Quotes about know-how
page 7

“I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me- who knows how?
To thy chamber-window, Sweet!”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

“Wayne's a little attached to that hat," Waxillium said. "He thinks it's lucky."
Wayne: "It is lucky. I ain't never died while wearing that hat."
Marasi frowned. "I… I'm not sure I know how to respond."
Wax: "That's a common reaction to Wayne.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Alloy of Law

Thinking

“Wherever God has planted you, you must know how to flower - translated from a French saying”

Alan Furst book The Spies of Warsaw

Source: The Spies of Warsaw

God, Flowers

“Now you know how I justify my addictions—if I can pay less for it than I would at Wal-Mart, I get to have it.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Source: Darkfever

“Be with me. Want me. Stay with me.
I don’t know how to be without you.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

“I think of the security of cages. How violence, cruelty, oppression, become a kind of home, a familiar pattern, a cage, in which we know how to operate and define ourselves…”

Eve Ensler (1953) American playwright, performer, feminist, activist and artist

Source: Insecure at Last

Home, Thinking

“You couldn't know how much going away had changed you until you tried to go home.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Lost Herondale

Home, Change

“I've lost someone, too; someone I loved. I know how you feel."
- Does it get easier?
"Yes. But you'll never be the same again.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Love, Feeling

“You want to be a writer, don't know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a humble pen.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

“Yet if a woman never lets herself go, how will she ever know how far she might have got? If she never takes off her high-heeled shoes, how will she ever know how far she could walk or how fast she could run?”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

Shoe

“Genius is of small use to a woman who does not know how to do her hair.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

“I know how difficult it can be when the image you've had of something doesn't match its reality; when the friend beside you turns into a monster.”

Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes

Source: Nineteen Minutes

Reality

“You know how the bonds of family are, my lady… They cling as tightly as vines. And sometimes, like vines, they cling tightly enough to kill.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Family

“If you want what's in the package you should at least know how to get the string off, is what I say.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Source: The Tent

“I did not know how to paint or even what to paint, but I knew I had to begin.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Source: CAT'S EYE.

Painting

“to know how to read is to light a lamp in the mind, to release the soul from prison, to open a gate to the universe." from Pavilion of Women page 292”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Women, Soul, Light, Universe

“Sometimes I think depression should be called the coping illness. So many of us struggle on, not daring or knowing how to ask for help. More of us, terribly, go undiagnosed.”

Sally Brampton (1955–2016) British writer

Source: Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression

Thinking, Help

“This is going to be an image for the history books. If you come, I believe this may, and it may be in 100 years from now or 200 years from now, I believe this will be remembered as the moment America turned the corner. I don't know how it works out. I don't know if it even works out in my lifetime. But I believe this is the pivot point. Be there, with your children.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2010-06-08
Beck believes that in 100 to 200 years, his 8-28 rally "will be remembered as the moment America turned the corner"
2010-06-08
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201006080027
on his Restoring Honor rally on 2010-08-28
2010s, 2010

Children, Books, History

“Why should we make account of time, or of magnitude, or of figure? The soul knows how to play with them as a young child plays with graybeards and in churches.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), History

Soul, Time

“I don’t know how to defend myself: surprised innocence
Cannot imagine being under suspicion.”

Pierre Corneille Rodogune

Je me défendrai mal: l'innocence étonnée
Ne peut s'imaginer qu'elle soit soupçonnée.
Rodogune, act V, scene iv
Rodogune (1644)

Imagination

“these days you might feel a shaft of light
make its way across your face
and when you do
you'll know how it was meant to be
see the signs and know their meaning”

Natalie Merchant (1963) American singer-songwriter

Song lyrics, Our Time In Eden (1992), These Are Days

Way, Feeling, Light

“The lucky man is he who knows how much to leave to chance.”

C. S. Forester book Lord Hornblower

Lord Hornblower (1946), p. 52.

Chance

“We are beginning to wonder whether a servant girl hasn’t the best of it after all. She knows how the salad tastes without the dressing, and she knows how life’s lived before it gets to the parlor door.”

Djuna Barnes (1892–1982) American Modernist writer, poet and artist

The Home Club: For Servants Only, in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (12 October 1913)

Life, Girl

“Mr. Peres, you are older than I am. And your voice is genuinely loud. I know that it is because you are, in fact, in a psychology of feeling guilty, thus you better know that I will not sound that loud. And when killing is the case, you know how to kill very well. I know how you killed the children on the beaches, I know how you shot them. Two ex-PMs of your country once told me important things. You have had such prime ministers who said, "When I enter Palestine on a tank, I feel happy — in a different way." You have had PMs who said to me "I feel happy when I am on a tank while entering Palestine." And you give me those numbers. I would release their names, in case some of you might be curious of. I also condemn those who acclaim this cruelty, because I think it is a crime against humanity as well.”

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954) 12th President of Turkey from 2014

As quoted during a discussion panel at 2009 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in "Turkish PM storms off in Gaza row" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/davos/7859417.stm, BBC (January 29, 2009)

Happiness, Children, Way, Feeling

“This can't be real
I've never seen so much
This must be a joke.I don't know how to feel
I haven't earned it yet
Everything fades so fast.”

Juliana Hatfield (1967) American guitarist/singer-songwriter and author

"Let's Blow It All"
Bed (1998)

Feeling

“Anyway, Everyman is then shown to have been crucified so don't think that it's an accident that this crucifixion, they found out that this applied. Somebody somewhere on this planet, back about 600 BC, found some pieces of R6, and I don't know how they found it, either by watching madmen or something, but since that time they have used it and it became what is known as Christianity. The man on the Cross. There was no Christ. But the man on the cross is shown as Everyman. So of course each person seeing a crucified man, has an immediate feeling of sympathy for this man. Therefore you get many PCs who says they are Christ. Now, there's two reasons for that, one is the Roman Empire was prone to crucify people, so a person can have been crucified, but in R6 he is shown as crucified.”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

"Assists" lecture, #10 in the confidential Class VIII series of lectures (3 October 1968).

People, Feeling, Thinking, Time

“At this late stage in the history of American capitalism I'm not sure I know how much testimony still needs to be presented to establish the relation between profit and theft.”

Lewis H. Lapham (1935) American journalist

Source: Money And Class In America (1989), Chapter 4, The Romance of Crime, p. 87

History

“We're more comfortable in that kind of business. It means we miss a lot of very big winners. But we wouldn't know how to pick them out anyway. It also means we have very few big losers - and that's quite helpful over time. We're perfectly willing to trade away a big payoff for a certain payoff.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

1999 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, as quoted in "Why Won't Buffett Invest in Tech Stocks?" at Motley Fool (6 March 2000) http://www.fool.com/boringport/2000/boringport000306.htm

Business, Time, Help

“I don't really know how to thank the Academy for this. And if I try we'll be here till Christmas. So I better get on…”

Emma Thompson (1959) British actress and writer

68th Academy Awards speech (1996)

Christmas

“A small but significant number of angry and historically minded women comprehend the women's revolution in the visionary sense of an end to the catastrophic brotherhood and a return to the former glory and wise equanimity of the matriarchies. We don't know how this will take place exactly, nor the resultant nature of the new social forms, we know that it will take place, and in fact that the process of its development is now irreversibly underway. Of supreme importance in this process is the recovery by modern woman of her mythology as models for theory, consciousness, and action…. The Swiss patrician Jacob Bachofen was one of the first to discover "the female era at the lower seam of history, with its sacerdotal, political, and economic female dominion."”

Jill Johnston book Lesbian Nation

…. The fruits of this research were until recently unavailable except to a few initiates and they now form a cornerstone of the second wave in the feminist revolution....
Lesbian Nation (N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, 1973 (SBN (not ISBN) 671-21433-0)), pp. 248–249.

Women, History, Nature, Sense

“you've been so kind and generous
I don't know how you keep on giving
for your kindness I'm in debt to you
for your selflessness, my admiration
and for everything you've done
you know I'm bound…
I'm bound to thank you for it”

Natalie Merchant (1963) American singer-songwriter

Song lyrics, Ophelia (1998), Kind & Generous

“I do not know how I stand this parting from Molly, save that by a paradox we are so absoultely one that in the sense we never part, but talk to one another and watch one another and commune night and day, and grip fast the same ideals. The North Star is our only meeting place, in this manner. We both look at it every night.”

Robert Erskine Childers (1870–1922) Irish nationalist and author

A 1915 letter written to his aunt in regards to his wife Molly Childers. Cited in " Erskine Childers " by Jim Ring, Faber and Faber, London , (1996), pg. 432.
Literary Years and War (1900-1918)

Star, Communication, Sense, Parting

“In other words, aggressiveness and selfishness are associated with superior performance by scientists. But my experiences and observations of eminent economists do not support these assertions. In Paul’s case, not only does he know how to maintain a balance between scholarship, family, and play, but he exhibits a high degree of humanity and kindness. The term mentsch aptly describes him.”

Michael Szenberg (1934) American economist

9.Paul Samuelson Lives a Balanced Life.
Ten Ways to Know Paul A. Samuelson (2006)

Family, Support, Selfishness

“The writer is an ordinary man, not a spokesman for the people, and that literature can only be the voice of one individual. Writing that becomes an ode to a country, the standard of a nation, the voice of a party… loses its nature—it is no longer literature. Writers do not set out to be published, but to know themselves. Although Kafka or Pessoa resorted to language, it was not in order to change the world. I, myself, believe in what I call cold literature: a literature of flight for one's life, a literature that is not utilitarian, but a spiritual self-preservation in order to avoid being stifled by society. I believe in a literature of the moment, for the living. You have to know how to use freedom. If you use it in exchange for something else, it vanishes.”

Gao Xingjian (1940) Chinese novelist and playwright

Interview by Jean-Luc Douin http://web.archive.org/web/20130421061108/http://my.opera.com/PRC/blog/?startidx=560

Life, People, World, Literature

“Women must be trained to fight in houses, prepare explosive belts and blow themselves up alongside enemy soldiers. Anyone with a car must prepare it and know how to install explosives and turn it into a car-bomb. We must train women to place explosives in cars and blow them up in the midst of enemies, and blow up houses so that they can collapse on enemy soldiers. Traps must be prepared. You have seen how the enemy checks baggage: we must fix these suitcases in order for them to explode when they open them. Women must be taught to place mines in cupboards, bags, shoes, children's toys so that they explode on enemy soldiers.”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Speech to the women of Sabha, October 4 2003; cited in ilfoglio.it http://www.ilfoglio.it/zakor/82 Speeches Variant: The woman must be trained to fight inside the houses, to prepare an explosive belt and to blow herself up with the enemy soldiers. Anyone with a car has to prepare it and know how to fix the explosive and turn it into a car bomb. We have to train women to dispose of explosives in cars and make them explode in the midst of the enemy, to blow up the houses to make them collapse on enemy soldiers. You have to prepare traps. You have seen how the enemy controls the baggage: you have to manipulate these suitcases to make them explode when they open them. Women must be taught to undermine the cabinets, bags, shoes, children's toys, so that they burst on enemy soldiers.

Women, Children, Cars, Shoe

“How could that have happened? … Even if it was a hand of God … I’d read – and I don’t know how they know this – but in approximately 3000 BC there was a massive undersea volcano and earthquake, which created a tsunami wave that had to have been a couple of hundred feet high. Just off the heel of Italy. Diagonally across you’re staring right up the mouth of the Nile, so I’m wondering if that had anything to do with that.”

Ridley Scott (1937) English film director and film producer

On the parting of the Red Sea in the tales of Moses, as quoted in "Exodus: Gods And Kings - How Ridley Scott And Christian Bale Are Rebooting The Biblical Epic" at Yahoo Movies (16 September 2014) https://uk.yahoo.com/movies/exodus-gods-and-kings-set-visit-97667462271.html

God, Reading

“The pygmies are one of the most cultured peoples on the face of the earth. They live a wonderful life, a life of purity. Not only are they busy and productive, they're happy and healthy as well. If we puny Americans had to live under their conditions, we'd perish in a day. Modern man has much to learn from the people he calls 'savages'. Before we are down to the last blade of grass it would be wise to study the life of the Pygmies. The secret of our own survival rests with them, the people who know how to make the most out of very little and find complete happiness with the bare essentials.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Reflections (1981)

Life, Happiness, People, Secret

“I’m a very strict constructionist of the Constitution and I know how to question, or I know how to vet—to use the word that the press uses all the time—candidates for judicial offices, and I think I would be very successful in the United States Senate in doing that because I think that there’s so many in the judiciary and legal establishment that don’t understand the Constitution, don’t understand the separation of powers, don’t understand the concepts of restraint of power in the Constitution.”

Roy Moore (1947) American former judge

Breitbart News Interview (2017)

Understanding, Question, Thinking, Time

“You don't want to go to Miami. Everybody's always delighted with it--no! Listen! The temperature down there is always over ninety and the humidity--and here's the problem--is way over 100%, way. And you know how it's over 100% humidity? When you're walking down the street for five minutes thinking to yourself, "You know, I should have put deodorant on my balls."”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

That's over a hundred. Because that's not something you'd think of on your own.
The White Album (2000)

Way, Problem, Thinking

“Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know erelong,—
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Light of Stars

The Light of Stars, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

World, Fear, Strong, Suffering

“You know, Nellie, when I was young I would run on fly balls hit to the outfield. I'd go around second base and I suddenly realize the ball is going to be caught. Sometimes I would run across the infield and never re-touch second base. Sometimes the umpires wouldn't notice if the players wouldn't. I didn't know how to run the bases well the first couple of years.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Speaking with Nellie King in 1967 or later; as quoted by King in "Frustration in the Fifties" https://books.google.com/books?id=03XsO25A3I8C&pg=PA60&dq=%22As+Nellie+King+recalls,+Clemente+occasionally%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi63oCQjcfNAhWEOyYKHUvbBrMQ6AEIFDAA#v=onepage&q&f=false, from Roberto Clemente: The Great One (1998) by Bruce Markusen, pp. 60-61 Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1967</big>

Flying

“How do you stand this? I don't care who you are; man, woman, gay, straight, black, white, Jew, gentile, it doesn't make any difference - how do you stand this? I can't. I can not…I can't handle this- You wanna know how I deal with this? When I finish these topics, or these letters, or these diaries, or these reports, and the show's over, I have to blank my mind - literally. Can you do that? I can, I have learned how to do that. I blank it out. I don't know where Israel is, I don't know what Palestinian means, I don't know what burned and mutilated children have to do with anything - it means nothing, it goes away. I must draw a dark black curtain in my consciousness. I can not deal with this, how do you? I have children, I've had children, I have grand-children, I have a four-and-a-half year-old… This is not right! This is not right…”

Mike Malloy (1942) American radio broadcaster

Mike cuts feed to music early
http://youtube.com/watch?v=mWemE3fcVXo
On the conflict in Gaza

Children, Music, Learning, Drawing

“If you put it as “complex nervous systems” it sounds pretty deflationary. What's so special about a complex nervous system? But of course, that complex nervous system allows you to do calculus. It allows you to do astrophysics… to write poetry… to fall in love. Put under that description, when asked “What’s so special about humans…?”, I’m at a loss to know how to answer that question. If you don’t see why we’d be special… because we can do poetry [and] think philosophical thoughts [and] we can think about the morality of our behavior, I’m not sure what kind of answer could possibly satisfy you at that point.
…I could pose the same kinds of questions of you… So God says, “You are guys are really, really special.” How does his saying it make us special? “But you see, he gave us a soul.””

Shelly Kagan (1956) American philosopher

How does our having a soul make us special? Whatever answer you give, you could always say… “What’s so special about that?”
Debate: Is God Necessary for Morality? (2011)

Love, God, Guy, Behavior

“We are not ostriches, and cannot believe that if we refuse to look at what we do not wish to see, it will not exist. This is especially the case when what we do not wish to see is what we wish to eat. If it were really indispensable, or, if not indispensable, at least in some way useful! But it is quite unnecessary … And this is continually being confirmed by the fact that young, kind, undepraved people — especially women and girls — without knowing how it logically follows, feel that virtue is incompatible with beefsteaks, and, as soon as they wish to be good, give up eating flesh.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: The First Step (1892), Ch. X

Women, People, Way, Feeling

“I suppose that American League pitchers have been feeding me soft ones for 21 years. I know how they all feel, and I don't blame 'em. They'd rather strike out the Babe than anyone else. For I've been a little lucky in the home run racket. They've walked me more than 2000 times and I've never squawked. You see, I used to be a pitcher myself. Those 2000 walks and those 700 or so home runs saved my legs. Anyhow, I've had pretty good legs. They talk about Ty Cobb's legs. He had about the best pair I ever knew of in baseball. But Ty was carrying 180 pounds for 24 years, and I've had to carry from 230 to 250 pounds. I've had to carry 50 to 70 pounds more than Cobb ever had to carry. I never talked to a horse, but I'd like to ask Equipoise or Twenty Grand or Cavalcade or some of the others just how much difference 50 or 70 pounds would make in a race. And I'm not supposed to be a horse or a tank.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

Responding to NL pitchers' stated intention—as relayed by Rice—to "bear down on" Ruth in 1935; as quoted in "'Never Happier in My Life' Ruth Tells Grantland Rice..."

Feeling, Home, Time, Horse

“She's (Hillary Clinton) a very dishonest person. I have one of the great temperaments. I have a winning temperament. She has a bad temperament. She's weak. We need a strong temperament and that's all it is, I have a strong temperament. … I think I have a great temperament. I beat 16 very talented people in -- and I've never done this before. You don't do that with a bad temperament. … I'm leading her in the polls, as you probably have noticed. And I think I have a great temperament. I have a temperament where I know how to win. She doesn't know how to win. She's not a winner. She doesn't know how to win. Honestly, she lies a lot and she really -- she should tell the truth. I honestly believe if she told the truth -- because she made some reference to my campaigning, I've had a beautiful -- I've had a -- had a flawless campaign. You'll be writing books about this campaign. And yet she's criticizing my campaign.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, July, This Week Interview (July 30, 2016)

People, Truth, Books, Beauty

“What is it that put America in the forefront of the nuclear nations? And what is it that will make it possible to spend twenty billion dollars of your money to put some clown on the moon? Well, it was good old American know how, that's what, as provided by good old Americans like Dr. Wernher von Braun!”

Tom Lehrer (1928) American singer-songwriter and mathematician

Introduction to "Wernher Von Braun"
That Was the Year That Was (1965)

Money

“They do not know how to apply names to things.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

“You know how I'm smart? I got people around me who know more than I do.”

Louis B. Mayer (1884–1957) American film producer

Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies (2001 ed)

People

“I'll know how outraged I am when I know how many black people were on those flights.”

Al Sharpton (1954) American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host

Attributed as a remark on The O'Reilly Factor on 13 October 2002. There was no episode of "The O'Reilly Factor" on this date.
Misattributed

People

“There are times when a company’s know-how, product range, and labor relations are in harmony with the world around it. The business situations are familiar, the company is well organized, and employees are trained and prepared. During those times, managers do not need to develop and implement new ideas. Their job is to allocate resources to promote growth and development, channeling capital and people to the parts of the organization best positioned to benefit from the current state of affairs. Those parts of the organization then become larger, better established, and more powerful.
But just when the company has organized itself, outside circumstances may change. New technologies come on the scene, markets shift, interest rates fluctuate, consumers’ tastes change, and the company must enter a new phase of life. In order to stay in sync with the outside world, it must be able to alter its marketing strategy, its product range, its organizational form, and where and how it does its manufacturing. And once a company has adapted to a new environment, it is no longer the organization it used to be; it has evolved. That is the essence of learning.”

Arie de Geus (1930) Dutch businessman

Cited in: Richard C. Huseman, Jon P. Goodman (1998), Leading with Knowledge: The Nature of Competition in the 21st Century. SAGE Publications, p. 72.
The Living Company, 1997

Life, People, World, Idea

“The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.
Any fool can do it;
There ain't nothing to it.
Nobody knows how we got to
The top of the hill.
But since we're on our way down,
We might as well enjoy the ride.”

James Taylor (1948) American singer-songwriter and guitarist

"Secret O' Life"
Song lyrics, JT (1977)

Life, Secret, Fools, Way

“No one would listen to me when I tried to protest that foxhunting was cruel. And as a young boy it was hard to argue with my elders about being disrespectful, but it seemed to me that if you didn't want foxes to get into your henhouse, then you needed to build an enclosure that was foxproof. It seemed totally unjust to set foxhounds to kill foxes because human beings were too lazy to take proper care of their chickens. Whenever I tried to speak to anyone about it, I was told to mind my manners, what did I know? I was just a child. It was years before I was vindicated and foxhunting was banned in England and Wales. During the debate that raged beforehand, I was involved in researching the effect hunting had on the fox. The prohunting lobby said that they only caught old and sick animals, but that was simply not true. I examined foxes that had been caught and among them were carcasses of eighteen-month-old foxes - animals in the prime of life - too young to know how to save themselves. Another myth was that the lead dog brought down the fox and it was all over in seconds with a single bite. The truth was they ran the fox to exhaustion until its brain boiled and swelled, its lungs bled, and the fox drowned in its own blood. They were often dead before the hounds even touched them. It was the most horrific death.”

Shaun Ellis (1977) American football player, defensive end

The Man who lives with Wolves (2010)

Life, Death, Truth, Dogs

“Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger.
Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

Soul, Question

“This bill reminds me of the tactics of the former Soviet Union — and we know how successful that was.”

Virginia Foxx (1943) American politician

Referring to HR 2749: Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009
Quoted in [Kathryn A., Wolfe, http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003182272, House Passes Sweeping Food Safety Bill, Congressional Quarterly, July 30, 2009, 2009-11-14]
Food Safety

Success

“Men who cannot believe in the mystery of our Saviour's redemption can believe that spirits from the dead have visited them in a stranger's parlour, because they see a table shake and do not know how it is shaken; because they hear a rapping on a board, and cannot see the instrument that raps it; because they are touched in the dark, and do not know the hand that touches them.”

Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) English novelist (1815-1882)

The New Zealander (1965), p. 73

Men, Dead

“The fact that we are I don't know how many millions of people, yet communication, complete communication, is completely impossible between two of those people, is to me one of the biggest tragic themes in the world.”

Georges Simenon (1903–1989) Belgian writer

Interviewed in Paris Review, Summer 1955; reprinted in Malcolm Cowley (ed.) Writers at Work (New York: Viking Press, 1959) p. 153.

People, World, Communication

“A moment lost, forever gone,
can never be again,
so know how much it means to me;
all you said,
all you gave,
all your love to me.”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

Song lyrics, Amarantine (2005)

Love

“The Irishman, finding himself in another environment, outside Ireland, very often knows how to make his worth felt. The economic and intellectual conditions of his homeland do not permit the individual to develop. The spirit of the country has been weakened by centuries of useless struggle and broken treaties. Individual initiative has been paralyzed by the influence and admonitions of the church, while the body has been shackled by peelers, duty officers and soldiers. No self-respecting person wants to stay in Ireland. Instead he will run from it, as if from a country that has been subjected to a visitation by an angry Jove.”

James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish novelist and poet

"Ireland, Island of Saints and Sages," lecture, (27 April 1907), Università Popolare, Trieste, printed in James Joyce: Occasional, Critical and Political Writing (2002) edited by Kevin Barry [Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-192-83353-7], p. 123

Personality, Country

“Verily, trust Google. The truth is out there; we just need to know how to Google it!”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Google It: Total Information Awareness, 2016

Truth

“People get a sense that something is really wrong in government and in our culture. There is a corruption, not only in politics, but of spirit as well, when people are so quick to be violent with one another. I think everybody would like to be able to find a solution to make things better. We have the desire to reform inside of us, and we get frustrated because we don’t know how to change things, even if it comes to our own behavior. Sometimes you get frustrated because you don’t know how to stop that thing that you know is either hurtful to yourself or someone else.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Interview at Collider.com (6 February 2011) http://collider.com/jennifer-beals-interview-the-chicago-code/74802/.

People, Behavior, Thinking, Sense

“Territory we do not want; having, it is probable, already more than we well know how to manage. Instead therefore of countenancing that vagrant and unsettled way of life which has become habitual to so many of our people; and that very general passion they have to be for ever running back in quest of fresh lands; a practice not more unpropitious to all agricultural improvements, than likely to keep us involved in Indian wars; let us enlarge our empire by the civilization of the Indians; who already have a better title to any of our un-located lands, than we can possibly give any new comers”

Jonathan Boucher (1738–1804) English minister

[He goes on to cite the example of Sir William Johnson's work with the Mohawks as Indian Superintendent, and to explain further what he means by "civilization"- in particular, encouraging the use of agriculture instead of hunting].
"A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution" (London, Robinson, 1797)

Life, War, People, Way

“Tell her about it
Tell her everything you feel
Give her every reason to accept
That you're for real.
Tell her about it.
Tell her all your crazy dreams.
Let her know you need her
Let her know how much she means.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Tell Her About It.
Song lyrics, An Innocent Man (1983)

Dreams, Feeling

“Incredible. I didn't know how to calm him down, and then I had an inspiration. I went to my hut, where, for months I had hidden a piece of chocolate. We would almost have killed one another for something like that. I went back to him, going right into his face and ate the chocolate. All of a sudden he was quiet. This was utterly beyond him.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

Herzog on Herzog (2002), On Klaus Kinski

“I follow you — because I must. Do you think I am not afraid of death? I am afraid because I do not know what there is, and see only darkness without end; which makes me recoil. I do not know whether there be nothingness, or existence without space and time; perhaps some midplanetary wind carries the spiritual monad from star to star to implant it in an ever-renewing existence. I do not know whether there be immense restlessness, or a peace so perfect as only Omnipotence and Love can bestow on us. But since you have died through my "I do not know," how could I remain here — and live?
The more I fear, the more I do not know, — the more I cannot let you go alone; I cannot, Aniela mine, — and I follow. Together we shall sink into nothingness, or together begin a new life; and here below where we have suffered let us be buried in oblivion.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Without Dogma

Rome, 5 December
Without Dogma (1891)

Love, Life, Death, Fear

“We know how to handle these murderers, these rapists, these criminals. We've done this before … in Drenica in 1946. We killed them. We killed them all. Of course we did not do it all at once. It took some time.”

Slobodan Milošević (1941–2006) Yugoslavian and Serbian politician

Testimony of Gen. Wesley Clark at the Former Yugoslavia Tribunal
Disputed

Time

“A few years ago I got a phone call from a marketing executive who wanted to light up the Moon with the logo of her company. She wanted to know how she might proceed. After slamming down the phone, I called her back and politely explained why it was a bad idea. Other corporate executives have asked me how to put into orbit mile-wide luminous banners with catchy slogans written across them, much like the skywriting or flag-dragging airplanes you see at sports events or over the ocean from a crowded beach. I always threaten to send the light police after them.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Let There Be Dark, Natural History Magazine, October 2002, 2018-24-03 http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/2002/10/01/let-there-be-dark, 2000s

Idea, Sport, Light

“Is it not odd that the only truly generous person I ever knew who had money enough to be generous with should be a stockbroker? He writes poetry and pastoral dramas and yet knows how to make money, and does make it, and is still generous.”

Horace Smith (1779–1849) English poet and novelist

Percy Bysshe Shelley.
About

Money, Personality

“One more night, God I've had to fight
To keep my line of sight on what's real
One more day I fear I've lost my way
I don't know how to say what I feel.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

One More Day, One More Night
Lyrics, Echo (1999)

God, Fear, Way, Feeling

“I don't want people memorizing the planets or counting how many plants there are in the world. But I want them to know that the world is 4.56 billion years old, and I want them to know how we know it is 4.56 billion years old. It's wonderful and exciting, and it creates a reverence for nature. When I see people reject all that, it's kind of creepy.”

Bill Nye (1955) American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, writer, scientist and former mechanical engineer

[NewsBank, D-01, Bill Nye, the Science Guy, brings humor to normally serious field, The Daily Gazette, Schenectady, New York, March 9, 2005, Bill Buell]

People, World, Nature

“I think the most successful way to overthrow any government is through infiltration. It's been proven for years. The dream, of course, is that there is going to be a fantastic cataclysm, and that tomorrow we have Adlai Stevenson in the White House. That's not going to happen, and not because Adlai Stevenson is dead. The reason it's not going to happen is that kind of overthrow is not possible. So I will work in the only way I know how, and that is within the establishment — because that is the only existing program. Let someone come up with another one and if it's good I'd do it in a second.”

Cass Elliot (1941–1974) American singer

Rolling Stone interview (1968)

Dreams, Way, Thinking, Success

“Picasso.... the master.... being a master: 'I don't search, I find' [a famous quote of Picasso, where he criticize the 'searching' artists].. the master, the mastery.... Producing, producing... He [Picasso! ] only knows how to work, can’t do anything else. What lost souls!... The great risk is producing for its own sake. You must never force things. You just have to wait.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

31 October 1966; p. 59
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

Quotes, Soul, Search, Waiting

“This led me to extend my inquiry into the origin of all religions, and this again led to an enquiry into the origin of nations and languages; and ultimately I came to a resolution to devote six hours a day to this pursuit for ten years. Instead of six hours daily for ten years, I believe I have, upon the average, applied myself to it for nearly ten hours daily for almost twenty years. In the first ten years of my search I may fairly say, I found nothing which I sought for; in the latter part of the twenty, the quantity of matter has so crowded in upon me, that I scarcely know how to dispose of it.”

Godfrey Higgins (1772–1833) British archaeologist

Undated letter at Godfrey Higgins http://burghwallis.com/village/articles/higgins.htm biography.

Religion, Search, Parting

“Cupid and my Campaspe play'd
At cards for kisses—Cupid paid:
He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
His mother's doves, and team of sparrows;
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lips, the rose
Growing one's cheek (but none knows how);
With these, the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin:
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes—
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! has she done this for thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?”

John Lyly (1554–1606) English politician

Poem: Cupid and Campaspe.

Love, Kiss

““Marina,” I said, “I don’t know how to explain this, but … well, everything I say or do or even think just doesn’t seem to work out for me. Except when I’m totally alone.” I almost added, “Totally alone with God,” but I didn’t because I knew how crazyloco this might sound, especially since I wasn’t a priest or a monk.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

God, Thinking

“Every piece of information about these statues is totally useless... What. import is it to us if their author was a bureaucrat or a cowherd, an old man or a young person? It is very unfounded to pay attention to these meager ircumstances. There is no difference between an old and young man. Not the least in any domain. Or if he was from Burgundy or Auvergne it's the same. And if he is alive or dead for who knows how long it is the same to us. Between a contemporary and someone from the last century, or a companion of Clovis or the big prehistoric reptiles? No difference whatsoever. We are completely wrong to take interest in these details.”

Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) sculptor from France

Quote in Dubuffet's 1947 Entry on an anonymous sculptor, associated with the Swiss collector O.J. Müller; from: Jean Dubuffet, Les Barbus Müller et Autres Pièces de la Statuaire Provinciale(1947), in Prospectus I, pp. 498-49 (transl. Kent Minturn)
remark about the publication of biographically based texts on individual art brut artists; according to Dubuffet: veritable history of art without 'names,' 'dates,' or 'histories'.
1940's

Personality, Dead

“Disciple: Lord, what is true detachment?
Truth: Take note with careful discrimination of these two words: oneself and leave. If you know how to weigh these two words properly, testing their meaning thoroughly to their core and viewing them with true discernment, then you can quickly grasp the truth.
Take, first of all, the first word -- oneself or myself -- and see what it is. It is important to realize that everyone has five kinds of self. The first self we have in common with a stone, and this is being. The second we share with plants, and this is growing. The third self we share with animals, and this is sensation. The fourth we share with all other human beings: we possess a common human nature in which all are one. The fifth - which belongs to a person exclusively as his or her own - is one's individual human self…
Now what is it that leads people astray and robs them of happiness? It is exclusively this last self. Because of it a person turns outward, away from God and toward this self, when he or she should be returning inward. Thus they fashion their own selves according to what is accidental. In their blindness they appropriate to themselves what is God's. This is the direction they take, and they eventually sink into sinfulness.”

Henry Suso (1295–1366) Dominican friar and mystic

The Exemplar, The Little Book of Truth

God, Happiness, People, Truth

“I don't know how this will end. All I know is Nanhoï's love. My son is my life. I believe in the magic of this love. He is the embodiment of life to me. The embodiment of beauty. Through him I'll find redemption and salvation. Then the wound in my soul - the wound I thought would never scar over - will stop bleeding. I thought I would have to tear it open once it began to heal. Back then, when I felt I couldn't stop being what is called an actor, when I told myself I was only doing it for the money and that it could be worse. Now, today, I'd rather be poor, but without nightmares and without the torture. If only I could! I wish I'd never been an actor! I wish I'd never had success! I'd rather have been a streetwalker, selling my body, than selling my tears and my laughter, my grief and joy.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

Source: Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996), p. 316

Love, Life, Money, Beauty

“I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, "Are you going to start listening to me here? Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. Because they know what needs to be done. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to rein in the spending."”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

political rally, 2011-08-29, quoted in * Michele Bachmann rally draws over 1,000 in Sarasota, but some prefer Rick Perry
St. Petersburg Times
2011-08-29
Adam C.
Smith
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/hundreds-turn-out-for-bachmann-rally-in-sarasota-but-some-prefer-perry/1188559
2011-09-03
2010s

God, People

“I usually work in a direction until I know how to do it, then I stop. At the time that I am bored or understand — I use those words interchangeably — another appetite has formed.”

Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) American artist

Quoted in: Wendy Richmond (2009), Art Without Compromise, p. 136
21st Century

Understanding, Time

“The trouble with free elections is that you never know how they are going to turn out.”

Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986) Soviet politician and diplomat

Remark at the Berlin Conference (1954) according to an eyewitness writing in International Affairs Vol. 36 (1960), p. 4

“We who live abroad are accustomed to believe that almost all Eretz Yisrael is now uninhabited desert and whoever wishes can buy land there as he pleases. But this is not true. It is very difficult to find in the land [ha'aretz] cultivated fields that are not used for planting. Only those sand fields or stone mountains that would require the investment of hard labor and great expense to make them good for planting remain uncultivated and that's because the Arabs do not like working too much in the present for a distant future. Therefore, it is very difficult to find good land for cattle. And not only peasants, but also rich landowners, are not selling good land so easily…We who live abroad are accustomed to believing that the Arabs are all wild desert people who, like donkeys, neither see nor understand what is happening around them. But this is a grave mistake. The Arab, like all the Semites, is sharp minded and shrewd. All the townships of Syria and Eretz Yisrael are full of Arab merchants who know how to exploit the masses and keep track of everyone with whom they deal – the same as in Europe. The Arabs, especially the urban elite, see and understand what we are doing and what we wish to do on the land, but they keep quiet and pretend not to notice anything. For now, they do not consider our actions as presenting a future danger to them. … But, if the time comes that our people's life in Eretz Yisrael will develop to a point where we are taking their place, either slightly or significantly, the natives are not going to just step aside so easily.”

Ahad Ha'am (1856–1927) Hebrew essayist and thinker

Source: Wrestling with Zion, pp. 14-15.

Life, People, Mountain, Understanding

“I think what he went through as a child was very heavy. He never got over his mother leaving his father, and following her mother to Florida, to an area that was very different, and losing his father. When he was seven years old, this was a very sensitive boy, who was wide-eyed and trusting, and not knowing how to protect himself at all.”

Sandra Seacat (1936) American acting teacher and actress

As heard in the "Mickey Rourke" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_KOo2uaH3E installment of The Dark Side of Fame with Piers Morgan, broadcast October 6, 2008.

Boy, Thinking

“Some people just don't know how to party.”

Chris Pontius (1974) American actor

Jackass: The Movie

People

“Stood there who knows how long looked / at the clouds the hedge / when someone came out of the door it was her daughter.”

Mirkka Rekola (1931–2014) Finnish writer

Daughters

“My house got robbed in New York. I didn't even call the police. I wanted to, but I couldn't. My crib is too nice. It's not that it's too nice, but it's too nice for me. You know how the police are in New York. Soon as I open the door, they'll be like, "He's still here! Open and shut case, Johnson. Apparently this black guy broke in and hung up pictures of his family everywhere. Never seen anything like it."”

Dave Chappelle (1973) American comedian

Comedy specials, HBO Comedy Half-Hour: Dave Chappelle (1998)

Family, Guy, Housing

“It didn't matter that the story had begun, because kathakali discovered long ago that the secrets of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones that you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don't deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don't surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover's skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don't. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won't. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn't. And yet you want to know again.
That is their mystery and their magic.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

page 229.
The God of Small Things (1997)
Variant: It didn't matter that the story had begun, because kathakali discovered long ago that the secrets of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones that you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don't deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don't surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover's skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don't. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won't. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn't. And yet you want to know again.
That is their mystery and their magic.

Love, Secret, Way, Lovers

“You know how sailors love to create mystery where there is none.”

Douglas Reeman (1924–2017) British author

A Tradition of Victory, Cap 2 "No Looking Back"

Love

“The strong man is he who knows how and is able to become and be himself; the magnanimous man is he who, being strong, knows how and is able to issue forth from himself, as from a fortress, to guide, protect, encourage, and save others.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Means and Ends of Education (1895), Chapter 1 "Truth and Love"

Strong

“She always had been in touch with something outside of human ken. She had something in her no other human had. You sensed it, but you could not name it, for there was no name for this thing she had. And she had fumbled with it, trying to use it, not knowing how to use it, charming off the warts and healing poor hurt butterflies and only God knew what other acts that she performed unseen.”

Clifford D. Simak book Way Station

Source: Way Station (1963), Ch. 34

God, Sense, Hurt

“In the depths of our crater lake, everything is silent. The volcano's been extinct for ages. Layer upon layer of solitude, like folds of soft mud. The little bit of light that manages to penetrate to the depths lights up the surroundings like the remains of some faint, distant memory. At these depths there's no sign of life. I don't know how long she looks at me -not at me, maybe, but at the spot where I am. Time's rules don't apply here. Time expands, then contracts, all in tune with the stirrings of the heart.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter 23, Kafka Temura

Life, Age, Solitude, Light

“You gotta know how to get to people's heart”

Ray Charles (1930–2004) American musician

Pop Chronicles: Show 15 - The Soul Reformation I: A symposium on soul http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19764/m1/, interview recorded 1.2.1968 http://web.archive.org/web/20110615153027/http://www.library.unt.edu/music/special-collections/john-gilliland/o-s.

People, Heart

“Well, it's been the monopolizing of great wealth, which tends to happen in basically unjust societies and undemocratic societies. We have plenty of would-be democrats, would-be liberals, and would-be progressives. But how do you organize? The Democratic Party is a machine to get votes for its people, none of who should probably be elected to the high offices of state. That's all. The Republican Party is fundamentally crooked and might well be outlawed one of these days. Le Pen, you know, in France, who is an out-and-out fascist, the French have managed in some clever way to contain him. I mean, he's always running for president; his votes never seem to show up. I don't know how they do it, but we've got to do that with the Republican base, the religious right. We don't want them running the country. Nobody does. Certainly not the founding fathers. And I think we have to ride herd on them and make sure they do not seize the state.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

On fascism http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=342 2000s, What I've Learned (2008), Gore Vidal's America (2009)

People, Way, Thinking, Country

“A man who knows how little he knows is well, a man who knows how much he knows is sick.”

Witter Bynner (1881–1968) American author

The Way of Life, According to Laotzu, 1944.

“You know how to stop abortion? Require that each one occur with a gun.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

The Rush Limbaugh Show
2013-01-16
Radio, quoted in * 2013-01-18
Rush Limbaugh: 'You Know How to Stop Abortion? Require That Each One Occur With a Gun'
Conor
Friedersdorf
The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/01/rush-limbaugh-you-know-how-to-stop-abortion-require-that-each-one-occur-with-a-gun/267279/

“Funnily enough, Daihatsu are one of the better interior stylists. God knows how they do it.”

Jeremy Clarkson (1960) English broadcaster, journalist and writer

Source: Clarkson on Cars (1996), p. 62

God

“You never know how things are gonna turn out, though, and that's the truth. You aim for one place, sure as an arrow, but before you hit the mark, the wind gets you. I don't believe I ever met one person who became what they wanted to be when they were your age.”

Robert McCammon book Boy's Life

Cory's dad to Cory; Book One, Ch. 1.
Boy's Life (1991)

Truth, Age, Personality

“Write her a poem, spill your heart to her in sweet cadences; but I didn't know how to write poetry. It was love and dove with me, bad rhymes, blundering sentiment. Oh Christ in Heaven, I'm no writer: I can't even put down a little quatrain. I'm no good in this world. I stood at the window and waved my hands at the sky; no good at all, just a cheap fake; neither writer nor lover; neither fish nor fowl.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Love, World, Lovers, Fish

“There's a very strong connection between a lot of the evils of the modern world—factory farming, abuse against women—and the environment. We're destroying the female. If you think about the earth as a female organism which it is, in its totality, you know how we're disrespecting and abusing it. … [I have] very strong feelings about factory farming … I’m a vegetarian myself … I don’t want any kind of suffering of any living form but it’s more to do with the awareness that so much of the meat on the planet is being produced by factory farms. Animals are being pumped full of growth hormones which are then getting fed to our kids. And it’s affecting the water, environment. … We are being duped and controlled by huge multinationals that are concerned about the short term, not the long term and don’t care about the individual.”

Thandie Newton (1972) English actress

“The ‘superhero’ in feisty actress Thandie Newton,” interview with Inquirer.net (13 April 2013) http://entertainment.inquirer.net/89505/the-superhero-in-feisty-actress-thandie-newton.

Women, World, Feeling, Thinking

“I don't know how long I would've stayed, to be honest.”

Larry Page (1973) American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur

theguardian.com http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/07/google-founders-larry-page-sergey-brin-interview

Quotes about know-how page 7

Quotes about know-how
page 7