Quotes & Sayings About Rakes

If a wicked rake doesn't kiss a young lady when they're alone in a moonlit rose garden, might it mean he doesn't intend to? There were rules about such things. Weren't they written down somewhere? If not, then they should be. A Treatise on Rakes, written for Susceptible Young Ladies, by a Lady of Distinction. — Anna Bradley

I will garden on the double run,
my rhythm obvious in the ringing rakes,
and trust in fate to keep me poor and kind
and work until my heart is short,
then go out slowly with a feeble grin,
my fingers flexing but my eyes gone gray
from cramps and the lack of oxygen. — Richard Hugo

Rakes, those male Magdalenes, have a secret feeling of innocence similar to that which female Magdalenes have, based on the same hope of forgiveness. 'All will be forgiven her, for she loved much; and all will be forgiven him, for he enjoyed much. — Leo Tolstoy

Because the rubber, too, is bulletproof. And so relentless is the wind that it rakes the street, pushing along this burden of crippled vermin, trundling this tide of suffering always in the wake of the Town Car as it reaches Spaulding Square. Fissures of lightning — Chuck Palahniuk

Just what part does the State play in production to warrant its rake-off? The State does not give; it merely takes. — Frank Chodorov

So why did he do it?"
Cricket rakes a hand through his hair. "For the same reason everyone makes mistake. He fell in love. — Stephanie Perkins

Reformed rakes make the best husbands,"Violet said.
"Rubbish and you know it."
-Anthony to Violet — Julia Quinn

Lip-chewed debtors rich in excuses; heard-it-all creditors tightening nooses; prisoners haunted by happier lives and ageing rakes by other men's wives; skeletal tutors goaded to fits; firemen-turned-looters when occasion permits; tongue-tied witnesses; purchased judges; mothers-in-law nurturing briars and grudges; apothecaries grinding powders with mortars; palanquins carrying not-yet-wed daughters; silent nuns; nine-year-old whores; the once-were-beautiful gnawed by sores; — David Mitchell

Baccarat is a game whereby the croupier gathers in money with a flexible sculling oar, then rakes it home. If I could have borrowed his oar I would have stayed. — Mark Twain

With great hope in their hearts and wholehearted belief in their eyes during each new attempt, they keep on using the same approach over and over again, and always FAIL... Yet every time they expect that somehow a totally different result will magically occur!
They are "stepping on to the same rake," and each time they're surprised and angry when the rake handle hits them on the forehead again. But they keep seeing the reasons for their failures as just another hurtful kick from life - not a result of their own actions, which cause these setbacks. They just keep on blaming the rakes! — Sahara Sanders

brushed with the first crimson of sunrise. On the oval track the comb marks of the rakes in the dirt showed no footsteps; Saul always ran better on fresh earth. He stripped and tossed — James Cannon

So
I confess I have been a rake at reading. I have read those things which I ought not to have read, and I have not read those things which I ought to have read, and there is no health in me
if by health you mean an inclusive and coherent knowledge of any body of great literature. I can only protest, like all rakes in their shameful senescence, that I have had a good time. — Robertson Davies

Civil disobedience was new to Lancre, but its inhabitants had already mastered some of its more elementary manifestations, viz, the jerking of rakes and sickles in the air with simple up-and-down motions accompanied by grimaces and cries of "Gerrh!," although a few citizens, who hadn't quite grasped the idea, were waving flags and cheering. Advanced students were already eyeing the more combustible buildings inside the walls. Several sellers of hot meat pies and sausages in a bun had appeared from nowhere* and were doing a brisk trade. Pretty soon someone was going to throw something. — Terry Pratchett

What do ladies wear beneath their riding trousers?"
"I would think an infamous rake would already know."
"I was never infamous. In fact, I'm fairly standard as far as rakes go."
"The ones who deny it are the worst. — Lisa Kleypas

Yes. And when a rake finally falls, he falls forever. — Anne Gracie

This Author has come to the conclusion that there are rakes, and there are Rakes.
Anthony Bridgerton is a Rake.
A rake (lower-case) is youthful and immature. He flaunts his exploits, behaves with utmost idiocy, and thinks himself dangerous to women.
A Rake (upper-case) knows he is dangerous to women.
He doesn't flaunt his exploits because he doesn't need to. He knows he will be whispered about by men and women alike, and in fact, he'd rather they didn't whisper about him at all. He knows who he is and what he has done; further recountings are, to him, redundant.
He doesn't behave like an idiot for the simple reason that he isn't an idiot — Julia Quinn

Introducing non-copy-protected software into this kind of an environment may be the single most boneheaded thing that American business has ever done in its long history of stepping on rakes in Asia. — Neal Stephenson

I clench my teeth. "I'm not a virgin, Garrett." "You're not a puck bunny either." "So that means I'm not allowed to sleep with a guy I'm attracted to?" He rakes both hands over his scalp now, looking equally aggravated. Then he takes a breath, exhales slowly, and meets my eyes. "Okay, here's the deal. I believe you're attracted to me. I mean - one, who isn't? And two, you moan like crazy whenever my tongue's in your mouth." I bristle. "I do not." "Agree to disagree. — Elle Kennedy

The old bells of the church of San Frediano toll with bold resounding strokes. In their wake broadening rings of silence seem to echo up over the rooftops. The setting sun rakes incandescent highlights over the water. A group of waterfowl on an island of grass half way across the river appear made of silver light. — Glenn Haybittle

He was a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes. — Thomas Babington Macaulay

I'm thinking of writing a children's story about a leaf on a tree who arrogantly insists he's a self-made, independent leaf. Then one day a fierce wind blows him off his branch and to the ground below. As his life slowly ebbs away, he looks up at the magnificent old tree that had been his home and realizes that he had never been on his own. His entire life he had been part of something bigger and more beautiful than anything he could have imagined. In a blinding flash, he awakens from the delusion of self. Then an arrogant, self-centered kid rakes him up and bags him. — Chuck Lorre

A short time later, when the carpenter was taking measurements for the coffin, through the window they saw a light rain of tiny yellow flowers falling. They fell on the town all through the night in a silent storm, and they covered the roofs and blocked the doors and smothered the animals who slept outdoors. So many flowers fell from the sky that in the morning the streets were carpeted with a compact cushion and they had to clear them away with shovels and rakes so that the funeral procession could pass by. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Bloody hell, Ms. Lane, how many "buts" are you going to throw at me besides the only one I want? He rakes a hungry gaze over my ass and I shiver. — Karen Marie Moning

The stoic contemplates fallen leaves; the epicure rakes them into a loveseat. — Bauvard

I've always tried different stuff in the studio. I use rakes, spoons, cans ... I'm a surround-sound type of guy. — Timbaland

Rakes make good husbands. Especially when they fall in love. — Jess Michaels

Wealth, howsoever got, in England makes lords of mechanics, gentlemen of rakes; Antiquity and birth are needless here; 'Tis impudence and money makes a peer. — Daniel Defoe

We overstate the ills of life, and take Imagination ... down our earth to rake ... — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

He rakes his fingers through his hair, looking agitated. "Look, I'm sure I could find you a nice little bomb shelter somewhere with two years worth of supplies."
"I'm guessing those are all taken."
"And I'm guessing someone would happily give one up for you, especially if I asked nicely." He gives me a dry smile. "You could take a little vacation from all this and come out after things settle down. Hole up, wait it out, be safe."
"You'd better be careful. You might be mistaken for someone who's worried about me." He shakes his head.
"I'm just worried someone might recognize my sword in your hands. If I squirrel you away for a couple of years, then maybe I can save myself the embarrassment — Susan Ee

You don't have to apologize," Treston said. "I know where I work, I know what I do to make a living, and I know it's not the most respectable place in Vegas. But frankly, Chad, if you don't mind my saying so, I think you have a lot to learn about good manners."
Chad blinked. "What do you mean?"
Treston reached for his wine glass, finished off what was left to wash down the last forkful of chewy escargot, and said, "All I'm saying is you haven't stopped harping about that blond, and I have to tell you it's getting a little tired now. Seriously, man. It's a little insulting, too." He leaned forward, looked into Chad's eyes, and held his hand. "Look, I know how hard it is for selfish men like you to understand empathy. Lord knows I've been with enough of them. — Ryan Field

This is why we give into the storm of love. This something that is neither word nor feeling, found in quiet gazes and cookies in the dark. Hidden in cotton candy secrets and gentle shower soapsuds. It creeps up on you and slips inside, and before you know it, love owns you completely. But when it leaves, it rakes you insides, ripping at your soul until you're shredded and undone. then, and only then, do you realize you were in love. — Chelsea Fine

When we have made our love and gamed our gaming, Drest, voted, shone, and maybe something more; With dandies dined, heard senators declaiming, Seen beauties brought to market by the score, Sad rakes to sadder husbands chastely taming, There's little left but to be bored or bore. Witness those ci-devant jeunes hommes who stem The stream, nor leave the world which leaveth them. — George Gordon Byron

off the field, a real man doesn't bully the smaller or weaker person. A man rises above all such nonsense, you know? It's what being a man's about - protecting the weak, helping them get stronger, and standing up for what you believe in, on and off the field. — Michele Micheal Rakes

Reformed rakes often make the best husbands. — Judith McNaught

You'd think that would have been forgotten long ago. But no, no sooner has a little grass grown over it than some clumsy camel comes along and rakes it all up again."
Caroline giggled. She was probably imagining Aunt Glenda as a camel.
"This is not a TV series, Maddy," said Lady Arista sharply.
"Thank goodness, no, it isn't," said Great-aunt Maddy. "If it were, I'd have lost track of the plot ages ago. — Kerstin Gier

Once shame touches your being at any point, even the most distant nerve is implicated, whether you know it or not; any fleeting encounter or random thought will rake up the anguish and add to it. — Stefan Zweig

[The main road was] now teeming with people carrying torches, pitchforks, and rakes, and one very confused man who apparently had mistaken the mob for a parade and was marching around with a Swedish flag. — Cuthbert Soup

It seems to me that you can go sauntering along for a certain period, telling the English some interesting things about themselves, and then all at once it feels as if you had stepped on the prongs of a rake. — Patrick Campbell, 3rd Baron Glenavy

For some reason Miss Jenner had seen fit to come uninvited to Sebastian's home at a scandalously late hour. To make the situation even more compromising, she was unaccompanied - and spending more than a half minute alone with Sebastian was sufficient to ruin any girl. He was debauched, amoral, and perversely proud of it. He excelled at his chosen occupation - that of degenerate seducer - and he had set a standard few rakes could aspire to. — Lisa Kleypas

It is Autumn, as you know, and things are beginning to die. It is so wonderful to be out in the crisp Fall air, with the leaves turning gold and the grass turning brown and the warmth going out of the sunlight and big hot fires in the fireplace while Buddy rakes the lawn. We see a lot of bombs on TV because we watch it a lot more, now that the days get shorter and shorter, and darkness comes so soon, and all the flowers die from freezing. — Hunter S. Thompson

It is no disparagement to the garden to say it will not fence and weed itself, nor prune its own fruit trees, nor roll and cut its own lawns ... It will remain a garden only if someone does all these things to it ... If you want to see the difference between [the garden's] contribution and the gardener's, put the commonest weed it grows side by side with his hoes rakes, shears, and a packet of weed killer; you have put beauty, energy, and fecundity beside dead, steril things. Just so, our 'decency and common sense' show grey and deathlike beside the geniality of love. — C.S. Lewis

Who can dispute that the governments of the United States constitute the most voracious tax system in the history of mankind? In the year 2000, those governments succeeded in laying hands on more than $3 trillion - almost $11,000 each for the 275 million men, women, and children resident in the country. No other nation-state rakes in an amount even close to the U.S. total. — Robert Higgs

Mr. Suttree it is our understanding that at curfew rightly decreed by law and in that hour wherein night draws to its proper close and the new day commences and contrary to conduct befitting a person of your station you betook yourself to various low places within the shire of McAnally and there did squander several ensuing years in the company of thieves, derelicts, miscreants, pariahs, poltroons, spalpeens, curmudgeons, clotpolls, murderers, gamblers, bawds, whores, trulls, brigands, topers, tosspots, sots and archsots, lobcocks, smellsmocks, runagates, rakes, and other assorted and felonious debauchees.
I was drunk, cried Suttree. — Cormac McCarthy

I often resorted: buckets, brooms, garden rakes, Granny Smith apples, cats that when thrown will reliably take out their fury not on the thrower but instead on the person at whom they're thrown. I didn't like throwing cats or animals of any kind, as far as that goes, but every once in a while, in a life-and-death situation, there was nothing to be done but grab a cat and throw it, or an angry ferret. — Dean Koontz

Watch your back, wolf. There's a pall over this place and the bears are racking up enemies faster than Wal-Mart rakes in sales. When the time comes, it's going to get bloody. (Thorn)
I wouldn't have it any other way. (Fang)
Don't be so arrogant. Long before I was the debonair sophisticate standing in front of you, I was a warlord. I put more blood on my blade than Madame la Guillotine. The one thing all that battle taught me is that no one walks away without scars. No one. (Thorn) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

One of his brows lifted in a rather superior manner. "And you wouldn't classify your brothers as rakes?"
"They only think they are rakes," she corrected. "There is a considerable difference."
Simon snorted. "If Anthony isn't a rake, I pity the woman who meets the man who is."
-Simon & Daphne — Julia Quinn

Just when I think you've hit bottom you continue to amaze me," Kyle said. "Or, does this get worse? Nothing would surprise me after this. Are you sleeping with a married man whose wife is dying of cancer?"
Elroy didn't think he'd done anything wrong. "I know nothing about his wife, or his husband for that matter. I don't ask and I'm not out to break up his home. Lighten up, man. Everybody does it. It's not like I'm going to freaking marry this dude. I'm only having a little fun with him. You wanna come with me? We'll have a three-way. You should see the way this guy moves. It will blow your mind."
With that remark Kyle shoved his hands into his pockets and walked faster. "No, thank you. That's not something I'm interested in doing. Meeting nice, decent people is the only thing that blows my mind. I just hope you're using condoms, you goddman asshole. — Ryan Field

I can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own; where the law hath not been able to find an expedient. — Jonathan Swift

He'll catch the pox someday," Pandora persisted darkly, "if he hasn't already. And then he'll give it to me."
"You're being dramatic. And not all rakes have the pox."
"I'm going to ask him if he does."
"Pandora, you wouldn't! The poor man would be horrified."
"So would I, if I ended up losing my nose. — Lisa Kleypas

Truth is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether or not they believe it."
The logic in the words grated. "The first rule of scoundrels? — Sarah MacLean

Amazon is a marvelous conglomeration and delivery system for products of every imaginable function. But the book 'business' is really not the same as the sale of lawn rakes or adapters for telephones. — Janet Fitch

There is reason to fear that men love better to investigate how muslins, hay-rakes, and, above all and inclusive of all, money may be made, than how their own minds are constructed — Fitz Hugh Ludlow

Rakes are more suspicious than honest men. — Samuel Richardson

Rake," came the succinct reply. "Oh, all right," Lillian grumbled. "I suppose he is a rake. But that may not be an impediment to his courtship of Lady Natalie. Some women like rakes. Look at Evie." Evie continued to snip doggedly through the brocade ribbon, while a smile curved her lips. "I don't l-like all rakes," she said, her gaze on her work. "Just one." Evie, the gentlest and most soft-spoken of them all, had been the one least likely to capture the heart of the notorious Lord St. Vincent, who had been the definitive rake. Although Evie, with her round blue eyes and blazing red hair, possessed a rare and unconventional beauty, she was unbearably shy. And there was the stammer. But Evie also had a reserve of quiet strength and a gallant spirit that seemed to have seduced her husband utterly. "And that former rake obviously adores you beyond reason," Annabelle said. — Lisa Kleypas

Every woman is at heart a rake. — Alexander Pope

Yeah," Violet says from where she's stooped on the floor. "But those weren't family tears." Whitney rakes her fingers through Hadley's hair. "What were they, then." "Those were boy tears," Violet says with a smile. — Jennifer E. Smith