Reckon One Quotes & Sayings

Eight-and-twenty years,' said I, 'I have lived, and never a ghost have I seen as yet.'
The old woman sat staring hard into the fire, her pale eyes wide open.
'Ay,' she broke in; 'and eight-and-twenty years you have lived and never seen the likes of this house, I reckon. There's a many things to see, when one's still but eight-and-twenty.' She swayed her head slowly from side to side. 'A many things to see and sorrow for.' ("The Red Room") — H.G.Wells

Jupiter, not wanting man's life to be wholly gloomy and grim, has bestowed far more passion than reason
you could reckon the ration as twenty-four to one. Moreover, he confined reason to a cramped corner of the head and left all the rest of the body to the passions. — Desiderius Erasmus

Does it bother you that I'm not a virgin?" He hesitated a moment before answering.
"Well, no," he said slowly, "so long as it doesna bother you that I am." He grinned at my drop-jawed expression, and backed toward the door.
"Reckon one of us should know what they're doing. — Diana Gabaldon

1. To account nothing of one's self, and to think always kindly and highly of others, this is great and perfect wisdom. Even shouldest thou see thy neighbour sin openly or grievously, yet thou oughtest not to reckon thyself better than he, for thou knowest not how long thou shalt keep thine integrity. All of us are weak and frail; hold thou no man more frail than thyself. — Thomas A Kempis

You 'ain't found out yet we're women-folks, Nanny Penn," said she. "You 'ain't seen enough of men-folks yet to. One of these days you'll find it out, an' then you'll know that we know only what men-folks think we do, so far as any use of it goes, an' how we'd ought to reckon men-folks in with Providence an' not complain of what they do any more than we do of the weather. — Mary Wilkins Freeman

One has to spend so many years in learning how to be happy. I am just beginning to make some progress in the science, and I hope to disprove Young's theory that "as soon as we have found the key of life it opes the gates of death." Every year strips us of at least one vain expectation, and teaches us to reckon some solid good in its stead. I never will believe that our youngest days are our happiest. What a miserable augury for the progress of the race and the destination of the individual if the more matured and enlightened state is the less happy one! — George Eliot

Put your mind where your body is. One day at a time forces you to reckon with the instant you actually occupy, rather than living in fantasy la-la that never comes. — Mary Karr

That summer, maybe for the first time in my life, I existed wholly in the present moment, which is one of the liberating things about traveling to a place where no one knows you. I had no past or future, which suited me perfectly, since I did not wish to reckon with either. — Rachel Friedman

Suppose a man is walking across a field. To the question "Who is that?" a Southerner would reply by saying something like "Wasn't his granddaddy the one whose dog and him got struck by lightning on the steel bridge? Mama's third cousin - dead before my time - found his railroad watch in that eight-pound catfish's stomach the next summer just above the dam. I think it was eight pounds. Big as Eunice's arm. The way he married for that new blue Cadillac automobile, reckon how come he's walking like he has on Sunday shoes, if that's who it is, and for sure it is." A Northerner would reply to the same question (only if directly asked, though, never volunteering), "That's Joe Smith." To which the Southerner might think (but be much too polite to say aloud), "They didn't ask his name, they asked who he is! — Mary Hood

Hard work makes for what I reckon you like in a man, but don't understand. As I look back over my life--an' let me say, young fellar, it's been a tough one--what I remember most an' feel best over are the hardest jobs I ever did, an' those that cost the most sweat an' blood." As — Zane Grey

Muted pain, it turns out, is much worse than clear pain. Clear pain is quantifiable. One can face it, reckon with it, come away braver. There is no way to understand what you cannot feel. No reckoning to be had. It will haunt you forever, make you afraid. Still, they call her this laughable word: Survivor. — Elisa Albert

Better one safe way than a hundred on which you cannot reckon. — Aesop

Reckon it's best if you don't have anyone you care about; then it can't hurt you. Don't have to be afraid of losing someone if you no one to lose. — Karen Maitland

I had one last try.
"Does it bother you that I'm not a virgin?" He hesitated a moment before answering.
"Well, no," he said slowly, "so long as it doesna bother you that I am." He grinned at my drop-jawed expression, and backed toward the door.
"Reckon one of us should know what they're doing," he said. The door closed softly behind him; clearly the courtship was over. — Diana Gabaldon

Talk to me." She shrugged. "Nothing to say." "You're strung tighter'n these wires." "You scared me, is all." He hooked a finger under her jaw, turning her face. "It's more'n that." She pulled away. "You haven't exactly been Mr. Easygoing lately either, you know." He was quiet so long she almost looked at him. Almost. In the quiet, she could feel her pulse throbbing in her neck. "Reckon you're right," he said. She could count on one hand the times she'd heard that from a man. One finger. "It's harder than I thought." "What is?" she asked, then pressed her lips together, suddenly sure she didn't want to know. "Loving you. — Denise Hunter

I've always been a workaholic. I reckon, on average, I've had less than one day a year off in my working career. — Ken Livingstone

YOU'RE A QUEER LITTLE THING," Jesse Dittley decided. "LIKE ONE OF THEM ANTS."
She tipped her head back to look at him. "How do you reckon?"
"THEM ANTS THAT WAS ON THE TELEVISION. IN SOUTH AMERICA OR AFRICA OR INDIA. CARRY TEM TIMES THEIR OWN WEIGHT."
Blue was flattered, but she said sternly, "All ants can carry ten times their own weight, can't they? Normal ants?"
"THSE DID BETTER THAN NORMAL ANTS. WISH I COULD REMEMBER HOW THEY DID BETTER. SO I COUDL TELL YOU."
"Are you trying to say I'm a better sort of ant?"
Jesse Dittley blustered. "DRINK YOUR WATER. — Maggie Stiefvater

And then there is the poet Kenneth Koch, who while travelling in Kenya came to a railroad crossing at which this sign was posted: One train may hide another. This was meant, of course, as a warning to drivers of the fact that the train you see may not be the only train to reckon with, but it also meant, as Koch points out in his poem, that there are many things in this life that conceal other things. One letter may mean another is on the way; one hitch-hiker may deliberately hide another one by the side of the road; offer to carry one bag and you may find there is another one hidden behind it, with the result that you must carry two. And so on through life. Do not count on things coming in ones. — Alexander McCall Smith

Twenty-four hundred years ago, the ageing and grumpy Plato, in Book VII of the Laws, gave his definition of scientific illiteracy: Who is unable to count one, two, three, or to distinguish odd from even numbers, or is unable to count at all, or reckon night and day, and who is totally unacquainted with the revolution of the Sun and Moon, and the other stars . . . All freemen, I conceive, should learn as much of these branches of knowledge as every child in Egypt is taught when he learns the alphabet. In that country arithmetical games have been invented for the use of mere children, which they learn as pleasure and amusement ... I ... have late in life heard with amazement of our ignorance in these matters; to me we appear to be more like pigs than men, and I am quite ashamed, not only of myself, but of all Greeks. — Anonymous

If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
Far or forgot to me is near,
Shadow and sunlight are the same,
The vanished gods to me appear,
And one to me are shame and fame.
They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I reckon you must get bored more easily than other people." He came up onto one elbow and looked at her. "Yes. You'll have your hands full, keeping me excited." "I don't remember anything about that in the marriage vows," she said. "There was obey - I noticed that came first - but I privately added a lengthy footnote to that item." "This surprises me not at all. But there was the part about serving me." "It, too, needed a footnote. Then love and honor and keeping you and sticking with you and nobody else. I remember all those. But I don't recall the minister mentioning anything about keeping you excited." "That was the serve part. It had an asterisk and some fine print." "I did not hear any fine print. — Loretta Chase

Folks say I'm good," he remarked whimsically upon one occasion, "but I sometimes wish the Lord had made me only half as good and put the rest of it into looks. But there, I reckon He knew what He was about, as a good Captain should. Some of us have to be homely, or the purty ones - like Mistress Blythe here - wouldn't show up so well. — L.M. Montgomery

From the day he first made me his, to the last day I made him mine, yes, let me set it down in numbers. I who can count and reckon, and have the time. Of all the days I was his and did not love him - this; and this; and this many. Of all the days I was his - and he had ceased to love me - this many; and this. In days - it comes to a thousand days - out of the years. Strangely, just a thousand. And of that thousand - one - when we were both in love. Only one, when our loves met and overlapped and were both mine and his. When I no longer hated him, he began to hate me. Except for that one day. One day, out of all the years.30 — Susan Bordo

It don't matter about all that anyway," Armstrong added. "You think it do, but it don't. A man ain't just his one talent. Lil Louis needs you. And Jones look to you like you his brother. You got the talent of making others your kin, your blood. Music, well that's different. I reckon it got its own worth, but it ain't a man's whole life."
"Aww hell, Louis," I thought. "Ain't nothing else I want. — Esi Edugyan

Novelty and Security: the security of novelty, the novelty of security. Always the full thing, the whole subject, the true subject, stood just behind the one you found yourself contemplating. The trick, but it wasn't a trick, was to take up at once the thing you saw and the reason you saw it as well; to always bite off more than you could chew, and then chew it. If it were self-indulgence for him to cut and polish his semiprecious memories, and yet seem like danger, like a struggle he was unfit for, then self-indulgence was a potent force, he must examine it, he must reckon with it. — John Crowley

I reckon that blaming people fixes nothing. You're the only person who is going to sort you out. No-one else really can - or really cares, enough. That's what Nepalis know - better than anyone. That's our Western disease. Don't take responsibility. Take on a lawyer! — Jane Wilson-Howarth

What matters is only what's here. I touch my skin right under my breasts, which is where the little one's curled, and where he kicks, 'cause he has to. Like, he don't feel so cosy no more. Here, can you feel it? I reckon he wants me to talk to him. He can hear me inside, for sure. He can hear every note of this silvery music.
It ripples all around him, wave after wave. I can tell that it's starting to sooth him. It's so full of joy, of delight, even if to him, it's coming across somewhat muffled. Like a dream in a dream, it's floating inside, into his soft, tender ear.
I close my eyes and hold myself, wrapping my arms real soft - around me around him - and I rock ever so gently, back and forth, back and forth, with every note of this silvery marvel. You can barely hear me - but here I am, singing along. I'm whispering words into myself, into him. — Uvi Poznansky

I choose many voices to consider and reckon with, rather than just one to tolerate. — T.F. Hodge

There are people who indulge themselves in a sort of lying, which they reckon innocent, and which in one sense is so; for it hurtsnobody but themselves. This sort of lying is the spurious offspring of vanity, begotten upon folly. — Lord Chesterfield

One might almost reckon mathematically that, having undergone the double composition of public opinion and of the author, their history reaches us at third hand and is thus separated by two stages from the original fact. — Alfred De Vigny

They's a heap more to God's will than death, disapoint-ment, and like thet. Hit's God's will for us to be good and do good, love one another, be forgivin' ... " He laughed. "I reckon I ain't very forgivin', son. I can forgive a fool, but I ain't inner-rested in coddlin' hypocrites. Well anyhow, folks who think God's will jest has to do with sufferin' and dyin', they done missed the whole point. — Olive Ann Burns

How rarely these few years, as work keeps up aloof,
Or fares, or one thing or another,
How we had days to spend under our parents' roof;
Myself, my sister, and my brother.
All five of us will die; to reckon from the past
This flesh and blood is unforgiving.
What's hard is that just one of us will be the last
To bear it all and go on living. — Vikram Seth

Many people think of our times as being the last before the end of the world. The evidence of horror all around us makes this seem possible. But isn't that an idea of only minor importance? Doesn't every human being, no matter which era he lives in, always have to reckon with being accountable to God at any moment? Can I know whether I'll be alive tomorrow morning? A bomb could destroy all of us tonight. And then my guilt would not be one bit less than if I perished together with the arth and the stars. — Sophie Scholl

My heart do be so big," she whispered. "It be so big and I do reckon I be about the happiest kid for it. — Torey L. Hayden

bullets were a quick, impersonal way to kill. Using your hands, though - that took work. It required hate. It was a strange and sour thing to know that such hatred had been directed at me. That peculiars who didn't even know my name had, in a moment of collective madness, hated me enough to try to beat out my life with their fists. I felt shamed by it, dehumanized somehow, though I couldn't exactly understand why. It was something I'd have to reckon with, if one day I ever had the luxury of time to reckon with such things. I — Ransom Riggs

Vimes shook his head. "That always chews me up," he said. "People killing one another just because their gods have squabbled - " "Oh, they've got the same god, sir. Apparently it's over a word in their holy book, sir. The Elharibians say it translates as 'god' and the Smalies say it's 'man.'" "How can you mix them up?" "Well, there's only one tiny dot difference in the script, you see. And some people reckon it's only a bit of fly dirt in any case." "Centuries of war because a fly crapped in the wrong place?" "It could have been worse," said Carrot. "If it had been slightly to the left the word would have been 'liquorice. — Terry Pratchett

When a grizzled yeoman worker appeared one morning to complain that as a state legislator many years earlier, in hard times, young Lincoln had inexcusably voted to raise his government salary from two to all of four dollars a day," Lincoln listened to the reproach calmly. "Now, Abe, I want to know what in the world made you do it?" demanded the old Democrat. With deadpan seriousness, Lincoln explained: "I reckon the only reason was that we wanted the money. — Harold Holzer

Who is the best marshal they have?'
The sheriff thought on it for a minute. He said, 'I would have to weigh that proposition. There is near about two hundred of them. I reckon William Waters is the best tracker. He is a half-breed Comanche and it is something to see, watching him cut for sign. The meanest one is Rooster Cogburn. He is a pitiless man, double-tough, and fear don't enter into his thinking. He loves to pull a cork. Now L.T. Quinn, he brings his prisoners in alive. He may let one get by now and then but he believes even the worst of men is entitled to a fair shake. Also the court does not pay any fees for dead men. Quinn is a good peace officer and a lay preacher to boot. He will not plant evidence or abuse a prisoner. He is straight as a string. Yes, I will say Quinn is about the best they have.'
I said, 'Where can I find this Rooster? — Charles Portis

Harry -
I'm flying north immediately. This news about your scar is the latest in a series of strange rumors that have reached me here. If it hurts again, go straight to Dumbledore - they're saying he's got Mad-Eye out of retirement, which means he's reading the signs, even if no one else is.
I'll be in touch soon. My best to Ron and Hermione. Keep your eyes open,Harry.
Sirius
Dear Sirius,
I reckon I just imagined my scar hurting, I was half asleep when I wrote to you last time. There's no point coming back, everything's fine here. Don't worry about me, my head feels completely normal.
Harry
Nice try, Harry.
I'm back in the country and well hidden. I want you to keep me posted on
everything that's going on at Hogwarts. Don't use Hedwig, keep changing owls,and don't worry about me, just watch out for yourself Don't forget what I said about your scar.
Sirius — J.K. Rowling

I reckon Southern writers are a lot like biscuit makers...more than one can give ya a good feed. — Lola Faye Arnold

Reckon right, and February hath one and thirty daies. — George Herbert

I reckon I closed down at least two films companies, one of which was in Ealing in the mid 1950s. — Nigel Kneale

And what else did Christianity accomplish?" he said. "Here's what Christianity accomplished. Christianity accomplished the mob. The mob. It accomplished not only your senseless butchery, the extermination of all those involved in it, black and white, but the horror of lawless retaliation and reprisal - one hundred and thirty-one innocent niggers both slave and free cut down by the mob that roamed Southampton for a solid week, searching vengeance. I reckon you didn't figure on that neither back then, did you, Reverend? — William Styron

Bare is back," says the Norse proverb, "without brother behind it;" and this is, by analogy, true of an elective magistracy. The hereditary ruler in any critical emergency may reckon on the inexhaustible resources of prestige, of sentiment, of superstition, of dependent interest, while the new man must slowly and painfully create all these out of the unwilling material around him, by superiority of character, by patient singleness of purpose, by sagacious presentiment of popular tendencies and instinctive sympathy with the national character. Mr. Lincoln's task was one of peculiar and exceptional difficulty. — James Russell Lowell

I reckon you could go ahead and shoot that dog and git you another one with regular anal sacs and wouldn't nobody be the wiser.' And I tell him, 'Starnes, this town ain't got any men worth loving, so I might as well love my dog."' The — John Green

Giselle Speakmon's parents are totally devout. When I get in there and we hook up, there won't be any cribs for me either, Dad, because I reckon they'll make me wear one of those chastity belts, knowin' Jas is my brother and all. — Kristen Ashley

I reckon it was always going to happen, one way or another. She wasn't made right for this world. She'd been running away from it since she was nine. — Tana French

Reading the book now means that one can, if one wants, play Fantasy Literature
match writers off against each other and see who won over the long haul. Faulkner or Henry Green? I reckon the surprise champ was P.G. Wodehouse, as elegant and resourceful a prose stylist as anyone held up for our inspection here ... he has turned out to be as enduring as anyone apart from Orwell. Jokes, you see. People do like jokes.
(Hornby's thoughts after reading "Enemies of Promise" by Cyril Connolly) — Nick Hornby

This I saw myself, and I found it greater than words can say. For if one should put together and reckon up all the buildings and all the great works produced by Hellenes, they would prove to be inferior in labour and expense to this labyrinth, though it is true that both the temple at Ephesos and that at Samos are works worthy of note. The pyramids also were greater than words can say, and each one of them is equal to many works of the Hellenes, great as they may be; but the labyrinth surpasses even the pyramids. — Herodotus

All science requires mathematics. The knowledge of mathematical things is almost innate in us. This is the easiest of sciences, a fact which is obvious in that no one's brain rejects it; for laymen and people who are utterly illiterate know how to count and reckon. — Roger Bacon

One does not reckon, at such times, the cost to one's limbs and joints; there is a limit to the pliancy of the mortal form. — Jacqueline Carey

Careful!" I said. "Don't twist like that, or your dressing will come off! What are you trying to do?" "Get my plaid loose to cover you," he replied. "You're shivering. But I canna do it one-handed. Can ye reach the clasp of my brooch for me?" With a good deal of tugging and awkward shifting, we got the plaid loosened. With a surprisingly dexterous swirl, he twirled the cloth out and let it settle, shawllike, around his shoulders. He then put the ends over my shoulders and tucked them neatly under the saddle edge, so that we were both warmly wrapped. "There!" he said. "We dinna want ye to freeze before we get there." "Thank you," I said, grateful for the shelter. "But where are we going?" I couldn't see his face, behind and above me, but he paused a moment before answering. At last he laughed shortly. "Tell ye the truth, lassie, I don't know. Reckon we'll both find out when we get there, eh? — Diana Gabaldon

Rash combat oft immortalizes man; if he should fall, he is renowned in song; but after-ages reckon not the ceaseless tears which the forsaken woman sheds. Poets tell us not of the many nights consumed in weeping, or of the dreary days wherein her anguished soul vainly yearns to call her loved one back. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. IT is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are no greater than the beauties of a thousand other men; by Friendship God opens our eyes to them. They are, like all beauties, derived from Him, and then, in a good Friendship, increased by Him through the Friendship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing. At this feast it is he who has spread the board and it is He who has chosen the guests. It is He, we may dare to hope, who sometimes does, and always should, preside. Let us not reckon without our Host. — C.S. Lewis

I don't understand how teens in this generation stress being in a relationship/love more than adults do about their future. She's testing him to see if he's loyal, he's testing her to see if she's after money. So, basically it's a messed up-stressed-testing generation. Love has been blown so far out of proportion I reckon. The stress surrounding the single sentence 'I love you' is saddening. Relax!!! You're young! Your teen years are supposed to be fun. You have your whole lives ahead to find the right one. Just sit back, chill and live life the way it comes. — Manasa Rao

Not bad, not bad. That's one down. Only a million to go.'
'Right. Thanks, Shark.'
I should have known to expect something like that from him.
'Now that you've proven yourself I reckon you've earned a go at a very important assignment.'
'Making tea?'
'No, I said important. You want to have a crack at it?'
'All right. That'd be good.'
'That's the way. Run down the post office and get the mail for us. Key's hanging up in the front office. When you come back, I want you to open it up and sort it into three piles: good stuff, bad stuff, and shit. Off you go.'
You bastard, Shark. You bastard. I say that to myself as I trudge away. — Bill Condon

I can't wait to tell him one day," she says with a giggle. "'Hey, Chaz, guess what? We knew where your precious car was all the time.' I'd like to take a photo of his face. What do you think?"
"I reckon I'd smile really nicely in the photo," Santangelo says behind me, yanking me out of the way, "knowing that you'll be keeping it under your pillow for the rest of your life. — Melina Marchetta

It's a scarf," said Horace. "Miss P was able to smuggle me a pair of needles, and I knitted it while I was in my cell. I reckon that making it kept me from going mad in there." I thanked him and unfolded it. The scarf was simple and gray with knotted tassels on the ends, but it was well made and even had my initials monogrammed in one corner. JP. — Ransom Riggs

The saying of old Antigonus, who when he was to fight at Andros, and one told him, "The enemy's ships are more than ours," replied, "For how many then wilt thou reckon me? — Plutarch

Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

God will delight to show them mercy, will reckon their conversion a return for all the expense he has been at upon them. There is always joy in heaven. God rejoiceth in all his works, but particularly in the works of his grace. He rejoiceth to do good to penitent sinners, with his whole heart and his whole soul. He rejoiceth not only in the conversion of churches and nations, but even over one sinner that repenteth, though but one. — Matthew Henry

Holding his daughter close with one arm, he pointed toward the distant horizon. "As far as you can see - it all belongs to you, Faith. Someday, I'll take you to the top of a windmill and teach you to dream. When you reach for some of those dreams, you might fall ... but your mother and I will be there to catch you because that's what love means: always being there. I love you, little girl." He pressed a kiss to his daughter's cheek. "So much ... it hurts. But I reckon that's part of love, too."
-Dallas — Lorraine Heath

The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence have been known to make a man quiet and easy. They seem to relieve him of the felt need to offer chattering interpretations of himself to vindicate his worth. He can simply point: the building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on. Boasting is what a boy does, because he has no real effect in the world. But the tradesman must reckon with the infallible judgment of reality, where one's failures or shortcomings cannot be interpreted away. His well-founded pride is far from the gratuitous "self-esteem" that educators would impart to students, as though by magic. — Matthew B. Crawford

A beginner must look on himself as one setting out to make a garden for his Lord's pleasure, on most unfruitful soil which abounds in weeds. His Majesty roots up the weeds and will put in good plants instead. Let us reckon that this is already done when the soul decides to practice prayer and has begun to do so. — Saint Teresa Of Avila

You ever have the feeling you were in the wrong place? That if you could just get over the next hill, cross the next river, look down into the next valley, it'd all ... fit. Be right."
"All my life, more of less"
"All your life spent getting ready for the next thing. I climbed a lot of hills now. I crossed a lot of rivers. Crossed the sea even, left everything I knew and came to Styria. But there I was, waiting for me at the docks when I got off the boat, same man, same life. Next valley ain't no different from this one. No better anyway. Reckon I've learned ... just to stick in the place I'm at. Just to be the man I am. — Joe Abercrombie

Since you are determined to be married, Miss Cornelia," said Gilbert solemnly, "I shall give you the excellent rules for the management of a husband which my grandmother gave my mother when she married my father."
"Well, I reckon I can manage Marshall Elliott," said Miss Cornelia placidly. "But let us hear your rules."
"The first one is, catch him."
"He's caught. Go on."
"The second one is, feed him well."
"With enough pie. What next?"
"The third and fourth are
keep your eye on him. — L.M. Montgomery

I reckon that's the one thing you and I have in common - we both care about Em."
She gave him a small smile. "And we both have naturally charming dispositions."
His lips curved a little at her sarcasm. "That, too. — Kady Cross

It takes one's self, to see thine soul; to reckon back forth; to sense thine toll — Aaron Ozee