The Closet Quotes

I tore open the closet door and began feverishly sorting through the shirts piled on the floor in the vain hope that inside that pile there might be some wondrously perfect shirt down there, a nice and tough but I'm also a surprisingly good listener with a true and abiding passion for cheers and those who lead them. ~ John Green

I wanted to explore this idea that the bogey man in the closet is scary, but being a mother is scarier. ~ Joe Hill

It's less about coming out and more about letting people in. I learned that you come out to let people in. The reality is that the closet doesn't only hide you from strangers, the closet also hides you from people you love. ~ Jose Antonio Vargas

Spare neither labor in the study, prayer in the closet, nor zeal in the pulpit. If men do not judge their souls to be worth a thought, compel them to see that their minister is of a vex], different opinion. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Pink Balloons

My name is Olivia King

I am five years old

My mother bought me a balloon. I remember the day she walked through the front door with it. The curly hot pink ribbon trickling down her arm, wrapped around her wrist. She was smiling at me as she untied the ribbon and wrapped it around my hand.

"Here Livie, I bought this for you."

She called me Livie.

I was so happy. I'd never had a balloon before. I mean, I always saw balloon wrapped around other kids wrist in the parking lot of Wal-Mart, but I never dreamed I would have my very own.

My very own pink balloon.

I was excited! So ecstatic! So thrilled! I couldn't believe my mother bought me something! She'd never bought me anything before! I played with it for hours. It was full of heliu and it danced and swayed and floated as I drug it around from room to room with me, thinking of places to take it. Thinking of places the balloon had never been before. I took it in the bathroom, the closet, the laundry room, the kitchen, the living room. I wanted my new best friend to see everything I saw! I took it to my mother's bedroom!

My mothers

Bedroom?

Where I wasn't supposed to be?

With my pink

balloon...

I covered my ears as she screamed at me, wiping the evidence off her nose! She slapped me across the face as she told me how bad I was! How much I misbehaved! How I never ~ Colleen Hoover

The coming revival must begin with a great revival of prayer. It is in the closet, with the door shut, that the sound of abundance of rain will first be heard. An increase of secret prayer with ministers will be the sure harbinger of blessing. ~ Andy Murray

Over the past thirty-five years, untold numbers of gay Christians have turned from God in their "failure" and "inability to please God," who, they were told, could not accept them as a gay person. Some felt so rejected and depressed that they turned to self-destructive behaviors, including suicide; some went deep in the closet to try to fit in at church; some became vehemently opposed to all things religious; some decided to seek God in other religions, or no religion; and very few individuals were able to find a church community in which they could worship and serve God without being rejected. ~ Kathy Baldock

I say my hell is the closet I'm stuck inside. ~ Dave Matthews

[Henry James'] essay's closing lines can either be read neutrally or as a more purposeful wish that this mystery [of Shakespeare's authorship] will one day be resolved by the 'criticism of the future': 'The figured tapestry, the long arras that hides him, is always there ... May it not then be but a question, for the fullness of time, of the finer weapon, the sharper point, the stronger arm, the more extended lunge?' Is Shakespeare hinting here that one day critics will hit upon another, more suitable candidate, identify the individual in whom the man and artist converge and are 'one'? If so, his choice of metaphor - recalling Hamlet's lunge at the arras in the closet scene - is fortunate. Could James have forgotten that the sharp point of Hamlet's weapon finds the wrong man? ~ James Shapiro

My body never belonged to me. You must have felt that too. If someone wanted to beat me, they could beat me. If someone wanted to lock me in the closet, they could. Childhood is such a perverse injustice, I don't know how anyone survives it without going crazy. But I have a chance to turn the tables. I have a chance to run the streets and be a wealthy woman. No one is ever, ever, ever going to treat me with disrespect again. ~ Heather O'Neill

The more it happens, the easier it is for others, although I do understand why some actors choose not to come out. I have several famous friends who are still in the closet. ~ Cheyenne Jackson

Anderson Cooper has a job to do. And that job is to try to reinforce his credibility in the gay community after the fact that you couldn't get him out of the closet for 10 years with a canister of tear gas. Now he's the sheriff; now he's running around writing everybody a ticket! ~ Alec Baldwin

Welcome to the real world of marriage, where hairs are always on the sink and little white spots cover the mirror, where arguments center on which way the toilet paper comes off and whether the lid should be up or down. It is a world where shoes do not walk to the closet and drawers do not close themselves, where coats do not like hangers and socks go AWOL during laundry. In this world, a look can hurt and a word can crush. Intimate lovers can become enemies, and marriage a battlefield. ~ Gary Chapman

Her room was darkened with the curtains drawn, but he could sense her inside, moving around quietly. Her heartbeat had turned languid; she must be preparing for bed. He cocked his head, listening intently. The closet door opened and shut, and there was the sound of running water. He held the goblet with such tense care his fingers began to ache.
When she had turned the faucet off, he said telepathically, "Tess, come to your window."
Startled, frozen silence. Then the languid pace of her heart exploded into a furious rhythm.
For a moment, when she didn't move, he thought she might disobey and end their tenuous relationship. Then he heard the soft rustle of cloth, and the creak of floorboards. When she appeared in the darkened window, she looked shadowy, like the half-hidden, opaque moon, her skin pale like pearls and hair lustrous with darkness.
She looked down at him but said nothing.
He held the goblet up to show it to her. "Are you sure you want to give this to me?"
Because it mattered. It mattered what she said. While the struggle made the offering sweet, it was the act of the gift itself that was the vital part of the covenant.
She didn't respond for long moments. He stood motionless as he waited, until finally she moved to put her hand to the windowpane.
"Yes."
He inclined his head to her, brought the goblet to his lips and drank.
Pure, undiluted power slid down his throat. Like the delicate skin at her wrist, it was warm ~ Thea Harrison

people were like icebergs--most of what really went on, especially the ugliness, was submerged ~ Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

My cousin is an agoraphobic homosexual, which makes it kind of hard for him to come out of the closet. ~ Bill Kelly

As soon as we arrived home, I told Bliss I was going to take a shower. Sundays were a two-show day, so I certainly needed it. I let her go in first to brush her teeth. I waited for the water to turn on, then leapt into action. I found Hamlet's feathered cat toy (the only reason she would ever willingly get close to Bliss), and hid it underneath the bed. Then I went to the closet and found the suit coat pocket where I'd hidden the ring. I popped open the box to look at it one more time.

It wasn't much. I was only an actor, after all. But Bliss wasn't one to wear much jewelry any way. It was simple and sparkling, and I hoped she would love it as much as I loved her. A popping sensation filled my gut like those silly candy rocks that Bliss loved.

What if I was pushing her too fast?

No. No, I'd thought this out. It was the best way. I opened the top drawer of the nightstand, and slid the ring box toward the back. The water in the bathroom shut off, and I went back to the closet, shucking my shirt. I tossed it in the hamper at the same time Bliss walked in the room.

She came up behind me and placed a hand on my bare back. She pressed a small kiss on my shoulder and asked, "Get Hamlet for me before you shower?"

I smiled, and nodded.

Bliss was so determined to make Hamlet like her that she played with the cat for at least half an hour before bed every night. Hamlet would stick around for as long as Bliss waved t ~ Cora Carmack

Yoshino distinguishes covering from "conversion" (trying to become straight) and "passing" (staying in the closet), and points out that even after gay people come out, society exerts a "covering demand" on its minority members. I would argue that, by pleading for more magnanimous treatment of our opponents, gay thought leaders were unconsciously applying the covering demand to the LGBT equality movement as a whole. ~ Michelangelo Signorile

The boy in the closet is your boyfriend. He loves you and will tell you all about last night. ~ Cat Patrick

Livia located her fancy jacket and stepped out of the closet. Blake took the coat from her and held it out in an old-fashioned ritual only he could get away with. He moved Livia's hair out of the way and kissed her neck as he buttoned each of her buttons from behind her. He skimmed parts of her she wished he would linger on. She turned her head to claim his lips.
They kissed until he stepped back and shook his head, as if to clear it. "I can only take so much of that with your bed so close. ~ Debra Anastasia

I think I started out okay but with AIDS came a great deal of silence about gayness and this period of lose and morning, but at the same time a kind of feeling like you wanted to get back into the closet because being gay was such a terrible thing at that point. ~ Margaret Cho

I know how much parents love buying clothes for their kids and how they want to give them something new in the closet. ~ Liya Kebede

Now that we all have partners, all husbands should come pick up their
projects."
Pick up our project? Shrugging, I stand up and stretch my arms. Henry also stands. "No way, dude," I say. "I'm the man in this relationship."
"Oh yeah, absolutely," he says, grinning. He sits back down as I walk to the closet to see this project, which turns out to be one of those fake
electronic babies. Oh good God. Ms. Bonner hands me a fake baby boy. The doll has these creepy glass eyes that look like they're staring straight
into my soul. I hold the doll out in front of me like it's a flaming bag of poo and carry it back to Henry.
"Congratulations, Mommy," I say, dropping the doll into his hands. You could've told me I knocked you up. ~ Miranda Kenneally

Alex grinned and then walked past him, murmuring, "I applaud you for your courage."
"Courage?" he asked with confusion.
"Hmm." She headed for the door to the hall, swinging her purse gaily as she went. "Many men find it difficult to come out of the closet. ~ Lynsay Sands

it occurred to him that kids were better at almost dying, and they were also better at incorporating the inexplicable into their lives. They believed implicitly in the invisible world. Miracles both bright and dark were to be taken into consideration, oh yes, most certainly, but they by no means stopped the world. A sudden upheaval of beauty or terror at ten did not preclude an extra cheesedog or two for lunch at noon.

"But when you grew up, all that changed. You no longer lay awake in your bed, sure something was crouching in the closet or scratching at the window ... but when something did happen, something beyond rational explanation, the circuits overloaded. The axons and dendrites got hot. You started to jitter and jive, you started to shake rattle and roll, your imagination started to hop and bop and do the funky chicken all over your nerves. You couldn't just incorporate what had happened into your life experience. It didn't digest. Your mind kept coming back to it, pawing it lightly like a kitten with a ball of string ... until eventually, of course, you either went crazy or got to a place where it was impossible for you to function. ~ Stephen King

Last night I had the dream again. Except it's not a dream I know because when it comes for me, I'm still awake.
There's my desk. The map on the wall. The Stuffed animals I don't play with anymore but don't want to hurt Dad's feelings by sticking in the closet I might be in bed. I might be just standing there, looking foe a missing sock. Then i'm gone.
it doesn't just show me somthing this time, it takes me from here to THERE> standing on the bank of a river of fire. A thousand wasps in my head. Fighting and dying inside my skull, their bodies piling up against the backs of me eyes. Stinging and stinging.
Dad's voice. Somewhere across the river. Calling my name. I've never heard him sound like that before. He's so frightened he can't hide it, even though he tries (he ALWAYS tries).
The dead boy floats by.
Facedown. So I wait for his head to pop up, show the holes where his eye used to be, say somthing with his blue lips. One of the terrible things it might make him do. But he just passes like a chunk of wood. I've never been here before, but I know it's real. The river is the line between this place and the Other Place. And I'm on the wrong side. There's a dark forest behind me but that's not what it is. I try to get to where Dad is. My toes touch the river and it sings with pain. Then there's arms pulling me back. Dragging me into the trees. They feel like a man's arms but it's not a man that sticks its fingers into my mouth. Nails that scratch the ~ Andrew Pyper

At the Unitarian Universalist Christmas pageant in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it didn't matter that Mary insisted on keeping her nails painted black or that Joseph had come out of the closet. On December 25 at seven and nine p.m., three wise women would follow the men down the aisle -- one wearing a kimono and another, African garb; instead of myrrh they would bring chicken soup, instead of frankincense they'd play lullabies. The shepherds had a line on protecting the environment and the innkeeper held a foreclosure sign. No one quite believed in God and no one quite didn't -- so they made it about the songs and the candles and the pressing together of bodies on lacquered wooden pews. ~ Marina Keegan

Cowgirl Interlude (Bonanza Jellybean)
She is lying on the family sofa in flannel pajamas. There is Kansas City mud on the tips and heels of her boots, boots that have yet to savor real manure. Fourteen, she knows she ought to remove her boots, yet she refuses. A Maverick rerun is on TV; she is eating beef jerky, occasionally slurping. On her upper stomach, where her pajama top has ridden up, is a small deep scar. She tells everyone, including her school nurse, that it was made by a silver bullet.
Whatever the origin of the extra hole in her belly, there are unmistakable signs of gunfire int he woodwork by the closet door. It was there that she once shot up one half of an old pair of sneakers. "Self-defense," she pleaded, when her parents complained. "It was a [sic] out-law tennis shoe.
Billy the Ked. ~ Tom Robbins

One thing that pisses me off royally is hearing drug companies denounced as the devil. I don't like giant corporations (or, in the words of Spalding Gray, "the big indifferent machine") any more than anyone else, but I really don't like wanting to kill myself. A person who denounces psychopharmaceuticals based on a political agenda is a person who has never lain crumpled in a ball in the closet, sobbing uncontrollably, face covered in Sharpie, throat raw from induced vomiting. Accordingly, that person should be thankful and shut the hell up. ~ Stacy Pershall

I think the gay community, as a whole, is slighted by high-profile figures who remain in the closet. But I think that a lot of times we need to ask ourselves what that person's role in our community would be if they were out of the closet. ~ Christopher Rice

To be set on fire, you must get close to God. When you feel cold, distant, and "out of it" spiritually, it's time to retreat to the closet, place yourself before the fireplace of His word, and allow the intensity of His face to restore your fervency. ~ Bob Sorge

I would stay at my grandma's house on my birthday every year and I remember she had a bookshelf of murder mystery books along with really frightening books, like one on Jack the Ripper. She also had a poster of a shark in the closet which also terrified me at the time. ~ Christopher Bollen

Nearly thirty years on, despite Pejic's unpopularity with some feminists and the closet-cases who write for US FHM, 1980s Marilyn and his shameless, shining desire to be desired looks more like a glamorous prophet, preparing the way for the Metrosexy 21st Century. ~ Mark Simpson

Whether we are Christians or Muslims or nationalists or agnostics or atheists, we must first learn to forget our differences. If we have differences, let us differ in the closet; when we come out in front, let us not have anything to argue about until we get finished arguing with the man. If the late President Kennedy could get together with Khrushchev and exchange some wheat, we certainly have more in common with each other than Kennedy and Khrushchev had with each other. ~ Malcolm X

I brought a picture with me that I had at home, of a girl in a swing with a castle and pretty blue bubbles in the background, to hang in my room, but that nurse here said the girl was naked from the waist up and not appropriate. You know, I've had that picture for fifty years and I never knew she was naked. If you ask me, I don't think the old men they've got here can see well enough to notice that she's bare-breasted. But, this is a Methodist home, so she's in the closet with my gallstones. ~ Fannie Flagg

I took her dress over to the closet and hung it up. It was funny. It made me feel sort of sad when I hung it up. I thought of her going in a store and buying it, and nobody in the store knowing she was a prostitute and all. The salesman probably just thought she was a regular girl when she bought it. It made me feel sad as hell- I don't know why exactly. ~ J.D. Salinger

in the closet to grab a Sunday school ~ Tina Fey

No one else. It was me who had to carry myself over the finish line, and all I needed to remember when I felt like not trying was that that feeling wouldn't last forever.
Forever.
I used to believe it didn't exist. One word has terrified me as a child and it haunted me. But now I knew, and many small ways, but it was real, But it didn't scare me anymore. Forever wasn't a little girl cowering in the closet. Forever wasn't the shadows sitting in the back of the class. Forever wasn't doing what I thought Carl and Rose wanted instead of what I needed to do with my life. Forever wasn't believing I was some kind of replacement daughter and that I was letting them down. Forever wasn't being the one who needed protection. Forever wasn't pain and grief forever wasn't a problem. Forever was my heartbeat and it was the hope tomorrow held. Forever was the glistening silver lining of the dark cloud, no matter how heavy and thick it was. Forever was knowing it moments of weakness didn't equate to an eternity of them. Forever was knowing that I was strong. Forever was Carl and Rosa, Ainsley and Kira, Hector and Rider. Jaden would always be a part of my forever. Forever was in the fire-breathing dragon inside me that had shed the fear like a snake shedding skin. Forever was simply a promise of more. Forever was a work in progress. And I couldn't wait for forever. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Optimism is contagious, he states.
If that were the case, all your would have to do is go to the person you loved with a huge grin, full of plans and ideas, and know how to present the package. Does it work? No. What is really contagious is fear, the constant fear of never finding someone to accompany us to the end of our days. And in the name of this fear we are capable of doing anything, including accepting the wrong person and convincing ourselves that he or she's the one, the only one, who God has placed in our path. In very little time the search for security turns into a heartfelt love, and things become less bitter and difficult. Our feelings can be put in a box and pushed to the back of the closet in our head, where it will remain forever, hidden and invisible. ~ Paulo Coelho

A wise man sings his joy in the closet of his heart. ~ Tibullus

The monster is only scary while it is in the closet.
Once in the light,
you can see its many flaws
and weaknesses.

And often,
we end up laughing,
at what we shield our eyes from
no more. ~ Tom Althouse

Market bashers ... might understand the claim that in some particular field, markets required no intervention
though they'd be skeptical
but the notion that, on general principle, complex systems ran themselves just fine without benign intervention seemed like it could only be the product of a quasi-religious faith ... Of course, this gets things almost precisely backwards. It is the idea that all order must be explained by a functioning mind at the helm, not its denial, that has the closet affinity to the religious instinct. ~ Julian Sanchez

In consequence of this information, Wilhelm, with the most sedulous attention, set about preparing the piece, which was to usher him into the great world. "Hitherto," said he, "thou hast labored in silence for thyself, applauded only by a small circle of friends. Thou hast for a time despaired of thy abilities, and are yet full of anxious doubts whether even thy present path is the right one, and whether thy talent for the stage at all corresponds with thy inclination for it. In the hearing of such practised judges, in the closet where no illusion can take place, the attempt is far more hazardous than elsewhere; and yet I would not willingly recoil from the experiment: I could wish to add this pleasure to my former enjoyments, and, if it might be, to give extension and stability to my hopes from the future. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Water droplets streamed down her face and clung to her eyelashes. She blinked up at him with mischief in her eyes, and the urge to kiss her overwhelmed him. Not like he had in the closet, with care and discretion, but with hunger and passion and pent up desire. He wanted to take her bottom lip between his teeth and deal with the consequences later. ~ Robin Bielman

I don't think you have any control over who you are-it just happens. Sometimes in the morning I wake up and don't know who I am. I have to get out of bed and open the closet door, and then I think, oh yes, I'm the girl in the red dress. ~ MacDonald Harris

All women are strong. My mother survived Auschwitz, and fear wasn't an option when we were growing up. If we were afraid of the dark, we were put into the closet until we weren't. ~ Diane Von Furstenberg

Did you know, God damn it, that Les was all for bringing a tangerine in to you last night before he went to bed? My God. Even Bessie can't stand stories with tangerines in them. And God knows I can't. If you're going to go on with this breakdown business, I wish to hell you'd go back to college to have it. Where you're not the baby of the family. And where, God knows, nobody'll have any urges to bring you any tangerines. And where you don't keep your goddam tap shoes in the closet. ~ J.D. Salinger

If I was gay, there would be no closet. You would never see the closet I came out of. Why? Because I'd have burned it for kindling by the time I was twelve ... If I was gay, at this stage of the game?age 37, aging alternative icon?I'd be taking out ads. ~ Henry Rollins

This was her flaw as a parent, she thought later: she had never truly gotten rid of a single maternal worry. They were all in the closet, with the minuscule footed pajamas and hand-knit baby hats, and every day Laura took them out, unfolded them, tried to put them to use. ~ Elizabeth McCracken

The true ugliness of the closet is its subtlety. It eats away at your soul bit by bit and you don't even realize it. If you never deal with it or comes to terms with it, then ultimately the closet will destroy you. ~ Gar McVey-Russell

I am not allowed to be afraid. My mother made me like that. As a child, if I was afraid of the dark, she would lock me in the closet. Things like this. And she would talk about the time she spent in the concentration camp, but not about being afraid, only about the good side of it. ~ Diane Von Furstenberg

I wonder what her secret is. Everyone has one, a skeleton in the closet just waiting for a necromancer. I'd rather not have my shit lifted up from the grave and sicced on the world, but it looks like it's happening whether I want it to or not. ~ C.M. Stunich

That was the big joke, wasn't it? The answer to the riddle: There was no one up there in Heaven, making sure the accounts came out right. I'd solved it, hadn't I? Cracked the code? It was all just a joke. The god inside my brother's head was just his disease. My mother had knelt every night and prayed to her own steepled hands. Your baby died because of ... because of no particular reason at all. Your wife left you because you sucked all the oxygen out of the room, so you pretended she was the one in bed with you while you screwed your girlfriend and her boyfriend hid in the closet, watching. ~ Wally Lamb

I personally don't do any hard drugs, because they get in the way of me getting to my base issues, and I'd rather get rid of the excess baggage than find a way to shove it deeper in the closet. ~ Axl Rose

Hey, nit squat! These are written by norms to scare norms. And do you know what the monsters and demons and rancid spirits are? Us, that's what. You and me. We are the things that come to the norms in nightmares. The thing that lurks in the bell tower and bites out the throats of the choirboys - that's you, Oly. And the thing in the closet that makes the babies scream in the dark before it sucks their last breath - that's me. And the rustling in the brush and the strange piping cries that chill the spine on a deserted road at twilight - that's the twins singing practice scales while they look for berries. ~ Katherine Dunn

My second husband encouraged me to go to a writing group at our local theatre. It was my 'coming out of the closet' moment. ~ Sue Townsend

Many lesbians were so far in the closet they were in danger of being mistaken for garment bags. ~ Rita Mae Brown

Conservatives are now largely fighting rearguard actions. They are trying to reassemble a world that never really existed quite as they imagine it (and to the extent that it did, it existed at the expense of all the people - the vast majority of us - forced to disappear, into the closet, the kitchen, segregated space, invisibility and silence). Thanks ~ Rebecca Solnit

I get why certain actors want to stay in the closet. ~ Adam Lambert

The fact that, for so many generations, ordinary, everyday Americans came out of the closet and told their family and friends about who they are has laid the foundation for public sentiment to change. They got comfortable in their own skins to be able to share themselves with family and friends. This is where social change took place. ~ Mark Takano

Our gridlocked conflicts contain the potential for great intimacy between us. But we have to feel safe enough to pull our dreams out of the closet. When we wear them, our partner may glimpse how beautiful we are - fragile but shimmering. Then, with understanding, our partners may join us in being dream catchers, rather than dream shredders. ~ John M. Gottman

found her in the closet. ~ Denise Grover Swank

No man is really changed by success. What happens is that success works on the man's personality like a truth drug, bringing him out of the closet and revealing ... what was always inside his head. ~ Albert Goldman

I think as far as I've been able to understand from my friends that I went to college with and things like that is that it almost seems like Russian Roulette when you're coming out of the closet to your parents. ~ Jason Ritter

Someone once told me that being in the closet is like living in a vertical casket. Perfect description. ~ Jane Velez-Mitchell

There's a magic phone in my childhood bedroom. I unplugged it this morning and hid it in the closet.
Maybe all the phones in the house are magic.
Or maybe I'm magic. Temporary magic. (Ha! Time travel pun!) ~ Rainbow Rowell

I never wanted anyone to know about me and Osama [Bin Laden]. I wanted that to be a secret that I carried to my grave, and since I wasn't the one who revealed it'it's definitely something that I wish was in the closet. It's destroyed my career. ~ Kola Boof

That night, before bed, he goes first to Willem's side of the closet, which he has still not emptied. Here are Willem's shirts on their hangers, and his sweaters on their shelves, and his shoes lined up beneath. He takes down the shirt he needs, a burgundy plaid woven through with threads of yellow, which Willem used to wear around the house in the springtime, and shrugs it on over his head. But instead of putting his arms through its sleeves, he ties the sleeves in front of him, which makes the shirt look like a straitjacket, but which he can pretend - if he concentrates - are Willem's arms in an embrace around him. He climbs into bed. This ritual embarrasses and shames him, but he only does it when he really needs it, and tonight he really needs it. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

Jake, a homosexual cop buried so deep in the closet he didn't know where to look for himself. ~ Josh Lanyon

You like a cracker?
What kind of cracker?
Graham, chocolate, cocoanut, whatever you want.
Maybe just a plain cracker.
I don't have plain crackers. I got graham, chocolate and cocoanut.
Alright, a graham cracker.
They're in the kitchen, in the closet.
Maybe later. ~ Neil Simon

You don't deserve me. Why should I waste my time on some bratty little whore who only wants someone to beat him until he can get off without guilt, huh? Someone who can't follow a simple fucking direction. You don't even want what I'm offering! You don't want to find yourself; you want to get lost." Devon stalked to the closet, grabbed Nicky's coat, and hurled it at him. "So get lost. ~ Rachel Haimowitz

i am confident i am over you. so much that some mornings i wake up with a smile on my face and my hands pressed together thanking the universe for pulling you out of me. thank god i cry. thank god you left. i would not be the empire i am today if you had stayed.

but then.

there are some nights i imagine what i might do if you showed up. how if you walked into the room this very second every awful thing you've ever done would be tossed out the closet window and all the love would rise up again. it would pour through my eyes as if it never really left in the first place. as if it's been practicing how to stay silent so long only so it could be this loud on your arrival. can someone explain that. how even when the love leaves. it doesn't leave. how even when i am so past you. i am so helplessly brought back to you. ~ Rupi Kaur

I feel so rude-O don't even know your name.
He bowed. I'm Erik.
Erik?
Yes.
Huh. I expected something a bit different.
He shrugged. Well, that's the closet translation. ~ Kiera Cass

She thought of people she had seen holding hands in movies, and why shouldn't she and Carol? ~ Patricia Highsmith

Tis all a Chequer-board of nights and days
Where Destiny with men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates,and slays,
And one by one back in the closet lays. ~ Omar Khayyam

When I'd first brought it home from the thrift store, I'd planned to keep it in the closet I shared with Summer, But Jordis asked me to hang it in full view of the room because she liked the glitter. ~ Jennifer Echols

It is time for pastors, priests and all true believers to come out of the closet and stand for truth against the flood of evil. ~ James Robison

I'd like to make it clear from the start that I am gay, gay,
gay. Like, when I come out of the closet, I'm usually wearing
my sister's prom dress kind of gay. ~ Gwen Hayes

Maybe pick it up by mistake with the cleaning?" "It is there." "With the cleaning?" "In the closet." "No, it isn't. I looked." About to speak, Willie tightened her lips and scowled. Karl had walked in. "Good evening, Madam." He went to the sink for a glass of water. "Did you set those traps?" asked Chris. "No rats." "Did you set them?" "I set them, of course, but the attic is clean." "Tell me, how ~ William Peter Blatty

For me, living in the closet corroded my ability to have an honest, open relationship with my God, my loved ones, my constituency and myself. ~ James McGreevey

Every single courageous act of coming out chips away at the curse of homophobia. Most importantly it's destroyed within yourself, and that act creates the potential for its destruction where it exists in friends, family and society. ~ Anthony Venn-Brown

But sometimes the monster in the closet was really just a worthless clown in a coma. ~ Anne Frasier

In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you'll dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dull and know I had to put it to the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

When you're in the closet, you feel like the sky will fall down if anyone finds out. A lot of the fear is self-generated. ~ Jane Velez-Mitchell

As a teenager, I had to struggle alone to learn about myself and what it meant to be gay. Now for [48] years I've had the satisfaction of working with other gay people all across the country to get the bigots off our backs, to oil the closet door hinges, to change prejudiced hearts and minds, and to show that gay love is good for us and for the rest of the world too. It's hard work
but it's vital, and it's gratifying, and it's often fun! ~ Barbara Gittings

You're gay," wash stated.
Rhodes nodded, a short jerk of his head, dropping his gaze to his beer.
"As in, you-like-men gay."
Still eying his beer, Rhodes gave an affirmative shrug.
"As in, you like-to-fuck-men gay."
"Yes! ~ Katie Allen

That's your problem Sam, you walk around like you're this strong independent woman, but in actuality, you're a scared little girl. And when something frightens you, you run, escape and hide in the closet. ~ Xyla Turner

Across the room, I noticed that the closet hadn't stayed shut. The latch must not have caught, even though I'd leaned against the door. It had eased open to show a strip of inviting darkness.
As if it was telling me I could always change my mind. ~ Marianna Baer

The world's battlefields have been in the heart chiefly; more heroism has been displayed in the household and the closet, than on the most memorable battlefields in history. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

These ears aren't to be trusted.
The keening in the night, didn't you hear?
Once I believed all the stories didn't have endings,
but I realized the endings were invented, like zero,
had yet to be imagined.
The months come around again,
and we are in the same place;
full moons, cherries in bloom,
the same deer, the same frogs,
the same helpless scratching at the dirt.
You leave poems I can't read
behind on the sheets,
I try to teach you songs made of twigs and frost.
you may be imprisoned in an underwater palace;
I'll come riding to the rescue in disguise.
Leave the magic tricks to me and to the teakettle.
I've inhaled the spells of willow trees,
spat them out as blankets of white crane feathers.
Sleep easy, from behind the closet door
I'll invent our fortunes, spin them from my own skin.

(from, The Fox-Wife's Invitation) ~ Jeannine Hall Gailey

Closets, schmosets, everyone's out of the closet. Now where the fuck are the men! ~ Larry Kramer

The Gays have not only come out of the closet, but they have managed somehow to put us into it. ~ Charles Bukowski

Some monsters disguise themselves so well you don't realize that they're monsters until it's too late. You check all of the usual places: under the bed, in the closet, behind the shower curtain, around that suspicious, dark corner of your room. No, some monsters don't look like monsters at all. But they are, have been, and always will be there. ~ Nikki Rae

She, uh, came out of the closet recently, my niece. Um ... She announced to the family that she's a lesbian and ... She's seven, did I mention that? And, uh, I don't even know if she knows what a lesbian is, but I support her completely. And, uh ... I'll tell you what's heartbreaking. My sister punished her for it. Can you believe that? No pussy for a week. Which to us may not sound like ... But when you're seven, you know, a week is a long time. ~ Sarah Silverman

I think there are a lot of closet charismatics out there. A lot of [clergy] personally have had their vocations saved because of their experience of Christ and the Holy Spirit through the renewal, but they discovered it wasn't cool [to say so out loud] because it was considered fringe. They got the message from the environment not to talk about it very much. I think the time has come for the closet charismatics to come out. ~ Ralph Martin

A man like Wilde was not free to live out of the closet as a homosexual, and women in general were not able to be truly themselves; there was no place for a woman's voice to be heard or for her to express her sexuality. ~ Marisa Tomei

The soul that has been enriched by communion with God will not be dismayed by isolation but will welcome solitude. He will seek not the crowd but the closet, and emerging will never walk alone, for he has unseen companionship. ~ Frances J Roberts

I lay there silently,
hoarding my small dignity.
I did not ask about the gate or the closet.
I did not question the bedtime ritual
where, on the cold bathroom tiles,
I was spread out daily
and examined for flaws.
I did not know
that my bones,
those solids, those pieces of sculpture
would not splinter. ~ Anne Sexton

In our Western culture, although death has come out of the closet, it is still not openly experienced or discussed. Allowing dying to be so intensely present enriches both the preciousness of each moment and our detachment from it. ~ Ram Dass

Serious development of the personality begins at the closet door. ~ William James