A Quote by Jane Hirshfield

There is a door. It opens. Then it is closed. But a slip of light stays, like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor, or the one red leaf the snow releases in March — © Jane Hirshfield
There is a door. It opens. Then it is closed. But a slip of light stays, like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor, or the one red leaf the snow releases in March
Insomnia’s different,” I said. It was hard to explain this to people. “You know the light that comes on when you open the refrigerator door? Just imagine it stays on all the time, even after you close the door. That’s what it’s like in my head. The light stays on.
You can learn from an ordinary bamboo leaf what ought to happen. It bends lower and lower under the weight of snow. Suddenly the snow slips to the ground without the leaf having stirred. Stay like that at the point of highest tension until the shot falls from you. So, indeed, it is: when the tension is fulfilled, the shot must fall, it must fall from the archer like snow from a bamboo leaf, before he even thinks it.
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.
When one door closes, another one opens, but sometimes we wait too long looking at the closed door, and never realize that another door has been opened.
One leaf left on a branch and not a sound of sadness or despair. One leaf left on a branch and no unhappiness. One leaf left all by itself in the air and it does not speak of loneliness or death. One leaf and it spends itself in swaying mildly in the breeze.
It is one of life's laws that as soon as one door closes another opens. But the tragedy is we look at the closed door and disregard the open one.
When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
Don't assume a door is closed; push on it. Don't assume if it was closed yesterday that it is closed today. Don't ever stop learning and improving your mind. If you do, you're going to be left behind.
We all stood and gathered our backpacks and I looked at the floor around my chair to make sure I hadn’t dropped anything. I was terrified of unwittingly leaving behind a scrap of paper on which were written all my private desires and humiliations. The fact that no such scrap of paper existed, that I did not even keep a diary or write letters except bland, earnest, falsely cheerful ones to my family (We lost to St. Francis in soccer, but I think we’ll win our game this Saturday; we are working on self-portraits in art class, and the hardest part for me is the nose) never decreased my fear.
Religious freedom opens a door for Americans that is closed to too many others around the world. But whether we walk through that door, and what we do with our lives after we do, is up to us.
God has always opened one door after another. Sometimes you think all the doors are closed and just when you think that, a door opens.
Okay, that really shouldn't have happened. And we’re not going to talk about that, right? Ever?” “Right,” she said. She felt like there was light dripping from her fingertips. Spilling out of her toes. She felt full of light, in fact, warm buttery sunlight. “Never happened.” He opened his mouth, then closed it, and closed his eyes. “Claire—” “I know.” “Lock the door,” he said.
The sun is all love and murder, judgement, the perpetual raid of conscience, paratrooping light which opens like a snow-blossom in the downward drift of death. Wherever I turn - the golden cymbals of judgement, the summoning of the torturers of light.
You make a movie, and if there's a red light flashing in the distance, everyone thinks that the director had a whole lot of money and a great idea that the red light means something. Then you say, 'Yeah, we couldn't afford to shut the red light off that was broken two blocks away.'
When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long in disappointment and bitterness at the closed door that we do not expectantly look for and therefore see with pleasure and gratitude the one which has been opened for us.
A door opens to me. I go in and am faced with a hundred closed doors.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!