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I heard a heavy step approaching behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back.
Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver lamp, in which the flame burned without a chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation.
"Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will!"
--
Jonathan Harker's journal

 

Bram Stoker

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One morning in a recent year, a year not too long ago—the year 1887, to be precise—a young girl named Mathilda awoke, stretched, yawned, scratched, and got out of bed.
“What shall I do this morning?” she asked herself. “I think I shall go hooping. This looks like good hooping weather.”
When she went out into the back yard, hoop in hand, she was amazed to discover that a mysterious Chinese house, only six feet high, had grown there overnight.
Mathilda was disappointed. She had wanted a fire engine. Even though it wasn’t Christmas or her birthday or the day after a day on which she had been particularly good, she had hoped—just a faint, hazy hope—that when she went outside this morning a sparkling red fire engine would be standing there.
“Well, a mysterious Chinese house is better than nothing,” she said to herself. “I suppose I’d better go inside and see what strange things happen to me there. Of course this house is rather small. I’m not even sure I can get inside the door.”
At these words the mysterious Chinese house began to grow and grow. It grew and grew until it was nine feet tall, and sprouted a Chinese weather vane on top. And there was plenty of room to go through the door.
“Plenty of room to go through the door now,” Mathilda reflected. “There’s absolutely nothing to prevent me from going inside. Nothing except those strange noises I hear there.”
From inside the Chinese house came strange noises indeed—growls, howls, the whispering of elephants, the trumpeting of djinn.
“I’m not scared,” Mathilda said. “Very few people are as brave as me.” And she walked through the door.

 

Donald Barthelme

 

I was thinking too damn much to be careful. When I stabbed my key in the lock and turned it there was a momentary catch in the tumblers before it went all the way around and I swore out loud as I rammed the door with my shoulder and hit the floor.Something swished through the air over my head and I caught an arm and pulled a squirming, fighting bundle of muscle down on top of me.
If I could have reached my rod I would have blown his guts out. His breath was in my face and I brought my knee up, but he jerked out of the way bringing his hand down again and my shoulder went numb after a split second of blinding pain. He tried again with one hand going for my throat, but I got one foot loose and kicked out and up and felt my toe smash onto his groin. The cramp of the pain doubled him over on top of me, his breath sucking in like a leaky tire.
Then I got cocky. I thought I had him. I went to get up and he moved. Just once.That thing in his hand smashed against the side of my head and I started to crumple up piece by piece until there wasn't anything left except the sense to see and hear enough to know that he had crawled out of the room and was falling down the stairs outside. Then I thought about the lock on my door and how I had a guy fix it so that I could tell if it had been jimmied open so I wouldn't step into any blind alleys without a gun in my hand, but because of a dame who lay naked and smiling on a bed I wouldn't share, I had forgotten all about it.

 

Mickey Spillane

 

What will you find behind the door that is one door away from Heaven? […] If your heart is closed, then you will find behind that door nothing to light your way. But if your heart is open, you will find behind that door people who, like you, are searching, and you will find the right door together with them. None of us can ever save himself; we are the instruments of one another's salvation, and only by the hope that we give to others do we lift ourselves out of the darkness into light.

 

Dean R. Koontz

 

There are three things that they could conceivably do... They could replace me immediately and have somebody else play Dillon. I’m okay with that because I think Dillon needs a reboot. It would be interesting to see somebody else’s take on him. Two, they could kill him, which I would hope they wouldn’t do, just because I would like the opportunity to maybe come back. Depending how they did that, I’d have to go back and shoot that. It would give me a chance to say goodbye and the opportunity to try to pull it together and act well one last time. That would be really profound for me. Or three, they’d have Dillon leave town. I would be wholly and entirely complimented if the door stayed open. I know that’s a lot to ask of them and the door can’t stay open for long. That’s just the rules of the game.

 

Scott Clifton

 

MAGIC THEATER
ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY
I tried to open the door, but the heavy old latch would not stir. The display too was over. It had suddenly ceased, sadly convinced of its uselessness. I took a few steps back, landing deep into the mud, but no more letters came. The display was over. For a long time I stood waiting in the mud, but in vain.
Then, when I had given up and gone back to the alley, a few colored letters were dropped here and there, reflected on the asphalt in front of me. I read:
FOR MADMEN ONLY!

 

Hermann Hesse