both as if they were doorways to another world. — Michael Sims

The obstacles in our path are not blocking us-they are redirecting us. Their purpose is not to interfere with our happiness; it is to point us toward new routes to our happiness, new possibilities, new doorways. — Barbara De Angelis

I hope that I'm not the type of person who, standing at the doorway to hell, strikes a heroic pose and then starts frowning with indecision. — Liu Xiaobo

I am always safe, no matter which doorway I pass through. — Louise Hay

Imagination is the doorway you walk through into every future
moment. Are you walking through doorways to pain or to joy? — Martha Beck

Birth and Death are words we chose to describe the doorways in and out of a cycle. This cycle is connected to a larger cycle which awaits our return. It is all just like breathing. Remove the fear and judgement to recognize the same pattern as a principle everywhere. — Franklin Gillette

You are the doorway to the infinite. — Adyashanti

Lost in the corn rows, I remember feeling just another stalk, and thus this country takes me over in the way I occupy myself when I am well ... completely - to the edge of both my house and body. No one notices, when they walk by, that I am brimming in the doorways. — William H Gass

Going about one's native land one is inclined to take many things for granted, roads and buildings, roofs, windows and doorways, the walls that shelter strangers, the house one has never entered, trees which are like other trees, pavements which are no more than cobblestones. But when we are distant from them we find that those things have become dear to us, a street, trees and roofs, blank walls, doors and windows; we have entered those houses without knowing it, we have left something of our heart in the very stonework. Those places we no longer see, perhaps will never see again but still remember, have acquired and aching charm; they return to us with the melancholy of ghosts, a hallowed vision and as it were the true face of France. We love and evoke them such as they were; and such as to us they still are, we cling to them and will not have them altered, for the face of our country is our mother's face. — Victor Hugo

Why shouldn't we experience heartbreak? Through those doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us collapse at the first grip of pain. We sit down at the door of God's purpose and enter a slow death through self-pity. And all the so-called Christian sympathy of others helps us to our deathbed. But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, as if to say, "Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine." If God can accomplish His purposes in this world through a broken heart, then why not thank Him for breaking yours? — Oswald Chambers

All over the city lights were coming on in the purple-blue dusk. The street lights looked delicate and frail, as though they might suddenly float away from their lampposts like balloons. Long twirling ribbons of light, red, green, violet, were festooned about the doorways of drugstores and restaurants
and the famous electric signs of Broadway had come to life with glittering fish, dancing figures, and leaping fountains, all flashing like fire. Everything was beautiful. Up in the deepening sky above the city the first stars appeared white and rare as diamonds. — Elizabeth Enright

Shamanism is a path of knowledge, not of faith, and that knowledge cannot come from me or anyone else in this reality. To acquire that knowledge, including the knowledge of the reality of the spirits, it is necessary to step through the shaman's doorway and acquire empirical evidence. — Michael Harner

Everything in New York is a photograph. All the things that are supposed to be dirty or rough or unrefined are the most beautiful things. Garbage cans at the ends of alleyways look like they've been up all night talking with each other. Doorways with peeling paint look like the wise lines around an old feller's eyes. I stop and stare but can't stay because men always think I'm selling something. Or worse, giving something away. I wish I could be invisible. Or at least I wish I didn't look like someone they want to look at. They stop being part of the picture, they get up from their chess game and come out of the frame at me, blocking my view. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

Many people have the desire to let go, but they're not able to do so because they don't yet have enough insight; they haven't seen other alternatives, other doorways to peace and happiness. Fear is an element that prevents us from letting go. We're fearful that if we let go we'll have nothing else to cling to. Letting go is a practice; it's an art. One day, when you're strong enough and determined enough, you'll let go of the afflictions that make you suffer. — Thich Nhat Hanh

To feel a full and untrammeled joy is to have become fully generous; to allow our selves to be joyful is to have walked through the doorway of fear, the dropping away of the anxious worried self ... the vulnerability of happiness felt suddenly as a strength, a solace and a source, the claiming of our place in the living conversation ... — David Whyte

An angel stood and met my gaze, Through the low doorway of my tent; The tent is struck, the vision stays; I only know she came and went. — James Russell Lowell

On Broadway it was still bright afternoon and the gassy air was almost motionless under the leaden spokes of sunlight, and sawdust footprints lay about the doorways of butcher shops and fruit stores. And the great, great crowd, the inexhaustible current of millions of every race and kind pouring out, pressing round, of every race and genius, possessors of every human secret, antique and future, in every face the refinement of one particular motive or essence - I labor, I spend, I strive, I design, I love, I cling, I uphold, I give way, I envy, I long, I scorn, I die, I hide, I want. Faster, much faster than any man could make the tally. — Saul Bellow

I have lived in other cities but been inside of only one. I once wore all the windows of Chicago and all its doorways on a key ring. Salons, mansions, alleys, courtrooms, depots, factories, hotels, police cells, the lake front, the rooftops and the sidewalks were my haberdashery. — Ben Hecht

You control the doorway to your mind. — Joel Osteen

Work is an antidote for anxiety, an ointment for sorrow, and a doorway to possibility. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

It happened that green and crazy summer when Frankie was twelve years old. This was the summer when for a long time she had not been a member. She belonged to no club and was a member of nothing in the world. Frankie had become an unjoined person and hung around in doorways, and she was afraid. — Carson McCullers

A few letter-writers had taken refuge in doorways, their old voiceprinters wrapped in sheets of clear plastic, evidence that the written word still enjoyed a certain prestige here. — William Gibson

Not woman, but the condition of woman, has always been a doorway of evil. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Success is not a doorway, it's a stairway. — Dottie Walters

The holy Cross goes forward; it brings joy and consolation to every quarter where Christians live; and these God-fearing people, elated, stand in their doorways and greet it reverently, the strength, the salvation of the universe, the Cross. — C.P. Cavafy

Often the doorway to success is entered through the hallway of failure. — Erwin W. Lutzer

I speculate, briefly, on how different the world would be if it were run by women. In that world, if you were a lonely, horny woman - as I am. As I always am- you'd see Blu-tacked postcards by Soho doorways that read 'Nice man in cardigan, 24, will talk to you about The Smiths whilst making you cheese-on-toast+come to parties with you. Apply within'. — Caitlin Moran

Now the windows, blinded by the glare of the empty square, had fallen asleep. The balconies declared their emptiness to heaven; the open doorways smelt of coolness and wine. — Bruno Schulz

He's stopped reading The Great Minds of Western Philosophy completely, and spend all his time programming, which really is his superpower. I mean, there are lots of superheroes with different superpowers, and some of them are big and flashy, like superstrength, and superspeed, and molecular restructuring, and force fields. But these abilities are really not so different from the superpower stuff that old Jiko could do, like moving superslow, or reading people's minds, or appearing in doorways, or making people feel okay about themselves just by being there. — Ruth Ozeki

For most of my life I've liked to pretend I live in a starship. Punching in fake codes to get into doorways that obviously are not secure. I love that idea of living on a spaceship. Because essentially we are: a gigantic thing floating in some infinite darkness that's running on principles that we don't even understand. — Reggie Watts

She's like a prisoner inside stone walls, and every day the walls get a little thicker, the doorways a little narrower."
"And?" Eddis prompted.
"Well," said Eugenides, "it's a challenge. — Megan Whalen Turner

Strange how close the darkness is, even when things seem brightest. Even in the glare of a summer noon, when the sidewalk bakes and iron fences are hot to the touch, the shadows are still with us. They congregate in doorways and porches, and under bridges, and beneath the brims of gentlemen's hats so you cannot see their eyes. There is darkness in our mouths and ears; in our bags and wallets; within the swing of men's jackets and beneath the flare of women's skirts. We carry it around with us, the dark, and its influence stains us deep. — Jonathan Stroud

Sinking invalids blew kisses to him from windows. Aproned shopkeepers cheered ecstatically from the narrow doorways of their shops. Tubas crumped. Here and there a person fell and was trampled to death. — Joseph Heller

He belonged to a walled city of the fifteenth century, a city of narrow, cobbled streets, and thin spires, where the inhabitants wore pointed shoes and worsted hose. His face was arresting, sensitive, medieval in some strange inexplicable way, and I was reminded of a portrait seen in a gallery I had forgotten where, of a certain Gentleman Unknown. Could one but rob him of his English tweeds, and put him in black, with lace at his throat and wrists, he would stare down at us in our new world from a long distant past - a past where men walked cloaked at night, and stood in the shadow of old doorways, a past of narrow stairways and dim dungeons, a past of whispers in the dark, of shimmering rapier blades, of silent, exquisite courtesy. — Daphne Du Maurier

Walk out of any doorway feel your way, feel your way like the day before Maybe you'll find direction around some corner where it's been waiting to meet you. — Robert Hunter

Knowledge of languages is the doorway to wisdom. — Roger Bacon

Open skies painted above painted doorways and painted birds skimming across bricks trying to fly away. Little bird, what are you thinking? You come from a can. — Cath Crowley

Mistakes are the doorway to discovery. — Sam Horn

I was tired of men. Hanging in doorways, standing too close, their smell of beer or fifteen-year-old whiskey. Men who didn't come to the emergency room with you, men who left on Christmas Eve. Men who slammed the security gates, who made you love them and then changed their minds.
— Janet Fitch

We are using the food as a doorway to understanding the rest of our lives. — Geneen Roth

He thought of the boys and girls who looked for sweethearts at Mountain View Cemetery, and chorus girls who met their beaux behind scrim, and office romances that flourished in the buildings on Market Street, and he felt like there were little lights in alcoves here and there across the city, in cozy dens, in doorways during rainstorms, or even a chilly balcony on the Ferry building. Everywhere, little pairs of glowing lights. When you walked a city, wherever you looked, someone had probably fallen in love. — Glen David Gold

We see in part, and thus is the mirror of prophecy darkened." There are other worlds, gunslinger, and other demons. These waters are deep. Watch for the doorways. Watch for the roses and the unfound doorways. — Stephen King

Your relationship to food, no matter how conflicted, is the doorway to freedom. — Geneen Roth

I travel in gardens and bedrooms, basements and attics, around corners, through doorways and windows, along sidewalks, over carpets, down drainpipes, in the sky, with friends, lovers, children and heros; perceived, remembered, imagined, distorted and clarified. — Tom Robbins

It comes from the likes of you! Take what you can get! Grab the chances as they come along! Act in hallways! Sing in doorways! Dance in cellars! — Alexander Woollcott

The End of World War One
Out of the scraped surface of the land
men began to emerge, like puppies
from the slit of their dam. Up from the trenches
they came out upon the pitted, raw earth
wobbling as if new-born.
They could not believe they would be allowed to live,
the orders had come down: no more killing.
They approached the enemy, holding out chocolate
and cigarettes. They shook hands, exchanged
souvenirs
mess-kits, neckerchiefs.
Some even embraced, while in London
total strangers copulated
in doorways and on the pavement, in the ecstasy
of being reprieved. Nine months later,
like men emerging from the trenches, first the head,
then the body, there were lifted, newborn, from these mothers,
the soldiers of World War Two. — Sharon Olds

God in Christ has taken into Himself the brokenness of the human condition. Hence, human woundedness, brokenness, death itself are transformed from dead ends to doorways into Life. In the divinizing humanity of Christ, bruises become balm. — Martin Laird

It comes down to risk, again and again. If you risk coming out, if you risk making pictures that aren't good, you might discover something in a photograph that is the key. The very doorway to your own interest. — Joel Meyerowitz

Humility is the doorway 2 truth & clarity of objectives ... it's the doorway 2 learning. — Wynton Marsalis

But the intimacy, the smallness, also made me feel shut out; and I found myself hurrying past the inviting little doorways with my head down, very aware of all the convivial Sunday-morning lives unrolling around me in private. — Donna Tartt

The Earth itself is stepping in to aid in the agenda of cultural transformation. There are too many doorways in nature that lead to heaven, there are too many paths to the mystery for any institution or social policy to be able to thwart the intent of the human species to evolve. — Terence McKenna

The dream had come again, like the sun after a storm. It was the same dream that had come many times before, battering down the doors of my mind night after night since i was a child. it was the sort of dreams all girls dream, i suppose- a dream of mysterious worlds and hidden doorways, of leaves that breathe and make music when they are rustled in the wind, and river that bubbles and froth with secrets. — Kailin Gow

What is easily the most dangerous spot cats choose for sleeping? Beneath our feet-sprawled out in hallways or in doorways, tails predictably extended just to be stepped on. — Arnold Hano

Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed. — Stanislaw Lem

Mistakes are doorways to discovery. — Sam Horn

Books are like Tarot decks. They provide answers and guidance but more importantly, they are doorways and portals to the otherworld and the imagination. They leave their imprint and keep whispering to us long after we close the pages or shuffle the deck. — Sasha Graham

He rarely saw a doorway without advancing through it as if he owned it. Since he owned a good many doorways, he would have pointed out that this was a reasonable assumption. — Eloisa James

When experience is viewed in a certain way, it presents nothing but doorways into the soul. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

The Truth doesn't need your cooperation to exist. All forms of cult, all forms of hype, all forms of delusion do require your participation in order to exist. I've looked into marginal areas of human experience -historical and otherwise- with a rational mind, and what I've found is that doorways into the miraculous are far fewer than the publicists of the New Age would have us believe. On the other hand, they are not as rare as the proponents of radical reductionism and materialism would have us believe. There are doorways out of the mundane ... — Terence McKenna

As I look around the quiet room, I see a thousand leather covers like doorways into worlds unknown. — Laura Whitcomb

Our illusions-the beliefs we hold on to-are the very doorways to our freedom. We simply have to enter through them without grasping or pushing away. We must not believe them, but we must not run away from them either. We need to see each moment of apparent bondage as an invitation to freedom. Then it becomes an act of love, an act of compassion, to stop running away. — Adyashanti

Every second of time is a doorway to unbounded possibilities. Yet if you are not open to them, these possibilities shrink. — Deepak Chopra

Doorways are sacred to women for we are the doorways of life and we must choose what comes in and what goes out. — Marge Piercy

Only through the inner channels can a person even hope to approach
the ancient wisdoms. The outer works are thus simply a doorway to
the hidden, spiritual things of life. — Harold Klemp

Pain, pleasure and death are no more than a process for existence. The revolutionary struggle in this process is a doorway open to intelligence — Frida Kahlo

It was a time of dark dreams. They washed in like flotsam on the night tide, slipping beneath doorways and window latches, rising through the streets and hills; and the little fishing-town of Scarlock foundered deep. — J.A. Clement

There is a feel about Galway you can wear around your shoulders like a cloak. It hangs in the air with its dampness; it walks the cobblestone streets and stands in the doorways of its gray stone buildings. It blows in with the mist from the Atlantic and lingers incessantly at every corner. I have never been able to walk the streets of Galway without feeling some unnamed presence accompanying me. — Claire Fullerton

Come Senators, Congressman, please heed the call, don't stand in the doorway, don't block the hall. — Bob Dylan

Once upon a time, a little girl was raised by monsters.
But angels burned the doorways to their world, and she was all alone. — Laini Taylor

I don't let anyone touch me," I finally said.
Why not?"
Why not? Because I was tired of men. Hanging in doorways, standing too close, their smell of beer or fifteen-year-old whiskey. Men who didn't come to the emergency room with you, men who left on Christmas Eve. Men who slammed the security gates, who made you love them then changed their minds. Forests of boys, their ragged shrubs full of eyes following you, grabbing your breasts, waving their money, eyes already knocking you down, taking what they felt was theirs. ( ... ) It was a play and I knew how it ended, I didn't want to audition for any of the roles. It was no game, no casual thrill. It was three-bullet Russian roulette. — Janet Fitch

Some paths, some doorways, some people were not to be yours, though the slightest difference in the rippling of time might have made it so. — Guy Gavriel Kay

We seek not rest but transformation. We are dancing through each other as doorways. — Marge Piercy

Death is nothing more than a doorway, something you walk through. — George G. Ritchie

In sexual contact a doorway opens between people, and it is very possible for someone to be abusive at that time with energy. — Frederick Lenz

The return of the rain, beating out time on London's rooftops and pavements. Early morning Zombies sheltering beneath copies of the Standard whilst others ran screaming for cover in doorways because water from the heavens is holy and melts the undead. — Stephen J. Day

What ifs" are the doorways into new adventures. "Why nots" are the doorknobs. We turn knobs and tug at doors until we find the one that opens for us. The Maker will leave that one unlocked and when we get to the other side, the light will be on and He'll be waiting with all the resources and help we need to fulfill His best desires for us. — Kevin E. Beasley

Not quite a room, Jeevan thought now, looking around the stage. It was too transitory, all those doorways and dark spaces between wings, the missing ceiling. It was more like a terminal, he thought, a train station or an airport, everyone passing quickly through. — Emily St. John Mandel

Here's the plan: We do everything, all the traditions, and we do it grander than anyone ever dreamed! Here are the houselights, which will require extra generators so we don't smash the power grid, the holiday music CDs that will need waterproof outdoor concert speakers, the train set with extra boxes of tracks to connect all the rooms of the house, the toys where we forget the batteries, several gingerbread house kits we'll combine to form a mansion, DVDs of all the classic Christmas specials to run nonstop, mistletoe for all the doorways, the manger scene with a little Jesus that glows in the dark to emphasize the Holy Spirit third of the Trinity because he's the shy one who gets the least press, and all the presents we'll wrap together and give each other as Secret Santas. — Tim Dorsey

The impulse of love that leads us to the doorway of a friend is the voice of God within, and we need not be afraid to follow it. — Agnes Sanford

A tall young man sped swiftly up the wide stone steps leading to the doorway of a mansion in one of Chicago's most fashionable avenues. — George Barr McCutcheon

Death is a doorway. It is a very small, thin doorway and only a portion of our being can walk through. — Frederick Lenz

Books are boring," James said as he wrote.
"They line the walls like a thousand leather doorways to be opened into worlds unknown," I offered. — Laura Whitcomb

The mantra is a very preliminary exercise for the student to begin to grasp a sense of focus. When they are used by persons who have reached very high levels of attention, they can open up doorways to other worlds. — Frederick Lenz

I believe in magic. Writing is my magic wand, and through my magic I create my own secret world, away from all these worries and responsibilities. Love, honesty and humanity is essential to enter this beautiful world of magic. I dwell among White magical peacocks, glowing unicorns, fire breathing turquoise dragons, talking trees, flying horses, talking wise jackals and wolves, crystal water falls, secret pathways hidden in urban gardens and books with doorways to secret worlds. You need to believe in magic to experience it. — Ama H. Vanniarachchy

It was not uncommon to see the letters G.T.T. painted or carved on the doorways of cabins in Tennessee and other parts of the country especially in the south. It was a sure sign that the occupants had picked up and were as they said "Gone to Texas". It was a popular expression for those people who had committed crimes or owed money or just did not want to be found. — Michael Wallis

To find one's way anywhere one has to find one's door, just like Alice, you see. You take too much of one thing and you get too big, then you take too much of another and you get too small. You've got to find your own doorway into things ... — Paula Rego

Creative freedom is determined by how we behold the world. Any one of us can make new things with our perceptions that serve as doorways to the creative imagination. No one is excluded. — Shaun McNiff

My philosophy is that once you get people compelled enough to sit down and play the game, the whole way you make the game successful is by giving them enough unique ways to do things. First, let them deal with pulling levers and things like that for a while. Then after they've mastered that, you give them something else to do, like getting through doorways by blasting them down with a cannon Next, you give them a monster-finding quest, followed by logic problems to figure out. You pace it that way. Assorted activities and the diversity of activities are what makes a game rich in my mind. — Richard Garriott

Every moment is like a wheel with a hundred spokes in it. We ride always at the hub of the wheel and go forward as it turns. We ignore the array of other moments constantly turning around us. We are surrounded by doorways; we never open them. — Patricia A. McKillip

Soiled, forgotten coats of arms were carved above their massive doorways, and these unsettled Ted: such universal, defining symbols made meaningless by nothing more than time. — Jennifer Egan

They turned to look at her and all three pairs of eyes narrowed, as if they could tell instantly that she had not been bred to attend high-society balls.
"Ignore them," Bill said. "There are snobs in every lifetime. In the end, they've got nothing on you."
Luce nodded,falling behind the trio, who passed through a set of mirrored doorways into the ballroom. The ultimate ballroom. The ballroom to end all ballrooms.
Luce couldn't help herself. She stopped in her tracks and whispered, "Wow. — Lauren Kate

Any doorway that leads you to a deeper understanding of who you are is worthwhile. — Rodney Yee

The old house had a thousand doors in it.

All old houses do. You can see them if you know how to look: the noontime shadow of a windowpane crawling with intent across a floor; unmeasured angles of wall meeting wall; fireplaces grown chill with unused years. Archways with unseen contours you can trace with a finger in the cracks as brick grinds against brick in settling walls. Some nights, and some houses are doorways entire, silhouettes against the evening's last light black on black like an opening into a darker sky. You just have to look. An eye-corner glance will do, if you don't turn and stare and explain it away. — Michael Montoure

People need doorways to explore universal religious and ethical ideas. — Mitch Horowitz