Knocks Quotes & Sayings

Temptation leans on the doorbell, but opportunity knocks only once. — Malorie Blackman

You come to nature with all her theories, and she knocks them all flat. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Graduating from the School of Hard Knocks doesn't always get you to Fort Knox. — Edward Harris

When I think about my relationship with America, I feel like a battered wife: Yeah, he knocks me around a lot, but boy, he sure can dance. — Sarah Vowell

The colleges and other institutions of learning are going too far, in my opinion. I think 50% of those attending educational institutions, having the professions in view, would be better off with a common school education that would enable them to earn a living, rather than sit around in offices and wait for clients.
W.A. Clark (MT Senator, 1901-1907) — Bill Dedman

When the armed robber of unhappiness knocks over the Keebler cookie display of our complacency, and bangs the samurai sword of negativity on the checkout counter of our dreams, we must not be afraid to hurl the fruit cocktail can of hope. — Dave Barry

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though. — J.D. Salinger

When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it. — Boris Pasternak

No warrior scolds. Courteous words or else hard knocks are his only language. — C.S. Lewis

Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse. — Sara Gruen

When life knocks you down, keep getting up. — Malorie Blackman

You can't invent Google, Facebook or the iPod unless you've mastered the basics, are willing to put in long hours and can pick yourself up from the floor when life knocks you down the first 10 times. — Amy Chua

There is no royal road to a successful life, as there is no royal road to learning. It has got to be hard knocks, morning, noon, and night, and fixity of purpose. — Charles M. Schwab

Ideas aren't real estate, they grow collectively and that knocks out the egotistical loneliness that generally infects art. — Robert Redford

This, I am reminded, is why I love walking in the city, taking to the streets in pursuit of some spontaneous and near-arbitrary objectives. If one knocks oneself out of one's routine- and in so doing knocks others gently out of theirs- then one can now and again create these momentary opportunities to be better than one is — Kathleen Rooney

I would tell my staff about the "dinosaur's tail": As a leader grows more senior, his bulk and tail become huge, but like the brontosaurus, his brain remains modestly small. When plans are changed and the huge beast turns, its tail often thoughtlessly knocks over people and things. That the destruction was unintentional doesn't make it any better. — Stanley McChrystal

When opportunity knocks, it's too late to prepare. — John Wooden

If you're too happy about anything, fate usually gives you a good sock in the jaw and knocks you down. — Madeleine L'Engle

Among you boys you have a game: you stand a row of bricks on end a few inches apart; you push a brick, it knocks its neighbor over, the neighbor knocks over the next brick
and so on till all the row is prostrate. That is human life. A child's first act knocks over the initial brick, and the rest will follow inexorably. If you could see into the future, as I can, you would see everything that was going to happen to that creature; for nothing can change the order of its life after the first event has determined it. That is, nothing will change it, because each act unfailingly begets an act, that act begets another, and so on to the end, and the seer can look forward down the line and see just when each act is to have birth, from cradle to grave. — Mark Twain

The physio side probably stemmed from the knocks I got as a player. — Bob Paisley

Grief is a house
where the chairs
have forgotten how to hold us
the mirrors how to reflect us
the walls how to contain us
grief is a house that disappears
each time someone knocks at the door
or rings the bell
a house that blows into the air
at the slightest gust
that buries itself deep in the ground
while everyone is sleeping
grief is a house where no one can protect you
where the younger sister
will grow older than the older one
where the doors
no longer let you in
or out — Jandy Nelson

To whom it may concern: please phone me for appointments when you want to see me. I will not answer unsolicited knocks upon the door. I need time to do my work. I will not allow you to murder my work. please understand that what keeps me alive will make me a better person toward and for you when we finally meet under easy and unstrained conditions. — Charles Bukowski

An opportunity only knocks once. The next one may be better or worse, but never the same one. That is why it is so crucial to make the right decision at the right time. A — Shiv Khera

O, once in each man's life, at least, Good luck knocks at his door; And wit to seize the flitting guest Need never hunger more. But while the loitering idler waits. Good luck beside his fire, The bold heart storms at fortune's gates, And conquers its desire. — John L. Bates

When opportunity knocks all some people can do is complain about the noise. — Bill Maher

I place a palm at his chest. His heartbeat knocks rapidly against my skin. "I never would have guessed."
"What's that?" he asks on a hoarse whisper.
"That you're one of those netherlings who has a rare penchant for kindness and courage."
"Tut." He presses his glove over my hand. "Only when there's fringe benefits."
Smiling, I rise to my toes, grip his lapels, and kiss each one of his jewels until they change to a captivating dark purple - the color of passion fruit. I ease back to the balls of my feet. "So beautiful," I whisper, tapping one of the sparkling gems.
Morpheus catches my palm and kisses the scars there. "I couldn't agree more." — A.G. Howard

I never went to college. I went to the school of hard knocks and paid for my education by getting ripped off. It's been a great adventure, and I've outlived my adversaries. — Jim "Dandy" Mangrum

Statesmanship is developed in the hard knocks of general experience, private and public. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Then the clouds curtsy in, the rain kneels upon the land, and the weather knocks them back a whole day and a half. — Colum McCann

I saw the 'Popstars' programme and to me it looked more like 'Opportunity Knocks' than the kind of cutting-edge postmoderism that The Guardian would like to have us believe it was. I think what it's more about is the public and the music industry's bloodlust. It's just like someone itching to say 'Oh, confound it all, let's bring back hanging, that was good entertainment'. — Luke Haines

Look for your brushes with the divine. Be receptive to them. When heaven knocks, open the door. Value these visits. Remember them. Expect more of them. — Victoria Moran

You've seed how things goes in the world o' men. You've knowed men to be low-down and mean. You've seed ol' Death at his tricks ... Ever' man wants life to be a fine thing, and a easy. 'Tis fine, boy, powerful fine, but 'tain't easy. Life knocks a man down and he gits up and it knocks him down agin. I've been uneasy all my life ... I've wanted life to be easy for you. Easier'n 'twas for me. A man's heart aches, seein' his young uns face the world. Knowin' they got to get their guts tore out, the way his was tore. I wanted to spare you, long as I could. I wanted you to frolic with your yearlin'. I knowed the lonesomeness he eased for you. But ever' man's lonesome. What's he to do then? What's he to do when he gits knocked down? Why, take it for his share and go on.
- Penny Baxter — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

We take life for granted, sleepwalking until a shattering event knocks us awake. Zen says, don't wait until the car accident, the cancer diagnosis, or the death of a loved one to get your priorities straight. Do it now. — Philip Toshio Sudo

Life is like any other contact sport; you're gonna get your knocks. But it's not the knocks that count, it's how you handle them. If you handle them with anger, distrust, jealousy, hate, this in return is what you're going to get. But if you handle these knocks with love and understanding, they don't mean much. They just dissipate. — Sydney Banks

Away with the one who is always seeking, for he never finds anything; for he is seeking where nothing can be found. Away with the one who is always knocking, for he knocks where there is no one to open; away with the one who is always asking, for he asks of one who does not hear. — Tertullian

The only truly anonymous donor is the guy who knocks up your daughter. — Lenny Bruce

Kenji turns to look at me. He manages a goofy smile. "Aw, you trust me?"
"As long as I have a clear shot." I tighten my hold on the gun in my hand.
His grin is crooked. "I don't know why, but I kind of like it when you threaten me."
"That's because you're an idiot."
"Nah." he shakes his head. "You've got a sexy voice. Makes everything sound naughty."
Adam stands up so suddenly he nearly knocks over the coffee table. — Tahereh Mafi

Opportunity knocks only once. — Abah Mohd Khairul Anuar

Sometimes, you know, human kindness just knocks you off your feet. — Hollis Seamon

I've had the school of hard knocks, and I've worked my way up to be the governor of this great state of Connecticut. — William O'Neill

Opportunity knocks at every man's door once. On some men's door it hammers till it breaks down the door and then it goes in and wakes him up if he's asleep, and ever afterward it works for him as a night watchman. — Finley Peter Dunne

That's what life holds for you. You make plans, carefully plots whole road-map; but you never know when a vehicle comes at you full throttle from the next bend and knocks you down. — Aman Jassal

I saw that vigil now as necessary, a prerequisite for my insides to harden and cure just like the willow of a cricket bat must cure to be ready for a lifetime of knocks. — Abraham Verghese

Sleep knocks on my eyes: they grow heavy. Sleep touches my mouth: it stays open.
Truly, he comes to me on soft soles, the dearest of thieves, and steals my thoughts from me — Friedrich Nietzsche

In real life things don't go so smoothly. At certain points in our lives, when we really need a clear-cut solution, the person who knocks at our door is, more likely than not, a messenger bearing bad news. — Haruki Murakami

Do not allow to slip away from you freedoms the people who came before you won with such hard knocks. — D.H. Lawrence

Sometimes, the hard knocks of life are blessings in disguise. — James Houston Turner

He knocks on doors and stands there. You'd be surprised how few doors get answered — Andrew Kaufman

We can't flee from temptation in our own strength - but God will give us the strength we need, if we'll only seek it. A friend of mine says, When the devil knocks, I just send Jesus to the door! — Billy Graham

When spring knocks at your door, regardless of the time of year or season of our lives, run, do not walk to that door, throw it open with wild abandon, and say, Yes! Yes, come in! Do me, and do me big! — Jeffrey R. Anderson

When I listen to these women, it makes what I thought were my hard knocks feel like little nudges. — Whoopi Goldberg

English doesn't borrow from other languages. english follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar. — James Nicoll

It seems when Opportunity knocks, Fate shows up to open the door. — Anthony Liccione

Impatience is a form of unbelief. It's what we begin to feel when we start to doubt the wisdom of God's timing or the goodness of God's guidance. It springs up in our hearts when our plan is interrupted or shattered. It may be prompted by a long wait in a checkout line or a sudden blow that knocks out half our dreams. The opposite of impatience is not a glib denial of loss. It's a deepening, ripening, peaceful willingness to wait for God in the unplanned place of obedience, and to walk with God at the unplanned pace of obedience - to wait in his place, and go at his pace. — John Piper

Real beauty knocks you a little bit off kilter. — David Byrne

Knowledge knocks on the door of action. If it receives a reply, it stays. Otherwise, it departs. — Sufyan Al-Thawri

On stage I have to be comfortable because I play guitar so I can't wear too much jewellery, it knocks against the guitar and makes loud noises. I had this big gold eagle necklace which I love but I kept whacking myself in the face with it so had to stop wearing it. I wear things that I can sweat in, basically ... it gets really hot on stage. — Ellie Goulding

We knock a time or two at the gate of mercy, and as no friendly messenger opens the door, we go our ways. Too many prayers are like boys' runaway knocks, given, and then the giver is away before the door can be opened. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

Leaders don't need a path. They make one. — Tim Fargo

...a harried commuter is mistaken for Christ by a child he knocks over. — David Foster Wallace

Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head ... — Sara Gruen

Why must the woman apologize for not having a baby just because she happened to get pregnant? It's as if we think motherhood is the default setting for a woman's life from first period to menopause, and she needs a note from God not to say yes to every zygote that knocks on her door. — Katha Pollitt

Mac knocks on the door. After he updates Spider, he asks, "Do you have your weapon with you?"
"Yes, it's like my American Express card. I never leave home without it." Mac hears Spider lock and load the weapon. Reassured that Spider is going to be all right, he walks out the front door. — David McKoy

When Life knocks at the door no one can wait,
When Death makes his arrest we have to go. — John Masefield

She tries to turn too soon, and the ladder smacks into Fernando's shoulder.
"Oh! Sorry, Nando."
The jolt knocks his glasses askew. He smiles at Christina and takes the glasses off, shoving them into his pocket.
"Nando?" I say to him. "I thought the Erudite didn't like nicknames?"
"When a pretty girl calls you by a nickname," he says, "it is only logical to respond to it. — Veronica Roth

Failure knocks the door of the unprepared minds very often. — Mehmet Murat Ildan

The school of hard knocks is an accelerated curriculum. — Menander

Even when opportunity knocks, a man still has to get up off his seat and open the door. — Douglas MacArthur

I love the way you smile at me ... knocks me on my arse. — Amy Harmon

Relax, I'll get it. (said to Kato after Clouseau knocks him unconscious) — Peter Sellers

I don't get a taste of you soon, I'm givin' up the search and takin' you to my cabin in Grand Lake. No phones, no cell coverage, no buzzer. Anyone knocks on the door and I'm shooting them. — Kristen Ashley

What makes it worth it though, is I love drawing. I LOVE IT. I love making comics. I love starting a new page and buying new paper, ink and brushes. I love telling stories! I love the people I work with, I love the people I meet. I love thinking about the syntax and language of comics. I love esoteric discussions about the comic book industry. I love the opportunities I've had in life because of comics. The second I stop loving it I will find something else to do.
Comics are hard work. Comics are relentless. Comics will break your heart. Comics are monetarily unsatisfying. Comics don't offer much in terms of fortune and glory, but comics will give you complete freedom to tell the stories you want to tell, in ways unlike any other medium. Comics will pick you up after it knocks you down. Comics will dust you off and tell you it loves you. And you will look into it's eyes and know it's true, that you love comics back. — Becky Cloonan

We met with more closed doors than open ones
and the people who answered our knocks were invariably older. Young people didn't aswner the door to strangers, who would undoubtedly be trying to sell something, any more than they would answer the telephone to telemarketers once Caller ID came along. The only people we encountered going door-to-door were the ones old enough to remember when that's the way the world worked. — J. Mark Bertrand

Sometime, somewhere you take something to be the truth. But if you cling to it too strongly, then even when the truth comes in person and knocks on your door, you will not open it. — Gautama Buddha

As the priest is characterized by his cassock, so the smoker by his pipe. The way in which he holds it, raises it to his lips, and knocks out the ashes, reveals his personality, habits, passions, and even his thoughts. — E.T.A. Hoffmann

Life can suck. It can hurt. It has teeth and won't hesitate to bite you. But if you pick yourself back up every time it knocks you down, it'll start to hurt less, because you'll be stronger. — T.J. Klune

Once when I was givin' th' children a bit of a preach after they'd been fightin' I ses to 'em all, When I was at school my jography told as th' world was shaped like a orange an' I found out before I was ten that th' whole orange doesn't belong to nobody. No one owns more than his bit of a quarter an' there's times it seems like there's not enow quarters to go round. But don't you - none o' you - think as you own th' whole orange or you'll find out you're mistaken, an' you won't find it out without hard knocks. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

My work knocks people out; you've not seen the best of me yet. — Willard Wigan

Both friend and enemy reside within us. One lives by the rule of compassion, the other by the rule of hard knocks. Though potential influence of either extreme is inevitable, our actions bear witness to the one we embrace. — T.F. Hodge

She is the only one who knows
of the Coldness: a feeling that comes sometimes when I'm
lying in bed, a black, empty feeling that knocks my breath
away and leaves me gasping as though I've just been
thrown in icy water. On nights like that - although it is wrong
and illegal - I think of those strange and terrible words, I
love you, and wonder what they would taste like in my
mouth, try to recall their lilting rhythm on my mother's
tongue. — Lauren Oliver

That old saying about opportunity only knocking once is as archaic as the flat-earth theory and as patently untrue. Opportunity knocks all the time - and it rings your doorbell, calls you up, and sends you e-mails. — Victoria Moran

Luck is blind, they say. It can't see where it's going and keeps running into people ... and the people it knocks into we call lucky! Well, to hell with luck if it's like that, I say! — Nikos Kazantzakis

Have patience when it is really worth doing so, no matter what, and notwithstanding how hard impatience knocks at your door, and you will know patience better — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

A Deed knocks first at Thought And then - it knocks at Will - That is the manufacturing spot. — Emily Dickinson

We're all brilliant at something. I discovered my powers when I was four years old. When you're young you're more in touch with your real talents, but so often the 30 year slog knocks it out of people. — Uri Geller

With equal pace, impartial Fate
Knocks at the palace, as the cottage gate. — Horace

It's who you is when folks knocks at the door of your heart what counts. Hide the past and it gives them what's jealous of you the power to bring you undone. — Bryce Courtenay

Love of God and people will pave roads where there once were none. — Shannon L. Alder

From the perspective of the radicals, the habitus basis of human existence is, as a whole, no more than a spiritually worthless puppet theatre into which a free ego-soul must be implanted after the fact, and through the greatest effort. If this fails, one experiences an effect in most people that is familiar from many athletes and models: they make a promising visual impression - but if one knocks, no one is at home. According to these doctrines, the adept can only rid themselves of their baggage by subjecting their life to a rigorous practice regime by which they can de-automize their behaviour in all important dimensions. At the same time, they must re-automatize their newly acquired behaviour so that what they want to be or represent becomes second nature. — Peter Sloterdijk

Shame, it comes in every size, touches many lives, knocks on many doors. — Neil Diamond

Hard-bitten had a double meaning: bitten hard by life, like her, or clamping meanly down on other people. But, as though belying his thoughts, she said, "I hope your days are good."
"If only. My eyes, you know, are like Swiss cheese, the doctor says. I see through the holes. — Edward Hoagland

America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair. — Arnold Joseph Toynbee

And what part of me will begin
To forget you first; the sudden
Pains that shoot to my bruised palms
As I think of you in the cover of the dark,
Or the invisible hand
Clutching at my heart, as it knocks against its savage cage,
Or my still swollen lips
As they remember the touch of your gentle fingertips? — Sreesha Divakaran

But at a certain stage of prosperity, as in a balloon ascent, the fortunate person passes through a zone of clouds, and sublunary matters are thenceforward hidden from his view. He sees nothing but the heavenly bodies, all in admirable order, and positively as good as new. He finds himself surrounded in the most touching manner by the attentions of Providence, and compares himself involuntarily with the lilies and the skylarks. He does not precisely sing, of course; but then he looks so unassuming in his open landau! If all the world dined at one table, this philosophy would meet with some rude knocks. — Robert Louis Stevenson

When life knocks you down, stop and look around for one thing that's good, because there is always something. Then cling to that good. — Vi Keeland

By the altar, which is made of massive slabs of stone untouched by tools since hewn from the quarry and set up in this vast edifice, a barefooted priest wearing a linen tunic waits for the Levite to hand over the turtledoves. He takes the first one, carries it to a comer of the altar, and with a single blow knocks the head from its body. [ ... ] Joseph has nothing more to accomplish here, he must withdraw, collect his wife and child, and return home. Mary is pure once more, not in the strict sense of the word, because purity is something to which most human beings, and above all women, can scarcely hope to aspire. — Jose Saramago

Opportunities will come and go, but if you do nothing about them, so will you. — Richie Norton

But if it is love, real love, then I want them to find each other. Because I believe that love is an overwhelming, all-consuming force, and when it's genuine you can't really ignore it. No matter how long it takes. It knocks down your door by force. It keeps you awake at night. It plagues your thoughts and burn your soul. If it is love, they won't need me at all. By telling my daughter that the man of her dreams loves her too, would I not be getting in the way? Meddling with fate? — Jessica Thompson

Father Gregory laid a hand on his shoulder. "Sometimes life knocks us to our knees." His hand tightened briefly. "But that's a damn good position to pray from. — Laura Oliva

At a certain point in our lives, when we really need a clear-cut solution, the person who knocks at our door is, more likely than not, a messenger bearing bad news. This isn't always the case, but from experience I'd say the gloomy reports far outnumber the others. The messenger touches his hand to his cap and looks apologetic, but that does nothing to improve the contents of the message. It isn't the messenger's fault. No good to blame him, no good to grab him by the collar and shake him. The messenger is just conscientiously doing the job his boss assigned him. And this boss? That would be none other than our old friend Reality. — Haruki Murakami