When The Door Is Closed Quotes & Sayings

We've all heard that in life, when one door is closed, another is opened. Unfortunately, many of us are so focused on the darkness left by what has been lost, we never see the light coming through the newly opened door. — Bill Crawford

Why is it people will complain, when they have an open door, where they can walk out to and gaze the stars; rather than having a closed door to lock them in? — Anthony Liccione

As soon as the door closed, Levi popped his eyes again. Bluely. "That's your twin sister?"
"Identical," Reagan said, like she had a mouth full of hair.
Cath nodded and sat down at her desk.
"Wow." Levi scooted down the bed so he was sitting across from her.
"I'm not sure what you're getting at," Cath said, "but I think it's offensive."
"How can the fact that your identical twin sister is super hot be offensive to you?"
"Because," Cath said, still too encouraged by Wren and, weirdly, by Abel, and maybe even by Nick to let this get to her right now. "It makes me feel like the Ugly One."
"You're not the ugly one." Levi grinned. "You're just the Clark Kent."
Cath started checking her e-mail.
"Hey, Cath," Levi said, kicking her chair. She could hear the teasing in his voice. "Will you warn me when you take off your glasses? — Rainbow Rowell

The night is nearly spent waiting for him in vain. I fear lest in the morning he suddenly come to my door when I have fallen asleep wearied out. Oh friends, leave the way open to him
forbid him not.
If the sounds of his steps does not wake me, do not try to rouse me, I pray. I wish not to be called from my sleep by the clamorous choir of birds, by the riot of wind at the festival of morning light. Let me sleep undisturbed even if my lord comes of a sudden to my door.
Ah, my sleep, precious sleep, which only waits for his touch to vanish. Ah, my closed eyes that would open their lids only to the light of his smile when he stands before me like a dream emerging from darkness of sleep.
Let him appear before my sight as the first of all lights and all forms. The first thrill of joy to my awakened soul let it come from his glance. And let my return to myself be immediate return to him. — Rabindranath Tagore

I grew up where, when a door closed, a window didn't open. The only thing I had was cracks. I'd do everything to get through those cracks - scratch, claw, bite, push, bleed. Now the opportunity is here. The door is wide open, and it's as big as a garage. — Dwayne Johnson

Party organization matters. When the door of a smoke-filled room is closed, there's hardly ever a woman inside. — Millicent Fenwick

I see that the wardrobe looks penetrable because it has a door. But when I open it, I see that penetration has been put off: since inside is also a wooden surface, like a closed door. Function of the wardrobe: to keep drag and disguises hidden. Nature: that of the inviolability of things. Relation to people: we look at ourselves in the mirror on the inside of the door, we always look at ourselves in an inconvenient light because the wardrobe is never in the right place: awkward, it stands wherever it fits, always huge, hunchbacked, shy and clumsy, unaware how to be more discreet, for it has too much presence. A wardrobe is enormous, intrusive, sad, kind. — Clarice Lispector

Any of us, except in our dreams, truly expect to be reunited with our hearts' deepest loves, even when they leave us only for minutes, and on the most mundane of errands? No, not at all. Each time they go from our sight we in our secret hearts count them as dead. Having been given so much, we reason, how could we expect not to be brought as low as Lucifer for the staggering presumption of our love? So Eddie didn't expect her to answer until she did - from another world, and through a single thickness of wood. "Eddie? Sugar, is it you?" Eddie's head, which had seemed perfectly normal only seconds before, was suddenly too heavy to hold up. He leaned it against the door. His eyes were similarly too heavy to hold open and so he closed them. The weight must have — Stephen King

When you arrive in your driveway and turn off the car, you remain behind the wheel another ten minutes. You fear the night is being locked in and coded on a cellular level and want time to function as a power wash. Sitting there staring at the closed garage door you are reminded that a friend once told you there exists the medical term - John Henryism - for people exposed to stresses stemming from racism. They achieve themselves to death trying to dodge the buildup of erasure. Sherman James, the researcher who came up with the term, claimed the physiological costs were high. You hope by sitting in silence you are bucking the trend. — Claudia Rankine

And I could test myself - my own courage - with it, too, because when the doors at either end of the secret staircase were closed, it was impenetrably dark. I hid in the staircase, shivering with terror, telling the narrative: The little girl was in a dark, dark place but she was very brave ... Sometimes the door at the bottom opened, and a wedge of light sliced up the stairs; a maid, her arms filled with folded laundry, would find me and ask in amazement what I was doing there.
And though I answered lightheartedly that I was playing, the truth is that I was not entirely certain what I was doing there, crouched and frightened in the darkness. Only now, sixty years later, do I see that I was arming myself, rehearsing panic, loss, and helplessness; assessing my own cowardice and courage, and and the same time reassuring myself that the door would always open, that the light would always find its way in. — Lois Lowry

You can't tiptoe toward justice. You can't walk up to the door all polite and knock once or twice, hoping someone's home. Justice is a door that, when closed, must be kicked in. — Daniel Jose Older

You swallow hard when you discover that the old coffee shop is now a chain pharmacy, that the place where you first kissed so-and-so is now a discount electronics retailer, that where you bought this very jacket is now rubble behind a blue plywood fence and a future office building. Damage has been done to your city. You say, 'It happened overnight.' But of course it didn't. Your pizza parlor, his shoeshine stand, her hat store: when they were here, we neglected them. For all you know, the place closed down moments after the last time you walked out the door. (Ten months ago? Six years? Fifteen? You can't remember, can you?) And there have been five stores in that spot before the travel agency. Five different neighborhoods coming and going between then and now, other people's other cities. Or 15, 25, 100 neighborhoods. Thousands of people pass that storefront every day, each one haunting the streets of his or her own New York, not one of them seeing the same thing. — Colson Whitehead

Fat bitch," Kessa murmured as the door scraped closed behind Mrs. Stone.
"She meant well, Francesca. And you see, everyone thinks you're too thin."
"Since when is Mrs. Stone an authority on appearance. I've heard you say a thousand times that she looks like an old hooker."
"I never said anything of the sort. What I said was that she wears too much makeup and her clothes are indiscreet."
"Which means she looks like an old hooker. Well, if that's the way a woman is supposed to look, I'd rather be too skinny." Kessa felt a flash of pleasure at the argument. Just let her mother try to push food into her now. — Steven Levenkron

I was on a 747 flight out of Denver with four flight attendants on the plane. One of the flight attendants got off the plane to go check someone's carry-on bag in the cargo hold, and while she was gone, the door closed and we began to taxi out. While we were giving the demo, we looked out the window of the airplane to see the flight attendant running alongside the plane in the snow, waving and yelling and trying to catch up to us. 'Did you notice that we're missing someone?' I said to the other flight attendant. 'Yes, but try to keep it low-key - there's a supervisor on board!' Well, it's hard to keep it low-key when someone is running alongside your plane, waving and screaming. The plane stopped and the air stairs went down so she could get on board, and my co-worker said, 'Tell her to try to be inconspicuous when she gets back on.' Well, she had to walk the entire length of the plane to get back to her station, and everybody on board broke into applause. — Betty N. Thesky

When Allah (swt) decrees that a door in your life is to be opened, no matter how hard you try to close it, no matter how far you run away from it, it will remain open until you walk through. When Allah (swt) decrees that a door is to be closed, no matter how many times you knock on that door, try to break it down, or cry on your knees in front of it, begging it to open again, it will never be opened. Grieve in front of that closed door if you must. Stand there for a time and look at it. Hold your hands over your heart and press down to calm it's quickened pained rhythm. Then know- know beyond the shadow of a doubt, know in your heart of hearts- that when you trust Allah and move forward, he will open a more beautiful door for you. You will walk through it and perhaps you will even praise him for having closed the past door you loved so much. He is Al-Fattah, the Opener. May the doors He opens for us always lead us back to him. — Asmaa Hussein

His terror became his companion. When it seemed to diminish, or grow easier to bear, he forced himself to remember the details of what he had said and done so that his fears returned, redoubled. His previous life, which had been without fear, he now dismissed as an illusion since he had come to believe that only in fear could the truth be found. When he woke from sleep without anxiety, he asked himself, What is wrong? What is missing? And then his door opened slowly, and a child put its head around and gazed at him: there are wheels, Ned thought, wheels within wheels. The curtains were now always closed, for the sun horrified him: he was reminded of a film he had seen some time before, and how the brightness of the noonday light had struck the water where a man, in danger of drowning, was struggling for his life. — Peter Ackroyd

Many people look upon change with dread and foreboding. But for those on the spiritual path-for those who believe in God and the power of prayer-change is a fuller expression of life. When a problem or condition arises in your life that indicates a change, rely upon God, and realize that it is not so much that a door has closed on a chapter of your life, but rather that a door has opened on new and more interesting things. — Emmet Fox

Some drivers have already got out of their cars, prepared to push the stranded vehicle to a spot where it will not hold up the traffic, they beat furiously on the closed windows, the man inside turns his head in their direction, first to one side then to the other, he is clearly shouting something, to judge by the movements of his mouth he appears to be repeating some words, no one word but three, as turns out to be the case when someone finally manages to open the door, I am blind. — Jose Saramago

When Grant opened the door, he thought she looked like some fairy princess-part ingenue,part seductress. Her eyes met his in the glass, and she smiled while following through with the last stroke of the brush.
"Take the wrong turn?"
"I took the right one." He closed the door behind him,then flicked the lock.
"Is that so?" Tapping the brush against her palm, Gennie arched a brow. "I thought you had the room down the hall."
"The MacGregors forgot to put something in there." He stood where he was for a moment, pleased just to look at her.
"Oh? What?"
"You. — Nora Roberts

There are passages and doors
And Realms that lie unseen.
There are Roads both wide and narrow
And no avenue between.
Doors Remain closed for those
Who in sad vanity yet hide.
Yet when Belief is chosen,
The key appears inside.
What is lived now will soon pass,
And what is not will come to Be.
The Door Within must open,
For one to truly see.
Do you see?
Believe and enter. — Wayne Thomas Batson

The hardest lesson is Clare's solitude. Sometimes I come home and Clare seems kind of irritated; I've interrupted some train of thought, broken into the dreary silence of her day. Sometimes I see an expression on Clare's face that is like a closed door. She has gone inside the room of her mind and is sitting there knitting or something. I've discovered that Clare likes to be alone. But when I return from time traveling she is always relieved to see me. — Audrey Niffenegger

The short story narrates the moment when a dark door, long closed, is opened, when a forgotten error is unwittingly repeated, when the fabric of a life is revealed to have been woven from frail and dubious fiber over top of something unknowable and possibly very bad. — Michael Chabon

You sit at the edge of the world,
I am in a crater that's no more.
Words without letters
Standing in the shadow of the door.
The moon shines down on a sleeping lizard,
Little fish rain from the sky.
Outside the window there are soldiers,
steeling themselves to die.
(Refrain)
Kafka sits in a chair by the shore,
Thinking for the pendulum that moves the world, it seems.
When your heart is closed,
The shadow of the unmoving Sphinx,
Becomes a knife that pierces your dreams.
The drowning girl's fingers
Search for the entrance stone, and more.
Lifting the hem of her azure dress,
She gazes
at Kafka on the shore — Haruki Murakami

That is a very different sort of housekeeper you have there," Val said, when the library door had closed behind her. "I know." Westhaven made a sandwich and checked again to make sure his brother hadn't pilfered the marzipan. "She's a little cheeky, to be honest, but does her job with particular enthusiasm. She puts me in mind of Her Grace." "How so?" Val asked, making a sandwich, as well. "Has an indomitable quality about her," Westhaven said between bites. "She bashed me with a poker when she thought I was a caller molesting a housemaid. Put out my lights, thank you very much." "Heavens." Val paused in his chewing. "You didn't summon the watch?" "The appearances were deceiving, and she doesn't know I'd never trifle with a housemaid." "And if you were of a mind to before," Val said, eyeing the marzipan, "you'd sure as hell think twice about it now. — Grace Burrowes

I'm the type of woman you might say is too good. I'll massage a man's feet, have dinner cooked when he gets home. But once they leave, the door is closed, and the locks are changed. — Angie Stone

Frankl discovered that doors are not just physical. A door is a choice. He found that when his circumstances had closed every outer door to him, they revealed to him the doors that matter far more - the doors through which a soul can leave fear and enter into courage, leave hatred and enter into forgiveness, leave ignorance and enter into learning. He discovered that his guards were actually far more imprisoned - by cruelty and ignorance and foolish obedience to barbarism - than he was imprisoned by walls and barbed wire. — John Ortberg

This wasn't just my journey, this wasn't just about me falling down and a man rescuing me, though I did trip and you fell and love did happen for me and was mended and repaired for you. This is about you and me, our fall and rise with the seasons, and about what happened when one door closed for both of us. I don't know if I would be this woman now if it weren't for you, and you may not even think you did anything. — Cecelia Ahern

You want to hear the rules?"
My heart jackhammered as I nodded. That same hand slid around my hip, up under my shirt, and felt warm and perfect against my lower back. I closed my eyes as his lips just barely brushed mine. His touch made me feel brave. It pushed the uncertainty back until it couldn't reach me. "The first one is you can't think too hard about it. The second is you say when you want to stop. The third is you do whatever feels good to you. The fourth is-"
"-you stop talking," I said, blindly reaching back to pull the door shut, "and kiss me? — Alexandra Bracken

Maybe there is an invisible world working behind our own, maybe words in the silence, maybe movements in what looks completely still. When every door is closed, maybe doors are opening that can't be seen. — Lene Fogelberg

They say that at Thomas More's trial, Master Secretary here followed the jury to their deliberations, and when they were seated he closed the door behind him and he laid down the law. "Let me put you out of doubt," he said to the jurymen. "Your task is to find Sir Thomas guilty, and you will have no dinner till you have done it." Then out he went and shut the door again and stood outside it with a hatchet in his hand, in case they broke out in search of a boiled pudding; and being Londoners, they care about their bellies above all things, and as soon as they felt them rumbling they cried, "Guilty! He is as guilty as guilty can be! — Hilary Mantel

Do you remember that piece of footage on the local news, just as the first tower comes down, woman runs in off the street into a store, just gets the door closed behind her, and here comes this terrible black billowing, ash, debris, sweeping through the streets, gale force past the window ... that was the moment, Maxi. Not when 'everything changed.' When everything was revealed. No grand Zen illumination, but a rush of blackness and death. Showing us exactly what we've become, what we've been all the time."
"And what we've always been is ... ?"
"Is living on borrowed time. Getting away cheap. Never caring about who's paying for it, who's starving somewhere else all jammed together so we can have cheap food, a house, a yard in the burbs ... planetwide, more every day, the payback keeps gathering. And meantime the only help we get from the media is boo hoo the innocent dead. Boo fuckin hoo. You know what? All the dead are innocent. There's no uninnocent dead. — Thomas Pynchon

The only time I'm not Hulk Hogan is when I'm behind closed doors because as soon as I walk out the front door, and somebody says hello to me, I can't just say 'hello' like Terry. When they see me, they see the blond hair, the mustache, and the bald head, they instantly think Hulk Hogan. — Hulk Hogan

Closed door means knock," Elena said to Clay, shooing him out.
You've been in here for two hours," he said. "She can't need that much work." He frowned as he examined my outfit. "What the hell is she? A tree?"
"A dryad," Elena said, cuffing him in the arm.
"Oh, my god," Jamie said, surveying my outfit. "We forgot the bag!"
"Bag?" Clay said. "What does a dryad need with-"
"An evening bag," Cassandra said. "A purse."
"She's got a purse. It's right there on the bed."
"That's a day purse," Cassandra snapped.
"What, do they expire when the sun goes down? — Kelley Armstrong

Every man is a door; when the door is closed, just search for the key gently! Remember that every door has a key! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

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

Wilson exchanged his cello for a second set of keys and a clean shirt and jeans. He hadn't been splattered by vomit, but he insisted he reeked of it. I had never seen him in anything but slacks and dress-shirts. The T-shirt was a snug soft blue, and his jeans were worn, though they looked expensive. He hadn't bought them at Hot Topic. Why is it that you can see money even when it comes wrapped in a T-shirt and jeans?
"Nice pants," I commented as he approached me at the door.
"H-huh?" Wilson stammered. And then he smiled. "Oh, uh. Thanks. You mean my trousers."
"Trousers?"
"Yes. Pants are underwear, see. I thought . . . um. Never mind."
"Underwear? You call underwear pants?"
"Let's go, shall we?" He grimaced, ignoring the question and pulling the door closed behind him. He looked so different, and I tried not stare. He was . . . hot. Ugh! — Amy Harmon

But this story ends when you open the door. It doesn't matter if you managed to guess which room is mine, which door I closed behind me. You put your hand on the door handle, you knock, it's all over. End of story. By choosing one, you chose the other, too. Do you understand why? Those two consequences are joined at the hip, they're Siamese twins. Even if you picked the door with the lady behind it - all questions answered, all explanations given, your life solved for you - it's still true that you gave the tiger permission to jump. You gave your assent to catastrophe, you invited tragedy and horror to walk right in. You got lucky, that's all. Mallon — Peter Straub

Women are on the outside when the door to the smoke-filled room is closed. — Millicent Fenwick

I once heard somebody say that God has closed a door on an opportunity they had hoped for. But I've always wondered if, when we want to do something that we know is right and good, God places that desire deep in our hearts because He wants to for us and it honors Him. Maybe there are times when we think a door has been closed and, instead of misinterpreting the circumstances, God want us to kick it down. Or perhaps just sit outside of it long enough until somebody tells us we can come in. — Bob Goff

In the abundance of water a fool is thirsty.
Rat Race, from the album Rastaman Vibration
When one door is closed, many more is open.
Coming in from the Cold, from the album Confrontation
It is better to live on the house top
than to live in a house full of confusion. — Bob Marley

What I've learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head. First there's the vinegar-lipped Reader Lady, who says primly, "Well, that's not very interesting, is it?" And there's the emaciated German male who writes these Orwellian memos detailing your thought crimes. And there are your parents, agonizing over your lack of loyalty and discretion; and there's William Burroughs, dozing off or shooting up because he finds you as bold and articulate as a houseplant; and so on. And there are also the dogs: let's not forget the dogs, the dogs in their pen who will surely hurtle and snarl their way out if you ever stop writing, because writing is, for some of us, the latch that keeps the door of the pen closed, keeps those crazy ravenous dogs contained. — Anne Lamott

The whale house has not changed much. It still stands under the silk cotton tree, its windows shuttered and closed. When she pushes open the door, they don't see her. They are up under the window where the light is green and dim. Aidan is between Ivy's spread, honey legs. Ivy sees her first and makes a strangled cry, trying to push Aidan off and cover her breasts. Aidan climbs to his knees and turns to the door. Behind him, she catches a glimpse of Ivy, the pubic hair waxed to a tiny strip above the neat pink slit, the centre moist and slick. Aidan's face is shocked, moon-like in the dim light, his pants around his knees. Chuck — Sharon Millar

But I took a deep breath, and she sat there listening to me across my dirty coffee table, and we talked about community and family and authenticity. It's easy to talk about it, and really, really hard sometimes to practice it. This is why the door stays closed for so many of us, literally and figuratively. One friend promises she'll start having people over when they finally have money to remodel. Another says she'd be too nervous that people wouldn't eat the food she made, so she never makes the invitation. But it isn't about perfection, and it isn't about performance. You'll miss the richest moments in life - the sacred moments when we feel God's grace and presence through the actual faces and hands of the people we love - if you're too scared or too ashamed to open the door. I know it's scary, but throw open the door anyway, even though someone might see you in your terribly ugly half-zip. — Shauna Niequist

The front door slammed and Dad said, "Aurora, sure you aren't expecting a package?"
I leaned back to find him army-crawling under the window in the living room. Like all dads do. "Already told you no, Rambo."
"The new mailman is back." Dad reached up and pulled the curtains closed before standing up and peeking out. "Won't come to the door."
"M shot a tranquillizer dart at the last guy." Mom gave a tired look at M who shrugged unapologetically. "The fact that there's a new one willing to be on our sidewalk is a miracle. Don't scare him off, Clyde."
Dad tried to block me when I went for the curtains. "He won't let me sign for your package. Demanded you come out in person."
"I'll get my tranq gun!" M made for her room.
"Don't you dare!" Mom chased her.
I swished back the curtains to get a look at the petrifying postman.
"I find his interest in my teenage daughter creepy," Dad grumbled.
Oh, he had no idea. — A&E Kirk

A true friend let's you know that the door is always open, even when it's closed. — Charles F. Glassman

Eventually, decades later, when the king was dying, the queen gently ushered everybody out into the corridor, closed the door to the royal bedchamber, and got into bed with her husband. She started singing to him. They laughed. He was short of breath, but he could still laugh. They asked each other, Is this silly? Is this ... pretentious? But they both knew that everything there was to say had been said already, over and over, across the years. And so the king, relieved, released, free to be silly, asked her to sing him a song from his childhood. He didn't need to be regal anymore, he didn't need to seem commanding or dignified, not with her. They were, in their way, dying together, and they both knew it. It wasn't happening only to him. So she started singing. They shared one last laugh - they agreed that the cat had a better voice than she did. Still, she sang him out of the world. — Michael Cunningham

As long as you hate your enemy, a jail door is closed and a prisoner is taken. But when you try to understand and release your foe from your hatred, then the prisoner is released and that prisoner is you. — Max Lucado

Is that the constables?" Aunt Gin asked, sounding horrified.
"Afraid so," Wax said, pulling the door closed. The carriage lurched into motion, and Steris leaned out the window, waving farewell to the poor innkeeper.
"Framed for murder!" Steris called to her. "It's on page seventeen of the list I gave you! Try not to let them harass our servants too much when they arrive! — Brandon Sanderson