Quotes about know-how
page 5

“Ordinary folk prefer familiar tastes - they'd sooner eat the same things all the time - but a gourmet would sample a fried park bench just to know how it tastes.”

Walter Moers (1957) German comic creator and author

Time

“the masses are everywhere
they know how to do things:
they have sane and deadly angers
for sane and deadly
things.”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

Anger

“I couldn’t help it,” I said, knowing how lame that sounded. It was as bad as Angeline’s “it’s not my fault” mantra.”

Richelle Mead book The Fiery Heart

Source: The Fiery Heart

Help

“A country that does not know how to read and write is easy to deceive.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Reading, Country

“The world is speaking to you every day, you just don't know how to listen.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

World

“"Is," "is." "is" — the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don't know what anything "is"; I only know how it seems to me at this moment.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

The Historical Illuminatus as spoken by Sigismundo Celine
Source: Nature's God

Sense

“I always knew there were vampires, dude,” he’d said. “Because, you know how there’s people you know who, like, always look the same, even when they’re, like, a hundred years old? Like David Bowie? That’s because they’re vampires.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

People

“You know how I know she's your most important person? You pick her every time.”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

Time, Personality

“I'm Dylan. I'm so cool. I want to date myself, but I don't know how! You want to date me instead? You're so lucky!”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Love, Feeling, Success

“Just like in bodybuilding, failure is also a necessary experience for growth in our own lives, for if we're never tested to our limits, how will we know how strong we really are? How will we ever grow?”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

Failure, Strong

“But I don't love you, Daisy, and you can't begin to know how sorry I am about that because if I could chose anyone in this world to love, it'd be you.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Kiss an Angel

Love, World

“God writes a lot of comedy, Donna; the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Happy to be Here (1983), p. 259
Source: Happy to Be Here

God

“It’s like, you know how sometimes you see a really sexy baby? Wait…”

David Levithan book Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Waiting, Baby

“You have to know how to look even if you don't know what you're looking for.”

Roberto Bolaño (1953–2003) Chilean author

“Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence life until we know how to understand sex.”

H. Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British physician, writer, and social reformer

Life, Sex, Understanding, Learning

“O God, I love you to the edge of madness, Venetia, but I'm not mad yet--not so mad that I don't know how disastrous it might be to you--to us both! You don't realize what an advantage I should be taking of your innocence!”

Georgette Heyer book Venetia

Source: Venetia

Love, God, Madness

“All beings want to be happy, yet so very few know how. It is out of ignorance that any of us cause suffering, for ourselves or for others”

Sharon Salzberg (1952) American writer

Source: Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

Happiness, Suffering

“I didn't know how… deep love ran, how it was in your blood, not your heart, and how that same blood pumped through your veins your whole life.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: On Mystic Lake

Love, Life, Heart

“You are the answer to every prayer I've offered. You are a song, a dream, a whisper, and I don't know how I could have lived without you for as long as I have.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Dreams

“She let him know how much she liked what he was doing by scoring his back with her nails and crying out with pleasure.
"Oh, God."
"Nay, lass. Connor.”

Julie Garwood (1946) American writer

Source: The Wedding

God, Pleasure, Cry

“She was still there inside me now, just as she always was: a life put on hold, a memory I didn't know how to handle.”

Banana Yoshimoto book Hardboiled & Hard Luck

Source: Hardboiled & Hard Luck

Life, Memory

“Lately, I feel like my life is a book written in a language I don't know how to read.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Hero of Ages

Life, Books, Feeling, Reading

“Now you know how badly someone wanted you, Charley. Children forget that sometimes. They think of themselves as a burden instead of a wish granted.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

Children, Thinking, Forgetting

“That's how life feels to me. Everyone is doing it; everyone knows how. To live and be who they are and find a place, find a moment. I'm still waiting.”

Sara Zarr (1970) American children's writer

Source: How to Save a Life

Life, Feeling, Waiting

“You're awfully dark, brother," he said. "You don't know how dark.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Garden of Eden

Source: The Garden of Eden

“I can’t for the life of me not eat something that I want to eat. You know how if you turned on a faucet in your sink to wash your hands, the idea of leaving the bathroom without turning it off is insane? That’s how I am about ignoring delicious food.”

Mindy Kaling book Why Not Me?

Source: Why Not Me?

Life, Food, Idea

“I would not know how I am supposed to feel about many stories if not for the fact that the TV news personalities make sad faces for sad stories and happy faces for happy stories.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Happiness, Sadness, Feeling, Personality

“If she know how strongly he felt, she'd have run out the door. He wasn't used to the possessive, or the savage joy she brought to his heart. It ate at his control, so he turned his attention to the music. He understood music.”

Patricia Briggs book Cry Wolf

Source: Cry Wolf

Music, Heart, Joy

“anyone can understand anything. You just have to know how to present your information.”

Jodi Picoult book Songs of the Humpback Whale

Source: Songs of the Humpback Whale

Understanding

“I don't know how I can be so ambitious and so lazy at the same time.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

Time

“You know how cats do. They hide to die. Dogs come home.”

Thomas Harris Red Dragon

Source: Red Dragon

Dogs, Home, Cats

“It's like male geeks don't know how to deal with real live women, so they just assume it's a user interface problem. Not their fault. They'll just wait for the next version to come out- something more "user friendly.”

Douglas Coupland Microserfs

Source: Microserfs

Women, Problem, Waiting

“I know how to be the witness to her grief. I don't know how to be this kind of villain.”

Holly Black book Red Glove

Source: Red Glove

“I don't know how, but I know Who”

Beth Moore (1957) American evangelist

“You know how every now and then, you have a moment where your whole life stretches out ahead of you like a forked road, and even as you choose one gritty path you've got your eyes on the other the whole time, certain that you're making a mistake.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Life, Time

“You know how confusing the whole good-evil concept is for me.”

Jim Butcher Proven Guilty

Source: Proven Guilty

Evil

“You know how teachers tell you the magic word is 'please'? That's not true. The magic word is 'puke'. It will get you out of class faster than anything else.”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Files

Source: The Demigod Files

Teachers

“Scatter?' Tate said. 'Why? We stay here. Why go anywhere else?'
'Because we'll never know how great this place is until we leave it,' Narnie said.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

“I wanted my own words. But the ones I use have been dragged through I don't know how many consciences.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Wall

Source: The Wall

“You know how it is when you're reading a book and falling asleep, you're reading, reading… and all of a sudden you notice your eyes are closed? I'm like that all the time.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Books, Time, Reading

“Don't know how I kept going. You just do. You have to, so you do.”

Elizabeth Wein book Code Name Verity

Source: Code Name Verity

“Sometimes it's hard when you want to be like someone but you don't know how.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

“Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.”

Agnes de Mille (1905–1993) American dancer and choreographer

“So I have. Let me hold the baby, Scarlett. Oh, I know how to hold babies. I have many strange accomplishments. Well, he certainly looks like Frank. All except the whiskers, but give him time.”

“I hope not. It’s a girl.”

Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist

Source: Gone With the Wind

Hope, Girl, Time, Baby

“Ryoji: It's either that she doesn't know how to lean on someone or she's simply that selfless. She won't give me a space to worry about her. Beyond that, she'll protect others instinctively.”

Bisco Hatori (1975) Japanese manga artist

Source: Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 4

“At the most difficult moments of my life, when it seemed that every door was closed to me, the taste of those apricots comes back to comfort me with the notion that abundance is always within reach, if only one knows how to find it.”

Isabel Allende book Paula

Source: Paula

Life

“Oh, wonderful. I killed his father. He hates me. He knows how to make bombs. Come on, Wedge, how does this story end?”

Aaron Allston (1960–2014) American writer

Hate

“You know how it is. Someone pretends to love you, and you give too much away.”

Laura Amy Schlitz book Splendors and Glooms

Source: Splendors and Glooms

Love

“We never sit anything out. We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”

Ray Bradbury book Zen in the Art of Writing

Variant: We never sit anything out. We are cups, quietly and constantly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.
Source: Zen in the Art of Writing (1990) 
Context: From now on I hope always to educate myself as best I can. But lacking this, in future I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind to see what it has observed when I thought I was sitting this one out. We never sit anything out. We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

Beauty

“You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It's easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Nature, Painting, Perfection

“I was a heartless, ungrateful wench of a girl who promised everyone who came into contact with me a one-way ticket to pain and hurt. I didn’t know how to love and I didn’t deserve to be loved back.”

Sarra Manning (1950) British writer

Love, Pain, Way, Girl

“I would have loved to know how it felt, just once, to have something fall apart and see options instead of endings.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Saint Anything

Love

“Good people aren't good because they never cause harm to others. They're good because they treat others the best way they know how, with the understanding that they have.”

Orson Scott Card book Rebekah

Source: Rebekah

People, Way, Understanding

“… the second time you see something is really thetime. You need to know how it ends before you can appreciate how beautifully it's put together from the beginning.”

David Gilmour (1946) guitarist, singer, best known as a member of Pink Floyd

Source: The Film Club: A True Story of a Father and Son

Time

“If you aren't unhappy sometimes you don't know how to be happy.”

Madeleine L'Engle book A Wrinkle in Time

Source: A Wrinkle in Time

Happiness

“The condom broke. I know how stupid that sounds. It's the reproductive version of the dog ate my homework.”

Jennifer Weiner (1970) American writer

Source: Little Earthquakes

Stupidity, Dogs

“Posterity! you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1770s
Source: Letter to Abigail Adams (27 April 1777), published as Letter CXI in Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife (1841) edited by Charles Francis Adams, p. 218

Pain, Hope, Freedom

“You know how it is - some hot guys don't make your hormones go crazy, while some unattractive guys have massive sex appeal. This guy had it all.”

Sylvia Day book Bared to You

Source: Bared to You

Sex, Guy

“Knowing how to think empowers you far beyond those who know only what to think.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Thinking

“A child may not know how to feed itself, or what to eat, yet it knows hunger.”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon (1966)

Hunger

“We only have babies when we're young enough not to know how grim life turns out.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Life, Baby

“The next time you try to seduce anyone, don't do it with talk, with words. Women know more about words than men ever will. And they know how little they can ever possibly mean.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Women, Men, Time

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to someone else.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: First Love

World

“Gaining superpowers doesn't mean you know how to use them.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

“You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), unplaced by chapter

“To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: How to Love

Love, Personality

“Still clutching each other by the arm, they turned to watch the last stones plummet over the edge.

“I don't know how many times a day I can stand to watch you almost die,” Seregil gasped.

“Twice is my limit,” croaked Alec, sinking to his knees.”

Lynn Flewelling Luck in the Shadows

Source: Luck in the Shadows

Time

“If you want me, just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow."

(as Marie 'Slim' Browning in)”

Lauren Bacall (1924–2014) American actress, model

Source: The Complete Films of Humphrey Bogart

“She didn't want to know how a thing was done, but why…. Luckily, queer ones like her don't happen often.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

“Life is only precious because it ends, kid. Take it from a god. You mortals don't know how lucky you are”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Life, God

“I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Actually said by Giuseppe Baretti, February 13, 1766. The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page http://www.samueljohnson.com/apocryph.html#19, retrieved 24 October 2018 <br class="br">Misattributed

Hate, Thinking