Knack Quotes - Page 2

• Writers have to have a knack for listening. I need to be able to hear what is being said to me by the voices I create.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Voice, Listening, Needs

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• I have the knack of easing scruples.

  Moliere

  Scruples

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• Comedy is just to me, maybe it's a natural knack, if I can see where the joke is in the writing and I can see where the setup is and I can tell this is the way to make it.

  Matt LeBlanc

  Writing, Way, Comedy

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• I obviously have a knack for getting on paper what a lot of people have thought and didn't realize they thought. And they say, 'Hey, yeah!' And they like that.

  Andy Rooney

  People, Hey, Paper

  "Humorist Andy Rooney dies at 92" by The Associated Press, www.politico.com. November 5, 2011.

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• stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves

  Albert Camus

  Stupidity, Way, Should

  Albert Camus (1948). “The Plague”, Vintage

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• The Guide says there is an art to flying", said Ford, "or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

  Douglas Adams

  Art, Lying, Humor

  Douglas Adams (2010). “The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, p.398, Del Rey

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• I don't actually have a lot of discipline. I've worked hard at music. But I feel like you know, I felt like kind of natural at it. I always had a knack for it.

  Norah Jones

  Discipline, Kind, Like You

  "Singer / Song-writer Norah Jones TalkAsia Interview Transcript". Interview With Lorraine Hahn, www.cnn.com. February 14, 2004.

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• He whose genius appears deepest and truest excels his fellows in nothing save the knack of expression; he throws out occasionally a lucky hint at truths of which every human soul is profoundly though unutterably conscious.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Expression, Soul, Lucky

  Nathaniel Hawthorne (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated)”, p.2153, Delphi Classics

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• Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic-this is the spiritual path.

  Pema Chodron

  Spiritual, Panic, Path

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.14, Shambhala Publications

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• The highest art one can learn is the art of loving, and that the ultimate creativity and the highest art are born out of a knack - meditation.

  Rajneesh

  Art, Creativity, Meditation

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• I don't have a talent, unless you count hunting illegally, which they don't. Or maybe singing, which I wouldn't do for the Capitol in a million years. My mother tried to interest me in a variety of suitable alternatives from a list Effie Trinket sent her. Cooking, flower arranging, playing the flute. None of them took, although Prim had a knack for all three. Finally Cinna stepped in and offered to help me develop my passion for designing clothes, which really required development since it was non-existent.

  Suzanne Collins

  Mother, Flower, Passion

  Suzanne Collins (2010). “Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)”, p.39, Scholastic Inc.

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• To stay with that shakiness-to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge-that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic-this is the spiritual path.

  Pema Chodron

  Broken Heart, Spiritual, Buddhist

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.14, Shambhala Publications

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• Mistakes are at the very base of human thought, embedded there, feeding the structure like root nodules. If we were not provided with the knack for being wrong, we could never get anything useful done. We think our way along by choosing between right and wrong alternatives, and the wrong choices have to be made as often as the right ones. We get along in life this way.

  Lewis Thomas

  Life, Mistake, Creativity

  Lewis Thomas (1990). “A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays”

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• The funny thing about our act is that dad gets the worst of it, although I'm the one who apparently receives the bruises [...] the secret is in landing limp and breaking the fall with a foot or a hand. It's a knack. I started so young that landing right is second nature with me. Several times I'd have been killed if I hadn't been able to land like a cat. Imitators of our act don't last long, because they can't stand the treatment.

  Buster Keaton

  Dad, Fall, Cat

  Interview in "The Detroit News", December 4, 1914.

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• Wouldn't it be wonderful if every home had good books instead of knick-knacks and plastic flowers on the bookshelves? And wouldn't it be great if every child heard good speech and received thoughtful answers to their questions instead of 'be quiet' or 'go to bed'?

  Ernest L. Boyer

  Education, Children, Flower

  Ernest L. Boyer (1997). “Ernest L. Boyer, Selected Speeches, 1979-1995”, Jossey-Bass

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• The way Gansey saw it was this: if you had a special knack for finding things, it meant you owed the world to look.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Special, Looks, World

  Maggie Stiefvater (2012). “The Raven Boys”, p.24, Scholastic Inc.

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• She still cared for me, and the best way I could make amends to her was to be happy. I do have a knack for finding great women.

  Craig Ferguson

  Way, Great Women, Stills

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• I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Book, Grateful, Alive

  Kurt Vonnegut (1998). “Timequake”, p.138, Penguin

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• Creation is a knack which is empowered by practice, and like almost any skill, it is lost if you don't practice it.

  Wallace Stegner

  Writing, Practice, Skills

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• ...I just gave up trying to be a Christian... Let's face it, I ain't got the knack for holiness. Besides, I didn't have the slightest little desire to join the likes of Reverend Pelham at the dinner table for fourteen minutes, much less at the banquet table of Heaven eternally. Eternity is a mighty long time to be stuck with people who judge every word you say and think and condemn most of what you do. It struck me as pretty miserable company. And if Reverend Pelham was the kind of company God preferred to keep, well, I just hoped they'd be happy together.

  Katherine Paterson

  Christian, Thinking, Judging

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• Anyone who knew Violet well could tell she was thinking hard, because her long hair was tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. Violet had a real knack for inventing and building strange devices, so her brain was often filled with images of pulleys, levers, and gears, and she never wanted to be distracted by something as trivial as her hair.

  Daniel Handler

  Real, Eye, Thinking

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• Its big men are mostly little men with fancy offices and a lot of money. A great many of them are stupid little men, with reach-me-down brains, small-town arrogance and a sort of animal knack of smelling out the taste of the stupidest part of the public. They have played in luck so long that they have come to mistake luck for enlightenment." - on Hollywood

  Raymond Chandler

  Mistake, Stupid, Animal

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• I wanted to tell her that being loved is a talent too, that it takes as much guts and as much work as loving; that some people, for whatever reason, never learn the knack

  Tana French

  People, Talent, Reason

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• She was a lucky woman who had established a happy knack of writing what quite a lot of people wanted to read.

  Agatha Christie

  Writing, People, Lucky

  Agatha Christie (1993). “Elephants can remember”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• My mind, I know, I can prove, hovers on hummingbird wings. It hovers and it churns. And when it's operating at full thrust, the churning does not stop. The machines do not rest, the systems rarely cool. And while I can forget anything of any importance--this is why people tell me secrets--my mind has an uncanny knack for organization when it comes to pain. Nothing tormenting is ever lost, never even diminished in color or intensity or quality of sound.

  Dave Eggers

  Pain, Color, Wings

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