William Blake or Jim Morrison Quote

[Garson O'Toole]

Great topic for investigation, Fred! Thanks for sharing this quotation.

Preliminary exploration suggests that the original version of the
saying was uttered by Ray Manzarek who was a co-founder of The Doors
along with Jim Morrison. Manzarek's quote was altered and streamlined
then it was reassigned to Jim Morrison. Now it is also sometimes
reassigned to William Blake and/or Aldous Huxley.

This is conjectural and based on aggravating snippets. I will work to
get you and the list some solid citations.

Thanks to Gregory McNamee for some real Blake.

Garson

On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 11:58 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      William Blake or Jim Morrison Quote
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> The line "There are things that are known and things that are unknown; in between are doors" is sometimes said to be the inspiration for the name of the rock group The Doors.  It is sometimes said to be from a writing of William Blake's, sometimes from a writing of Jim Morrison's.  Can anyone provide a precise source?
>
> Fred Shapiro

On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 12:09 PM, Gregory McNamee <gm at gregorymcnamee.com> wrote:
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> Poster:       Gregory McNamee <gm at GREGORYMCNAMEE.COM>
> Subject:      Re: William Blake or Jim Morrison Quote
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>
> The name of The Doors, I've always understood it, comes from Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, which in turn comes from a Blake poem, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" (and, within it, from one of the many sections called "A Memorable Fancy"): "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite." (In the little Open University/Penguin anthology I have, it's on page 101.) Hope that helps...
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