A Quote by Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander

[On being first black woman to earn a PhD in economics and first black woman admitted to Pennsylvania bar:] I never looked for anybody to hold the door open for me. I knew well that the only way I could get that door open was to knock it down: because I knocked all of them down.

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander

Quote Topics

Admitted Anybody Bar Because Being Black Could Door Down Earn Economics First Get Hold Knew Knock Knocked Looked Me Never Only Open Pennsylvania PhD Them Way Well Woman

Quote Author

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander
Attorney
January 2, 1898 - November 1, 1989

I knew well that the only way I could get that door open was to knock it down; because I knocked all of them down.

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander

...I also have an extended family. The people who stayed. The people who became more than friends; the people who open the door when I knock. That's what it all boils down to. The people who have to open the door, not because they always want to but because they do.

Diane Keaton

I was raised in a completely black world. In those days, if a white woman married a black man, she lived as a black woman, and that was just the end of it. So, I don't have a feeling of being bi-racial. I don't have a connection to it. People often come up to me thinking I do have a connection to it, and I kind of let them down because I really don't.

Shelby Steele

The racism, the sexism, I never let it be my problem. It's their problem. If I see a door comin' my way, I'm knockin' it down. And if I can't knock down the door, I'm sliding through the window. I'll never let it stop me from what I wanna do.

Rosie Perez

There was one time they knocked me out and laid me in front of my mother's door. And in order for my mother not to be shocked they readjusted my clothes and they saw that nothing was rumpled and I looked very comfortable next to the apartment door, so when my mother would open the door it wouldn't be that much of a shock.

Jack Kirby

Sometimes fate or life or whatever you want to call it, leaves a door a little open and you walk through it. But sometimes it locks the door and you have to find the key, or pick the lock, or knock the damn thing down. And sometimes, it doesn’t even show you the door, and you have to build it yourself.

Gayle Forman

Knowing that I was potentially going to be the first black Bachelorette actually held me back from wanting to do it. With the first, there's always so much pressure. And I knew I was going to be new to the audience as a lead for a number of reasons - being over 30, being a career woman, and also being black.

Rachel Lindsay

When people keep repeating That you'll never fall in love When everybody keeps retreating But you can't seem to get enough Let my love open the door Let my love open the door Let my love open the door To your heart.

Pete Townshend

All the knowledge that I get, all the access that I get, I try to pass that down. And not open a door, and close it behind me. But open a door and see how many people behind me that I can pull in with me, and start showing the value of diversity, the value of having that different perspective than yours.

Bobby Wagner

The key word for my book The Woman in Black is unsettling... because you're not terrified all of the time or even frightened, but you're unsettled and once you're unsettled, then the door's open.

Susan Hill

My mother raised me to open the car door, open the door; if you take a woman out, you should pick up the check, and blah blah blah - whatever.

John Corabi

When Miss Williams was crowned Miss America in 1983, she opened the door for Black women around the world to achieve immeasurable dreams the same way Hattie McDaniel did as the first Black woman to ever win an Academy Award.

Kenya Moore

I had an apartment and I had a neighbor, and whenever he would knock on my wall I knew he wanted me to turn my music down and that made me angry 'cause I like loud music... so when he knocked on the wall, I'd mess with his head. I'd say Go around I cannot open the wall I dunno if you have a door on your side but over here there's nothin'. It's just flat.

Mitch Hedberg

I get to say I was alive when the first Palestinian woman went to Congress. I was alive when the first Somali woman, in a hijab, who's black and Muslim - she's literally an immigrant, a refugee, black and Muslim and a woman and progressive.

Linda Sarsour

It doesn't do any good to hold the door open for someone if they don't have a way to walk through it. And if they do have a way to pass through it then you probably don't need to hold it open because they can open it for themselves.