8 MAGIC WORDS • "[I]t was as if someone had said 'Open sesame.' All resistance seemed to fall away." -- James Huston, Fallout (2002) • From Federico Garcia Lorca, "Venus," The Collected Poems (1988): Open sesame by day. Shut sesame at night. • "[H]e mumbled, 'Open, sesame.' 'Louder, Fibich. Like you really mean it,' Rizka said. 'See that crack in the wall? Imagine it's going to open up in front of you.' With some added urging, Fibich took a great breath and, in a voice so strong that he startled himself, called out the magical password a few times until Rizka nodded approval." -- Lloyd Alexander, Gypsy Rizka (1999) • "From beneath the net-draped iron bed she pulled a stainless-steel briefcase. She touched index fingers to circles on either side of the latch, whispered 'Open sesame,' and the latch sprang open." -- Kathleen Ann Goonan, Crescent City Rhapsody (2000) • "'Open Sesame!' yelled Henry, just in case it might work." -- Beverly Cleary, Henry and the Clubhouse (1962) • "There, beneath the lip of the wood, she felt a metal shape, not unlike a trigger. She fingered it for a second, then closed her eyes, as if she expected the device to explode when she pushed it, but knowing she had no choice. 'Open sesame,' she whispered. The latch mechanism made a small thunking sound, and the door slid free." -- John Katzenbach, State of Mind (1997) • "Finally, Dhirendra found the word of power, the open-sesame, that restored animation to morose Sammy Hazaré. He leapt up on to a table, posed like a little garden statue and spoke the occult syllables. 'RDX,' he announced." -- Salman Rushdie, The Moor's Last Sigh (1995) • "Consumed multitudes are jostling and shaving inside me; and guided only by the memory of a large white bedsheet with a roughly circular hole some seven inches in diameter cut into the centre, clutching at the dream of that holey, mutilated square of linen, which is my talisman, my open-sesame." -- Salman Rushdie, "The Perforated Sheet," Mirrorwork: 50 Years of Indian Writing (1997) • "'Open see-same!' shouted the little girl [Patricia Highsmith], proud she knew this magical phrase. [Her stepfather] Stanley corrected her pronun ciation to 'Sess-a-mi!' but when Patsy repeated the word, her spirit was crushed. . . . [Highsmith recollected:] 'I knew he was right, and I hated him because he was right like grown-up people always were, and because he had forever destroyed my enchanting, my 'Open See-same,' and because