"By luck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... made matters worse, for the steer galloped back into the mob. Mick swore and cut it out again, and drove it several yards out from the other cattle and gave it a parting cut with his stock-whip. Sax and Vaughan galloped after it. It dodged and tried to get back, but, more by luck than good management, the boys kept it out in the open. At last they got it on the run towards the second mob and were feeling very pleased with their ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... saw, by cold Turned to dog-faces; horror chills me through Whenever of those frozen fords I think. And as we nearer to the centre drew, Towards which all bodies by their weight must sink, There, as I shivered in the eternal chill, Trampling among the heads, it happed, by luck, Or destiny—or, it may be, my will— Hard in the face of one my foot I struck. Weeping he cried, 'What brings thee bruising us? Unless on me fresh vengeance thou wouldst pile For Mont' Aperti, why torment me thus?' And I: 'My Master, wait ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... you fight it out. You say he is indifferently skilled with the sword, and, in addition, that he has a fever. Thus you should contrive to put your steel through him, and a duel it will have been. But if by luck or skill he should have you in danger, I shall be at hand to flick in my sword at the right moment and make an opening through which you may send ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... creature! What a place for a woman!" The ship was jerking, you might almost call it gasping, as the seas struck her; it was no easy job to climb along that roof-slope of the deck with nothing to hold on by. I got across somehow, partly by luck, partly by fingernails. I even managed to open the pantry door, which was another difficulty, as it opened inwards, into the cabin. As I opened it, a suck of wind blew out my light. There I was in the dark, with a hurt woman, in a ship which for all ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... was a steward on the Makambo, who should have known better and who would have known better and done better had he not been fascinated by his own particular and peculiar reputation. By luck of birth possessed of a genial but soft disposition and a splendid constitution, his reputation was that for twenty years he had never missed his day's work nor his six daily quarts of bottled beer, even, as he bragged, when in the German islands, where each bottle of ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... worth some risk to know; so, with firelocks poised and ready, Up the sloping hills they go, with a quick lookout and steady. Dead! The random shot had struck, to the heart had pierced the Tory— Vengeance seconded by luck! Lies there, cold and stiff and gory, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... waterfall, and a passageway leading out to a canyon beyond. Oldring hides in there. He needs only to guard a trail leading down from the sage-flat above. Little danger of this outlet to the pass being discovered. I stumbled on it by luck, after I had given up. And now I know the truth of what puzzled me most—why that cattle ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... Tassel, and drew the Indian's arm over his own shoulder; how they drove down into the boiling flood; how Billy Rufus' fat body was battered and torn and ran red with blood from twenty flesh wounds; but how by luck beyond the telling he brought Silver Tassel through safely into the quiet water a quarter of a mile below the rapids, and was hauled out, both more dead than alive, is a tale still told by the Athabascas around their ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... at once," I explained. "By luck there happens to be a gamekeeper's cottage vacant and within distance. The agent is going to get me the use of it for a year—a primitive little place, but charmingly situate on the edge of a wood. I shall furnish a couple of rooms; and for part ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... one can only compare it to the careful investigation made in advance by any competent war staff of the elements of strength and weakness, on both sides, in a possible campaign. A popular idea of Edison that dies hard, pictures a breezy, slap-dash, energetic inventor arriving at new results by luck and intuition, making boastful assertions and then winning out by mere chance. The native simplicity of the man, the absence of pose and ceremony, do much to strengthen this notion; but the real truth is that while ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... the clock were thus talking, Malay Kris was rubbing his ropes against one of the weights, and finally succeeded in freeing himself. Then he quickly jumped up and untied Hortense and Andy, and then tried his point in the keyhole. By luck when the grater dulled his edges, he made them exactly fit the notches in the keyhole. "Now," he called, "if you can turn me over I believe I can ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... in wide wonder. "But as I am not allowed," he continued in lighter key, "I have to do the best I can. If I cannot be in at the death, I may still by luck be in at a dream or two! And now you may guess why I wander with my camera where men come in to sleep in broad daylight. I prowl among them; a word awakens them; and then ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... it eighteen months, grubbing out a poor living. The brown bags were all rotted away and the coin was sticky with clay. I laid a handful on the table, and told Pedronez to buy the tobacco of the others in the morning, but I didn't suppose he would. It seemed a hard sort of joke played by luck on the little Windward Islander, Clyde's money lying there so long, twenty-four inches from the soles of his feet. I remember how Pedronez clutched his throat and shrieked after us into the night. He had shiny black eyes and skin wrinkled about ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... new troops against the Great King's chief captain in a desperate attempt to hold back the principal invader. At the same time, more by luck than good generalship, he pushed the evil people of the marsh back to their ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... since been thrown away, and consequently he had nothing except matches with which to read his map in the dark and windy night. The difficulty was increased by the fact that the way lay across small tracks which were almost impossible to distinguish, but eventually, more by luck than judgment, he brought his men into a village. Was it Villiers? It took him some time to find out. There were plenty of people in the village street, but the Subaltern could not get coherent speech out of any one of them. Fear makes an uneducated Englishman suspicious, quickwitted and ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... the fortune may come of itself by luck. Luck is a very curious thing. We cannot understand it. It's of no use to talk about it, because it is quite ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... utility, are robbed of their reward either by capitalists or by the failure of the public to appreciate their work until too late. The better paid work is only open to those who have been able to afford an expensive training, and these men are selected in the main not by merit but by luck. The wage earner is not paid for his willingness to work, but only for his utility to the employer. Consequently, he may be plunged into destitution by causes over which he has no control. Such destitution is a constant fear, and when it occurs it produces undeserved suffering, and ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... hasty aim, and pulled trigger. The creature was already in air when the shot rang out, and, more by luck than skill, the ball passed through its head. It landed on the snow with a convulsive gasp, and rolled over lifeless ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... guided us through. Unwieldy he may have been in person, but he could wield his weapon well. And so, by luck and skill, we were not drowned in the magnificent uproar of the rapid. Success, that strange stirabout of Providence, accident, and courage, were ours. But when we came to the next cascading bit, though ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... "That's because of your abysmal military ignorance, Dominie. Let me tell you how it is in our army. A fellow can get himself made a captain by pull, or a major by luck, or a colonel by desk-work, or a general by having a fine martial figure, but to get yourself made a sergeant, by Gosh, you've got to show the stuff. You've got to be a man. You've got ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the situation alone. By luck—he called the use he had made of Mr. Wall's absence a lucky stroke—he had conquered. What had happened had been among scouts. They had settled it among themselves. He felt, dimly, that a great lesson had been ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... movement sent the animals to the ground, and as they landed Snap jumped forward and struck one of the wildcats with the stock of his gun. It was a telling blow, for by luck more than judgment it crushed ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... stains, trying to recall his biology courses. More by luck than skill, his fourth try gave ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... though the shelling was heavy immediately behind and on the flanks, the wire was intact and there was no sign of attack. At dusk, therefore, there was nothing save the heavy shelling to report to Cuthbert over my telephone, which by luck held until cut by ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... Just by luck, I did. Would he pry some facts for me out of the art editor, facts about a certain party? Sure he would. And inside of ten minutes, without leavin' the Corrugated General Offices, I had a full description of Claire, includin' where she ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... therein lay his only chance; for a fierce, rude sword-play that is easily dealt with in broad daylight is vastly discomposing in such pale moonshine as lighted us. I defended myself warily, for of a sudden I had grown conscious of the danger that I ran did he once by luck or strength get past my guard with that point of his which in the spare light I could not follow closely ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini |
