NEW YORK - When New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer exited a packed conference room last week after announcing his resignation, the door that closed behind him signaled more than simply the end of a three-minute statement. Spitzer's political career also slammed shut.

But one of the favorite sayings from the "glass half full'' camp is that whenever one door closes, another one opens.

Far from a Pollyanna-like bit of wishful thinking, it is a sentiment that has been proven right repeatedly in American life. In politics, in entertainment, in business - in nearly every walk of life, in fact - there are bountiful examples that defy F. Scott Fitzgerald, who said, "There are no second acts in American lives.''

"In fact, F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong,'' said Michael Weis, an American history professor at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington. "It happens all the time.''

Of course, in the wake of revelations that the upright, crusading Spitzer may have spent $80,000 on prostitutes, the author of "The Great Gatsby'' may look like he knew what he was talking about.

The New York press spent the week outdoing themselves to reveal the lurid details of Spitzer's liaison with Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the 22-year-old singer identified as the $1,000-an-hour prostitute whom Spitzer met in a Washington hotel room. With each day's revelations, including giant photos in Friday's New York Post of a topless Dupre holding her hands over her breasts, the Democratic governor looks like a million-to-one long shot at ever finding another open door.

But remember that stained blue dress? Remember that cigar?

Those two infamous items featured prominently in President Bill Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, which overshadowed his second term in office, led to his impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives, and made him the butt of late-night talk show jokes for months.

And yet today, Clinton runs his own foundation, holds a high-powered annual meeting of world leaders and corporate titans, campaigns for his wife Hillary Clinton's run for the Democratic presidential nomination, and is credited by many Americans for presiding over an era of peace and prosperity.

Lessons from Tricky Dick

Or, to take an example from the Republican column, how about Richard Nixon? His political career was such a high-wire act that he wrote a book about himself called "Six Crises.'' After losing his 1960 presidential bid and the 1962 California governor's race, he fumed, "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore.''

But he came back to win the White House in 1968 and score a landslide re-election in 1972. Less than two years later, the Watergate scandal forced him to resign in disgrace. Then, after a lengthy period of seclusion, he gradually re-emerged as an author and elder statesman.

The country's history has a lot to do with such turnaround stories, Weis said.

"It's partly the fact that people had to come here to the New World, and they were common people in England, or wherever they came from,'' he said. "But from the minute they got here, they had new lives and they weren't bound by tradition.''

And in the 19th century, if your business in New York failed, you could pull up stakes and start again in one of the up-and-coming towns to the west, such as Chicago.

"We're a forgiving country,'' said David Johnson, the head of Strategic Vision, an Atlanta, Ga., public-relations firm, and a political consultant who worked on Bob Dole's 1988 presidential campaign. "We always have been. We've always been willing to give somebody a second chance if they're really repentant.''

Johnson thinks that tendency can be linked in part to the country's religious traditions. Christianity offers forgiveness to the repentant sinner.

Future is 'outside of politics'

In announcing his resignation, Spitzer gave little indication what his second act may be.

"As I leave public life, I will first do what I need to do to help and heal myself and my family, then I will try once again, outside of politics, to serve the common good,'' he said.

But Gallagher is not counting him out. Most people, she points out, say they learn more from their failures than they do their successes.

"Eliot Spitzer is a prime candidate to achieve even more in the future,'' she said. "His second act is bound to be really interesting, all the more so because of his dramatic fall from grace.''