The rake and the recluse Quotes

“Yes. And when a rake finally falls, he falls forever.”

“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!”

“It's like raking leaves in the wind.”

“There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake.”

“Rake your lifestyle. Gather all bitterness. Burn this bad attitude that has chocked the canals of your success. Be set free!”

“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.”

“I think: I would like to take N back to a story right now, like a rake. I would say, "Oh, this rake is uneven. Do you have any where the tines go straight across?" I would like to do a straight exchange. But there are things that cannot be returned. Errant husbands are one of them. Wives are not. Wives can be exchanged; I have always known this.”

“If you didn't have me to rake you over the coals now and then, there wouldn't be any fire in your life at all.”

“I’m frozen in place as his eyes rake over me.”