0 MAGIC WORDS • Currency "Now and then, from behind us, a couple of people or so would present themselves to haggle at the glass door. Once or twice it had opened to them. Since we were still at the back of the queue and looked like staying there I asked Lena what 'Open Sesame' they might have used. 'They pay in dollars,' she said." -- Philip Glazebrook, Journey to Khiva (1992) "[S]eal (and otter) skins, once an open sesame to the teas and silks of China . . ." -- Roy Nickerson, Sea Otters (1998) "[T]heir hands were thrust deep into pockets from which came the cheerful and open-sesame clinking of gold." -- Clarence E. Mulford, Hopalong Cassidy (1992) • Doorway, portal "With his elated attitude and keen observation, each rock became a doorway, an 'open sesame' to a new world of adventure." -- Pila Chiles, The Secrets and Mysteries of Hawaii (1995) • Entrée "His slightest wish seemed always to be translated instantly into the most impressive kind of reality. Trains were held; yachts materialized; the best suites in the finest hotels were flung open; airplanes stood waiting. . . . He was the open sesame to a new and glittering world that excited me as nothing in my life had ever done before." -- Eleanor Herman, Sex with Kings (2004) • Floodgate "My words were like an open sesame, because it immediately spewed forth eons of stored grievances against me." -- Tanis Helliwell, Summer with the Leprechauns (1997) • Gatekeeper "'[Y]ou're my 'open sesame.' Temple's tootsies curled again, sans shoes but with pleasure, as if they were the turned-up toes on an Arabian Nights slipper. 'It's amazing,' Matt went on, 'how many doors you've opened for me. To the past, and to the future.'" -- Carole Nelson Douglas, Cat in a Crimson Haze (1995) • Guarantee "A university degree used to be an open sesame to a professional position." -- Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds (2001) • Holy inscriptions "They were, literally, precious, glowing open sesames. The ceiling of the throne room was sixty feet high, the walls covered with graffiti -- poems, mottoes, sayings, sura from the Koran -- all in graceful gold Arabic." -- Mary Lee Settle, Spanish Recognitions (2004) • Ignition "It might be the Open Sesame of the whole war." -- Douglas Porch, The Path to Victory (2004) • Incantation, mantra "[M]ore incantation or open-sesame mantra than a name . . ." -- John Ed gar Wideman, Hoop Roots (2001)