Closed Doors Quotes - Page 5

• Diplomacy is, perhaps, one element of the U.S. government that should not be subject to the demands of 'open government'; whenever it works, it is usually because it is done behind closed doors. But this may be increasingly hard to achieve in the age of Twittering bureaucrats.

  Evgeny Morozov

  Government, Doors, Age

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• I'm still there, watching those possessed children, as far away from the mystery now as I was then. I've never written, though I thought I wrote, never loved, though I thought I loved, never done anything but wait outside the closed door.

  Marguerite Duras

  Children, Doors, Waiting

  Marguerite Duras (2011). “The Lover”, p.25, Pantheon

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• Down the hall came the wife. She was glorious, burning. She didn't know yet that her husband was dead. We knew. That's what gave her such power over us. The doctor took her into a room with a desk at the end of the hall, and from under the closed door a slab of brilliance radiated as if, by some stupendous process, diamonds were being incinerated in there. What a pair of lungs! She shrieked as I imagined an eagle would shriek. It felt wonderful to be alive to hear it! I've gone looking for that feeling everywhere.

  Denis Johnson

  Husband, Doctors, Doors

  "'What a Pair of Lungs!': Denis Johnson’s Ecstatic American Voice" by Philip Gourevitch, www.newyorker.com. May 27, 2017.

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• I knew I had to keep him to myself, as I'd slowly begun to keep everything. We had secrets now, truths and half-truths, that kept her always at arm's length, behind a closed door, miles away.

  Sarah Dessen

  Doors, Secret, Half

  Sarah Dessen (2004). “Someone Like You”, p.53, Penguin

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• He's not in a very good mood," said Luke, pausing in front of a closed door. "I shut him up in Freaky Pete's office after he nearly killed half my pack with his bare hands. He wouldn't talk to me, so"—Luke shrugged—"I thought of you." He looked from Clary's baffled face to Simon's. "What?" "I can't believe he came here," Clary said. "I can't believe you know someone named Freaky Pete," said Simon. "I know a lot of people," said Luke. "Not that Freaky Pete is strictly people, but I'm hardly one to talk.

  Cassandra Clare

  Believe, Doors, Hands

  Cassandra Clare (2009). “City of Ashes”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

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• The struggle to emerge out of the past, clean of memories; the inadequacy of our hearts to cut life into separate and final portions; the pain of this constant ambivalence and interrelation of emotions; the hunger for frontiers against which we might learn as upon closed doors before we proceed forward; the struggle against diffusion, new beginnings, against finality in acts without finality or end, in our cursedly repercussive being.

  Anais Nin

  Pain, Memories, Struggle

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• A verbal promise behind closed doors, even a statement written on paper-these could easily evaporate . . . .

  Suzanne Collins

  Doors, Promise, Paper

  Suzanne Collins (2010). “Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, Book 3)”, p.34, Scholastic Inc.

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• I take back everything I ever said about that boy being clever." He turned around to face the bar while leveling an accusatory finger at the closed door. "That," he said firmly to the room in general, "is what comes of working with iron every day.

  Patrick Rothfuss

  Clever, Boys, Doors

  Patrick Rothfuss (2011). “The Wise Man's Fear: The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day Two”, p.30, Penguin

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• Reading is a private pursuit; one that takes place behind closed doors.

  Siri Hustvedt

  Reading, Doors, Imbibing

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• Deep down, underneath all his layers of stupidity, he’s a really good man. He may act out far too many selfish thoughts, says all the wrong things at all the wrong times, but behind closed doors he’s a best friend. I understand that he has idiotic tendencies and I can still love him for it. He may not be someone that you feel comfortable sitting next to at a dinner party but for me, he’s someone that I feel comfortable sharing my life with.

  Cecelia Ahern

  Selfish, Party, Men

  Cecelia Ahern (2005). “Rosie Dunne”, Wheeler Pub Incorporated

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• Dear God, surely you aren't the chef Sam was talking about?" "No," he said with a laugh, and gestured behind him with a thumb. "Cale here is." "Kale?" Alex echoed blankly, her eyes sliding to the still half-closed door. She didn't see any evidence of a second man. Frowning, she set the phone back in its receiver and leaned to the side, trying to see out into the kitchen as she muttered, "Kale is a vegetable.

  Lynsay Sands

  Eye, Men, Talking

  Lynsay Sands (2010). “Hungry For You: An Argeneau Novel”, p.32, Harper Collins

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• Suicide. A sideways word, a word that people whisper and mutter and cough: a word that must be squeezed out behind cupped palms or murmured behind closed doors. It was only in dreams that I heard the word shouted, screamed.

  Lauren Oliver

  Suicide, Dream, Doors

  Lauren Oliver, Veronica Roth, Lauren Conrad, Sara Shepard, Kiera Cass (2012). “Must-Read Teen Novel Sampler: For the Teen in All of Us: A Collection of Fabulous Reads”, p.16, Harper Collins

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• The world is the closed door. It is a barrier. And at the same time it is the way through.

  Simone Weil

  Doors, World, Way

  Simone Weil (1952). “Gravity and Grace”, p.200, U of Nebraska Press

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• That’s how Ptolemy imagined the disposition of his memories, his thoughts: they were still his, still in the range of his thinking, but they were, many and most of them, locked on the other side a closed door that he’s lost the key for. So his memory became like secrets held away from his own mind. But these secrets were noisy things; they babbled and muttered behind the door, and so if he listened closely he might catch a snatch of something he once knew well.

  Walter Mosley

  Memories, Thinking, Doors

  "Mosley's 'Last Days' Restores Memory, But At A Cost". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. December 6, 2010.

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• Gideon was an untamed animal behind closed doors, a lover who bared me to the soul every time he made love to me.

  Sylvia Day

  Animal, Doors, Soul

  Sylvia Day (2015). “Sylvia Day Crossfire Series Four Book Collection”, p.882, Penguin UK

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• My mother's great. She has the major looks. She could stop you from doing anything, through a closed door even, with a single look. Without saying a word, she has that power to rip out your tonsils.

  Whoopi Goldberg

  Mom, Mother, Rip

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• [In research on bacteria metabolism] we have indeed much the same position as an observer trying to gain an idea of the life of a household by careful scrutiny of the persons and material arriving or leaving the house; we keep accurate records of the foods and commodities left at the door and patiently examine the contents of the dust-bin and endeavour to deduce from such data the events occurring within the closed doors.

  Marjory Stephenson

  Science, Doors, Dust

  Marjory Stephenson (1939). “Bacterial metabolism”

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• I always wanted a father. Any kind. A strict one, a funny one, one who bought me pink dresses, one who wished I was a boy. One who traveled, one who never got up out of his Morris chair. Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. I wanted shaving cream in the sink and whistling on the stairs. I wanted pants hung by their cuffs from a dresser drawer. I wanted change jingling in a pocket and the sound of ice cracking in a cocktail glass at five thirty. I wanted to hear my mother laugh behind a closed door.

  Judy Blundell

  Mother, Father, Boys

  Judy Blundell (2010). “What I Saw and How I Lied”, p.61, Scholastic Inc.

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• Domestic violence is often ignored as it usually happens behind closed doors and it can seem easier not to get involved. Yet, domestic violence continues to affect 1 in 4 women at some point in their lifetime, regardless of their background, career, race or age, and it is vital that we do something now to protect those directly affected by abuse in the home.

  John Nettles

  Home, Race, Doors

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• We shall soon be obliged to meet in cellars, or in darkened rooms with closed doors, and speak in whispers lest our next door neighbors should hear that freeborn citizens dare not speak in the open.

  Emma Goldman

  Doors, Citizens, Rooms

  Emma Goldman, Candace Falk, Barry Pateman, Jessica M. Moran (2004). “Emma Goldman: Making speech free, 1902-1909”, p.583, Univ of California Press

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• The logic: Reading is a private pursuit, one that often takes place behind closed doors. A young lady might retreat with a book, might even take it into her boudoir, and there, reclining on here silken sheets, imbibing the thrills and chills manufactured by writerly quills, one of her hands, one not absolutely needed to grip the little volume, might wander. The fear, in short, as one-handed reading. [p. 146]

  Siri Hustvedt

  Book, Reading, Doors

  Siri Hustvedt (2011). “The Summer Without Men”, p.71, Hachette UK

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• Separation anxiety is assuaged by constant connection. Young people announce every detail of their lives on services like Twitter not to show off, but to avoid the closed door at bedtime, the empty room, the screaming vacuum of an isolated mind.

  Jaron Lanier

  Doors, Empty Rooms, People

  Jaron Lanier (2010). “You Are Not a Gadget”, p.180, Vintage

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• For twenty years it had been generally known that an insidious Lobby was maintained in Washington to influence legislation and executive action on behalf of vested interests. ... The lobby was a creature of darkness. It worked behind closed doors and whispered in corners. This ancient industry was one form of invisible government.

  Margaret Case Harriman

  Business, Doors, Years

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• The things that happen to people we never really know. What happens in houses behind closed doors, what secrets -

  Harper Lee

  Doors, People, House

  Harper Lee (1960). “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”

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• The reality is if we sit back and allow a few officials behind closed doors to launch offensive attacks without any oversight against foreign nations, against people we don't like, against political groups, radicals, and extremists whose ideas we may not agree with, and could be repulsive or even violent - if we let that happen without public buy-in, we won't have any seat at the table of government to decide whether or not it's appropriate for these officials to drag us into some kind of war activity that we don't want, but we weren't aware of at the time.

  Edward Snowden

  War, Reality, Government

  Source: www.pbs.org

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