o 1 "It would be their mantra, their creed, their open-sesame incantation that would slide back the door to the sacred treasure chamber." -- David Weddle, Among the Mansions of Eden (200 ) • Inspiration -- Michael Chekhov, To the Actor (195 ) "Morris's workshop was an Open Sesame to Clive's imagination." -- Graham Joyce, The Tooth Fairy (1998) • Instantly "The guarantee of compensation . . . opened the icehouse door quicker than 'open sesame.'" -- Richard Edward Crabbe, The Empire of Shadows (200 ) • Invitation "Isabelle's fresh mellow voice was the open sesame to meeting many new friends and experiences." -- Bess Streeter Aldrich, A Lantern in Her Hand (1997) "The breakup of this marriage only served to substantiate Ruzicka's belief that emotional involvement with a woman was an open-sesame to getting hurt." -- Ann Rule, A Fever in the Heart (1996) • Irresistible command "My words worked like open sesame to him, and he turned and raced out of the room." -- Rex Pickett, Sideways (2004) "[A]s if by an open sesame as unarguably obeyed as it is planned to the last detail, public awareness is saturated with media analysis." -- Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (199 ) • Key "[I]t may take an electronic or mechanical Open Sesame to get in." -- Philip Jose Farmer, The Dark Design (1998) "'Open sesame' opens doors, a wish becomes a tangible possibility." -- Arthur Kroker, Life in the Wires (2004) "[A]n intruder in the writer's study, rifling through his drawers, hoping to find souvenirs of character in his old journals since they provide an 'open sesame' to his work." -- Brenda Wineapple, Hawthorne: A Life (200 ) Who holds the wondrous crystal key, / The silent Open Sesame. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The Flaneur" (1882) • Key to the City "It was a virtual 'open sesame' to Hollywood. Doors would finally swing wide for her." -- Ann Rule, Heart Full of Lies (2004) • Letter of introduction "Freya had obtained an impressive array of introductions from important people. . . . Armed with her open sesames, as she called them, Freya believed she could count on a month and a half . . . with virtually no expenses . . ." -- Jane Geniesse, Passionate Nomad (1999) "This letter was an 'Open Sesame': its quite insignificant contents were luckily sealed up, but the name on the envelope had already served to get me through the entanglements of the Nihavend police; its mere production gave the impression that I travelled with the authority of govern