Quotes & Sayings About Knack

A woman's greatest knack is how well she can hide how much sleep she's been missing. There's a little tally board inside each of us labeled, "Number of days since someone has told me I look tired" that resets itself whenever we make the mistake of looking like we feel. And the alternative? Even if you fulfill obligations, party like you mean it, and somehow get your sleep, your decisions will be too well-informed to be spontaneous. You'll never be susceptible to life. — Gabe Durham

I'm very interested in music, but I was not born musical. I honestly do think some people have the knack. I can't play an instrument. I'm a terrible singer. I'm not about to launch my album! — Georgia May Jagger

I'll be the first to admit we're the 90's version of Cheap Trick or the Knack — Kurt Cobain

Get the knack of getting people to help you and also pitch in yourself. — Ruth Gordon

You are blessed with a knack for sucking the wonder out of the extraordinary. — Daniel McHugh

I have no knack for volition. — Jill Alexander Essbaum

Ceony made her way down the hall, peeking briefly into her room. The bed had been remade, and she smiled. Emery's odd knack for tidiness had him folding and tucking blanket corners as though crafting a spell, and while he had demonstrated to Ceony how to properly make a bed, she'd never taken the time to mimic the art. She often kept the door to her room closed just so Emery wouldn't be tempted to rearrange her things, but with her out of the house, there was nothing to stop him.
He must be bored.
She passed her room and stuck her head into the library, but the paper magician wasn't there. The table and telegraph had both been moved to the right of the window, however. Terribly bored, then. — Charlie N. Holmberg

Nothing any man can do will improve that genius; but the genius needs his mind, and he can broaden that mind, fertilize it with knowledge of all kinds, improve its powers of expression; supply the genius, in short, with an orchestra instead of a tin whistle. All our little great men, our one-poem poets, our one-picture painters, have merely failed to perfect themselves as instruments. The Genius who wrote The Ancient Mariner is no less sublime than he who wrote The Tempest; but Coleridge had some incapacity to catch and express the thoughts of his genius - was ever such wooden stuff as his conscious work? - while Shakespeare had the knack of acquiring the knowledge necessary to the expression of every conceivable harmony, and his technique was sufficiently fluent to transcribe with ease. — Aleister Crowley

Led Zeppelin was the rock band's rock band, but it was Plant who made it special. He had the knack of taking a seemingly inconsequential string of words, adding a searing shriek, and knocking the listener back on his heels. This was no less impressive on stage than in the restaurant. — Andre The BFG

Wolfe was going on. "I didn't have a client this morning, or even an hour ago, but now I have. Mr. Rowcliff's ferocious spasms, countenanced by you gentlemen, have made the challenge ineluctable. When Mr. Goodwin said that I was not concerned in this matter and that he was acting solely in his own personal interest, he was telling the truth. As you may know, he is not indifferent to those attributes of young women that constitute the chief reliance of our race in our gallant struggle against the menace of the insects. He is especially vulnerable to young women who possess not only those more obvious charms but also have a knack of stimulating his love of chivalry and adventure and his preoccupation with the picturesque and the passionate. — Rex Stout

Working on 'Drive', a lot of fun. This is Tim Minear whom I've worked with before on 'Firefly' of course. He called me up and said, 'I've got a part for you that you will love,' and I love Tim's writing. I love his stories. I love his characters, his dialogue. He has a knack for reveals and he has a knack for moments. — Nathan Fillion

A farmer has a way of standing on one leg and looking at a thing that isn't there. It sounds simple, but there is knack in it. The farmer is not surprised it is not there. He never expected it to be there. It is one of those things that ought to be, and is not. The farmer's life is full of such. Suffering reduced to a science is what the farmer stands for. All his life he is the good man struggling against adversity. Nothing — Jerome K. Jerome

Some people have a knack of putting upon you gifts of no real value, to engage you to substantial gratitude. We thank them for nothing. — Charles Lamb

I left school at 16 but I wish I'd gone to university - I think I would have studied English literature. I had a knack for that. But I don't think you have the kind of wisdom at 16 to make that decision. — Brendan Coyle

Pick any time of the day or night and somewhere, everywhere, stories are being told. They overlap and flow across one another, the pull away again just as waves do upon a shore. It is this knack that stories have of rubbing up against one another that makes the world an interesting place, a place of greater possibility than it would be if we told our tales alone.
This is impossible, of course. Make no mistake, everyone's stories touches someone else's. And every brush of one life tale upon another, be it ever so gentle, creates something new: a pathway that wasn't there before. The possibility to create a new tale. — Cameron Dokey

Sunday lay so heavily in the air as to become almost nauseating. Maigret used to claim openly, half seriously, half in fun, that he had always had the knack of sensing a Sunday from his bed, without even having to open his eyes. — Georges Simenon

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

Not everyone understands what a completely rational process this is, this maintenance of a motorcycle. They think it's some kind of "knack" or some kind of "affinity for machines" in operation. They are right, but the knack is almost purely a process of reason, and most of the troubles are caused by what old time radio men called a "short between the earphones," failures to use the head properly. A motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself. — Robert M. Pirsig

Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full of harmony and his soul full of gratitude. He felt much as an astronomer feels who has discovered a new planet - no doubt, as far as strong, deep, unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with the boy, not the astronomer. — Mark Twain

Stop glaring at me, baby. You were the one who attacked me and got you knocked up." Patrick turned to smile at her. He had a knack for reading her mind.
"I'm pregnant, and it's your fault."
"You took advantage of a sleeping man." He walked up to her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and dropped a kiss on her lips. "How was I to refuse a woman what she wanted?"
"Say no."
"When it comes to you that word doesn't exist to me. — Sam Crescent

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

The first ingredient to being wrong is to claim that you are right. Geniuses have a knack for raising new questions. Hence by the public they are either admired for their creativity or, even more commonly so, detested for disturbing the daily peace of mind. — Criss Jami

Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy. — Isaac Newton

They are deceptively simple. I admit that. But for me, all my life I try to simplify things. As a child in school, things were very hard for me to understand often, and I developed a knack, I think. I developed a process to simplify things so I would understand them. — Eric Carle

Well, well," answered a cool, amused voice from somewhere above us. "And here you are again. Ethan Chase, your family does have a knack for getting into trouble. — Julie Kagawa

As he demonstrated with 'Juno' and 'Up in the Air,' Reitman has an uncanny knack among contemporary directors for tapping into the zeitgeist in dramatically satisfying ways. — Lou Lumenick

In August of 1998, I completed Seize the Night, the sequel to my novel Fear Nothing, one of many of my books in which a dog is among the cast of principal characters. Every time I wrote a story that included a canine, my yearning for a dog grew. Readers and critics alike said I had an uncanny knack for writing convincingly about dogs and even for writing from a dog's point of view. When a story contained a canine character, I always felt especially inspired, as if some angel watching over me was trying to tell me that dogs were a fundamental part of my destiny if only I would listen. — Dean Koontz

Netflix has such a knack for giving a new life to those B-movies that you thought and hoped no one would ever see. Especially when you have a new project coming out and they're looking to mine some of your lesser-known films. — Spencer Grammer

When I started designing in school, I discovered that I had a knack for it. I fell completely in love with architecture, and I remain in love with it. — Cesar Pelli

If you had a special knack for finding things, it meant you owed the world to look. — Maggie Stiefvater

Killing is like riding, you see. One never really loses the knack. — Susan Kay

I would dazzle you with brilliance, if I only had the knack. Cause I like you just the way you are. — Danny Elfman

Beatrix kept pace easily with Christopher as they headed toward the forest. It nagged at him to have someone else holding Albert's leash. Beatrix's assertiveness was like a pebble lodged in the toe of his shoe. And yet when she was near, it was impossible to feel detached from his surroundings. She had a knack of keeping him anchored in the present.
He couldn't stop watching how her legs and hips moved in those breeches. What was her family thinking, to allow her to dress this way? Even in private it was unacceptable. A humorless smile curved his lips as he reflected that he had at least one thing in common with Beatrix Hathaway--neither of them was in step with the rest of the world.
The difference was that he wanted to be.
It had been so easy for him, before the war. He had always known the right thing to do or say. Now the prospect of reentering polite society seemed rather like playing a game in which he had forgotten the rules. — Lisa Kleypas

Humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them. Harry — J.K. Rowling

Technology as the knack of eliminating the world as resistance, ... the technologist's worldlessness ... My mistake lay in the factthat we technologists try to live without death. — Max Frisch

I have a discipline that has served me very well in my career and in my personal life ... and that's gotten stronger as I've gotten older. I've always felt if I don't just have a natural knack for it, I will just out-discipline the competition if I have to - work harder than anybody else. — Ryan Reynolds

I seem to have a knack for picking movies that go on to be cult favorites. — Kurt Russell

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

Empowerment is constantly challenging oneself with something difficult that tests his power of nerve, knack, skill, aptitude, attitude and wisdom to do things diligently, delightfully but differently. — Anuj

Women know the way to rear up children (to be just). They know a simple, merry, tender knack of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes, and stringing pretty words that make no sense. And kissing full sense into empty words. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I once heard about a botanist in Hawaii with a knack for finding new species by getting lost in the jungle, by going beyond what he knew and how he knew, by letting experience be larger than his knowledge, by choosing reality rather than the plan. — Rebecca Solnit

After a tongue has once got the knack of lying, it is not to be imagined how impossible almost it is to reclaim it. Whence it comes to pass, that we see some men, who are otherwise very honest, so subject to this vice. — Michel De Montaigne

I have a knack of hoping, which is as good as an estate ... — George Eliot

The Librarian shyly held out a small, battered green book. Vimes had been expecting something bigger, but he took it anyway. It paid to look at any book the orangutan gave you. He matched you up to books. Vimes supposed it was a knack, in the same way that an undertaker was very good at judging heights. — Terry Pratchett

A lady doesn't insist on having her own way. Then, next thing you know, it all works out somehow, without one's even trying. I thought I'd never learn, though it's really quite easy once you get the knack. — Lloyd Alexander

Call it fate--call it talent. I had a knack for getting in the nastiest messes. — Carrie Clevenger

Thus it went as she made her way around the biomes of Ring B. Always she found that her mother the great engineer had made some crucial intervention, finding solutions to problems that had stymied the locals. Devi had the knack of sidestepping dilemmas, Badim said when Freya mentioned this, by moving back several logical steps, and coming at the situation from some new way not yet noticed. "It's sometimes called avoiding acquiescence," Badim said. "Acquiescence means accepting the framing of a problem, and working on it from within the terms of the frame. It's a kind of mental economy, but also a kind of sloth. And Devi does not have that kind of sloth, as you know. She is always interrogating the framing of the problem. Acquiescence is definitely not her mode. — Kim Stanley Robinson

Experience has taught me the power of trophies. You may have every knick-knack and useless contraption ever devised, but while they weigh you down, a simple trophy can go a long, long way. — Tahir Shah

Oh, Fletch, you don't love that! You don't love hatred and evil,of course. You have to practice and see the real gull, the good in every one of them, and help them to see it in themselves. That's what I mean by love. It's fun, when you get the knack of it. — Richard Bach

You can have a knack for dancing, but you still have to practice till your feet are bleeding to be worthy of being in front of an audience. — Bronson Pinchot

If I had the knack
I'd sing like
Cherry flakes falling — Matsuo Basho

Education is neither writing on a blank slate nor allowing the child's nobility to come into flower. Rather, education is a technology that tries to make up for what the human mind is innately bad at. Children don't have to go to school to learn to walk, talk, recognize objects, or remember the personalities of their friends, even though these tasks are much harder than reading, adding, or remembering dates in history. They do have to go to school to learn written language, arithmetic, and science, because those bodies of knowledge and skill were invented too recently for any species-wide knack for them to have evolved. — Steven Pinker

I have a knack for writing tribute songs for people who will never know about them. — Steve Forbert

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

It seems I have a knack for kink in ink. — Sai Marie Johnson

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

She let Sicarius lead since he had that knack for getting people to move out of his way without doing anything. Amaranthe, on the other hand, received elbows in the ribs or suggestive jostles from drunken men. Maybe she should try wearing all black and glaring more often. — Lindsay Buroker

Character of any person is the aggregate of his or her conscientious tendencies - the sum total of the knacks of the civilized part of the mind. — Abhijit Naskar

I," she [the Holy Spirit] opened her hands to include Jesus and Papa, "I am a verb. I am that I am. I will be who I will be. I am a verb! I am alive, dynamic, ever active and moving. I am a being verb. And as my very essence is a verb, I am more attuned to verbs than nouns. Verbs such as confessing, repenting, living, loving, responding, growing, reaping, changing, sowing, running, dancing, singing, and on and on. Humans, on the other hand, have a knack for taking a verb that is alive and full of grace and turning it into a dead noun or principle that reeks of rules. Nouns exist because there is a created universe and physical reality, but the universe is only a mass of nouns, it is dead. Unless 'I am' there are no verbs and verbs are what makes the universe alive. — Wm. Paul Young

A detective with his murder mystery, a chemist seeking the structure of a new compound, use little of the formal and logical modes of reasoning. Through a series of intuitions, surmises, fancies, they stumble upon the right explanation, and have a knack of seizing it when it once comes within reach. — Gilbert N. Lewis

Writer's Resolution
Enough's Enough! No more shall I
Pursue the Muse and scorch the pie
Or dream of Authoring a book
When I (unhappy soul) must cook;
Or burn the steak while I wool-gather,
And stir my spouse into a lather
Invoking words like "Darn!" and such
And others that are worse (Oh, much!)
Concerning culinary knack
Which I (HE says) completely lack.
I'll keep my mind upon my work;
I'll learn each boresome cooking quirk;
This day shall mark a new leaf's turning...
That smell! Oh Hell! The beans are burning! — Terry Ryan

I've been told by the prosecutors and by my own attorneys I should go to law school. I guess I have a knack for it. — Monica Lewinsky

If you want to marry me, here's what you'll have to do:
You must learn how to make a perfect chicken-dumpling stew.
And you must sew my holey socks,
And soothe my troubled mind,
And develop the knack for scratching my back,
And keep my shoes spotlessly shined.
And while I rest you must rake up the leaves,
And when it is hailing and snowing
You must shovel the walk ... and be still when I talk,
And-hey-where are you going? — Shel Silverstein

Even though novels were the love of my life, I started off writing poetry. I think because I had a knack for image and lyricism, even though I didn't really have anything to write about, or I didn't know what to write about. I could just couple words together that pleased me and so poetry seemed sort of natural. — Melissa Febos

They spoke to each other in strange, strangulated voices, and lost the knack of making each other laugh, jeering at each other instead in a spiteful, mocking tone.
Their friendship was like a wilted bunch of flowers that she insisted on topping up with water.
Why not let it die instead?
It was unrealistic to expect a friendship to last forever, she had lots of other friends: the old college crowd, her friends from school, and Ian of course.
But whom to could she confide about Ian? Not Dexter, not anymore — David Nicholls

Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done. — Josh Billings

She is a very conscientious person," said Miss Lydgate, "but she has rather an unfortunate knack of making any subject sound dull. It's a great pity, because she is exceptionally sound and dependable. However, that doesn't greatly matter in her present appointment; she holds a librarianship somewhere - Miss — Dorothy L. Sayers

There can never be a conflict between science and religion, once you understand the spiritual knack of the human brain circuits. — Abhijit Naskar

Some people are born losers; others acquire the knack gradually. — W.C. Fields

If there is some good in me, it is because I was born in the subtle atmosphere of your country of Arezzo. Along with the milk of my nurse I received the knack of handling chisel and hammer, with which I make my figures. — Michelangelo

A championship contender in the early twentieth century needed charisma and a knack for cultivating sponsorship, and Rubinstein was the epitome of the shy and unsocial chess player. Now matter how great his chess skills, he lacked the people skills to be a self-promoter and fund-raiser. — Garry Kasparov

You always did like to run things, never mind your crafty knack for making everyone believe that somebody else was in charge. — Janny Wurts

Why, I'm going to infiltrate Forge, of course. Amaranthe smiled and waited for a response. It seemed she hadn't lost her knack for stunning groups of men when announcing her schemes. — Lindsay Buroker

Man has the supreme knack of deceiving himself; the Englishman is supremest among men. — Mahatma Gandhi

and their greatest gift is their extraordinary ability to heal people and the environment around them. They're natural mediators who have a talent for smoothing things over, and their knack for seeing both sides of a situation enables them to arrive at a harmonious outcome for all. Number 2s have big hearts and an enormous capacity to love. They thrive on connection and companionship and will do anything in their power to ensure that everyone feels happy and loved. — Michelle Buchanan

The streets would have chewed me up and spit me out and I knew that, but I found my own ways and different knacks for getting in trouble and being reckless with my life. And I've overcome a lot of personal demons and to be alive is really my greatest achievement. — Michael K. Williams

A fellow told me one about Wembley yesterday," I said, to help on the cheery flow of conversation. "Stop me if you've heard it before. Chap goes up to deaf chap outside the exhibition and says, "Is this Wembley?" "Hey?" says deaf chap. "Is this Wembley?" says chap. "Hey?" says deaf chap. "Is this Wembley?" says chap. "No, Thursday," says deaf chap. Ha, ha, I mean, what?"
The merry laughter froze on my lips. Sir Roderick sort of just waggled an eyebrow in my direction and I saw that it was back to the basket for Bertram. I never met a man who had such a knack of making a fellow feel like a waste-product. — P.G. Wodehouse

Easing back in her seat, Grace watched the children in the playground opposite, coats off, faces flushed, laughing hysterically with pleasure. They were so vividly alive, completely immersed in the game. She tried to recall a time when she'd been that way and realized she couldn't remember when that had been. She'd lost the knack of forgetting herself. Instead she seemed to look down on herself throughout the day, scrutinizing, judging; finding herself wanting more. — Kathleen Tessaro

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

I have the knack of easing scruples. — Moliere

God is the creativity, so if you really want to enter into the world of God you will have to learn the ways of creativity - and that has disappeared. Instead of creativity we value productivity: we talk about how to produce more. Production can give you things but cannot give you values. Production can make you rich outwardly but it will impoverish you inwardly. Production is not creation. Production is very mediocre; any stupid person can do it, one simply needs to learn the knack of it. — Rajneesh

I must say, the queen does have a flair for the dramatic." Torin cast a sly grin toward Kai. "So, it seems, does her niece."

He smothered a twitch of pride. Cinder did have a knack for making an entrance. — Marissa Meyer

Steve had a remarkable knack for letting go of things that didn't work. If you were in an argument with him, and you convinced him that you were right, he would instantly change his mind. He didn't hold on to an idea because he had once believed it to be brilliant. His ego didn't attach to the suggestions he made, even as he threw his full weight behind them. — Ed Catmull

The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them. Harry lay there, lost for — J.K. Rowling

Civic participation depends on creativity, an (aesthetic) knack for reframing experience, and on a corollary freedom to adjust laws and practices in light of ever-new challenges. Without art, citizenship would shrink to compliance, as if society were a closed text. Reading lessons would stop at the factual "what is," rather than continue to the speculative "what if. — Doris Sommer

Tengo has an innate knack for precision in all realms, including correct punctuation and discovering the simplest possible formula necessary to solve a math problem. — Haruki Murakami

Every Jack
He must study the knack
If he wants to make sure of his Jill! — W.S. Gilbert

Vianello had the knack of getting people to talk. Especially if they were Venetians, the people he interviewed invariably warmed to this large, sweet-tempered man who gave every appearance of speaking Italian reluctantly, who was only too glad to lapse into their common dialect, a linguistic change that often carried its speakers along to unconscious revelation. — Donna Leon

The word creativity is closely linked to the word genius, since both words have the root meaning 'to give birth.' Essentially, creativity designates the capacity to give birth to new ways of looking at things, the ability to make novel connections between disparate things, and the knack for seeing things that might be missed by the typical way of viewing life. — Thomas Armstrong

The 'equilibrium' that people see in me is really an illusion. I am as flawed as anyone. It's only that I seem to have the knack of hiding. — Erich Segal

I stood among the heaps of dead. They lay crumpled, useless, defunct. The vital force was fled. A bullet or a mortar fragment had torn a hole in these frail vessels and the substance had leaked out. The mystery of the universe had once inhabited these lolling lumps, had given each an identity, a way of walking, perhaps a social habit of address or a way with words or a knack of putting color on canvas. They had been so different, then. Now they were nothing, heaps of nothing. Can a bullet or a mortar fragment do this? Does this force, this mystery, I mean this soul--does this spill out on the ground along with the blood? No. It is somewhere, I know it. — Robert Leckie

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. — Lemony Snicket

From the beginning, I've always had a knack for catchy melodies. But I went through a period when I was trying to be rock n' roll and have a rock n' roll attitude. I was fighting my nature by trying to play really hard and sing really hard. But at a certain point, I realized that I loved syrupy pop music with tons of harmony. — Juliana Hatfield

I feel that we, as Indians, have a knack for loving a stereotypical, sobbing, sympathy-seeking personality. I feel that we need to promote quirky, cool and youthful talent. We have to stop propagating the sob-story angle of celebs, where they try to be larger-than-life. That is very outdated. It is so boring that it puts you to sleep. — Kangana Ranaut

Many strong girls have similar stories: They were socially isolated and lonely in adolescence. Smart girls are often the girls most rejected by peers. Their strength is a threat and they are punished for being different. Girls who are unattractive or who don't worry about their appearance are scorned. This isolation is often a blessing because it allows girls to develop a strong sense of self. Girls who are isolated emerge from adolescence more independent and self-sufficient than girls who have been accepted by others.
Strong girls may protect themselves by being quiet and guarded so that their rebellion is known by only a few trusted others. They may be cranky and irascible and keep critics at a distance so that only people who love them know what they are up to. They may have the knack of shrugging off the opinions of others or they may use humor to deflect the hostility that comes their way. — Mary Pipher

I have a knack for choosing the wrong people. — Kangana Ranaut

She had a smooth, low voice and a naughty, shocking sense of humour. Laughter followed in her wake; she collected admirers, both male and female, simply walking across the lobby. She had a certain knack for including everyone in her own private jokes, bending in conspiratorially to say something wickedly off-colour to one of the old stone-faced dowagers waiting for a cab. The next moment, they'd both be giggling uncontrollably — Kathleen Tessaro

I didn't know if I still had it in me to be really dangerous, but I thought so. It's like knocking someone off a bike with a baseball bat; you never really lose the knack. — Simon R. Green

If you're an American reader, you can love short stories the way other Americans love baseball; this is our game, people! We have more than two hundred years of know-how and knack, of creativity. — Amy Bloom

Nonetheless the man (Hitler) had a remarkable ability to transform himself into something far more compelling, especially when speaking in public or during private meetings when some topic enraged him. He had a knack as well for projecting an aura of sincerity that blinded onlookers to his true motives and beliefs.. — Erik Larson