Stroke Of Luck Quotes

The origin of modern humanity was a stroke of luck - good for our species for a while, bad for most of the rest of life forever. All ~ Edward O. Wilson

Many stroke survivors look back on their attack as a stroke of luck. Of course, by luck they mean horrible paralysis. ~ Dana Gould

My breasts are small," I said in a whisper, but immediately despised myself because it sounded as if I were making excuses, excuse me if I can't offer you big tits, I hope you enjoy yourself anyway, idiot that I was, if he liked little tits, good; if not, the worse for him, it was all free, a stroke of luck had fallen to this shit, the best birthday present he could hope for, at his age. ~ Elena Ferrante

People with Asperger's couldn't control what they were interested in. It was a stroke of luck that his special interest was financial markets and not, say, collecting lawn mower catalogues. ~ Michael Lewis

I know, having myself lost a parent too soon, that being without a father will not be easy for you. But try to remember that loss is an incredible stroke of luck. Yes, luck. For loss caries with it two truths: that you have loved, and hat you yourself have had the good fortune to live a little longer. ~ Camille Pagan

I keep remembering one of my Guru's teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't you will eat away your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

I must have just dreamed that about Liverpool playing 3-4-3. What do people think that was, a bit of luck? A British coach playing 3-4-3? A foreign coach doing that would be a tactical genius. I imagine people think I fell into that system through a stroke of luck or something ... it took some thought. I didn't just throw them out there. ~ Brendan Rodgers

All of us are already civilian soldiers, without knowing it ... The great stroke of luck for the military class's terrorism is that no one recognizes it. People don't recognize the militarized part of their identity, of their consciousness. ~ Paul Virilio

When some incident has shattered the career you've mapped out for yourself, a folly, a crime or a misfortune, you mustn't think you're down and out. It may be a stroke of luck, and when you look back years later you may say to yourself that you wouldn't for anything in the world exchange the new life disaster has forced upon you for the dull, humdrum existence you would have led if circumstances hadn't intervened. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Fortune is proverbially called changeful, yet her caprice often takes the form of repeating again and again a similar stroke of luck in the same quarter. ~ Charlotte Bronte

It's safe to say that Carroll's words weren't a stroke of luck, but of genius. Something in that book makes people relate. Wonderland must be real. ~ Cameron Jace

If you believe the many biographies of great men and women, none of them ever had syphilis. Which would be a remarkable stroke of luck on their part. Since its discovery in Barcelona in 1493 - supposedly brought back from the New World - the sexually transmitted disease just mowed down Europeans. Its effects were so devastating that some regard it as an equal trade for the measles and the smallpox Europeans exported to the Americas. ~ Jennifer Wright

The man who has planned badly, if fortune is on his side, may have had a stroke of luck; but his plan was a bad one nonetheless. ~ Herodotus

I had a stroke in 1985 ... I called it a "stroke of luck." I said, "Life is like a train trip. You're looking out the window and everything is whipping past and you're not really seeing anything, and you need to get off the train and walk around a bit." ~ Hugh Hefner

Don't act so callous to blank out good friends who failed on their way to success, just because something unusual hindered them, but you meandered out by a stroke of luck. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

I can be in control of my own actions, despite what my track record might imply to the contrary, and suddenly, I just feel like, sure. I can hold my boyfriend-yeah-that's-right-world-boyfriend's hand wherever I want to, and not because I want to be all, 'Check it out, humanity, there's someone out there who'll hold my hand,' but because we're walking close enough that his arm is against mine and he's musing over the meaning of 'crunk' like he's sixty-five and somehow, by some mad glorious stroke of luck, he is mine to touch.

He looks down at our hands. Ever sensible, he's wearing gloves, nice leather ones. I left in a hurry, and I'm not exactly the most practical guy to begin with; I'm barehanded, and my fingers are cold. He tightens his grasp on my hand, smiles at me a little bit. I smile back. Beats pockets. ~ Hannah Johnson

Take a moment from time to time to remember that you are alive. I know this sounds a trifle obvious, but it is amazing how little time we take to remark upon this singular and gratifying fact. By the most astounding stroke of luck an infinitesimal portion of all the matter in the universe came together to create you and for the tiniest moment in the great span of eternity you have the incomparable privilege to exist. ~ Bill Bryson

Behind every coincidence, every stroke of luck, and every miracle, there is inevitably a cold and calculating mind. ~ Ryohgo Narita

Luck or tragedy, some people get runs. Then of course there are those who divide it even, good and bad, but we never hear of them. Such a life doesn't demand attention. Only the people who get the good or bad runs. ~ John Steinbeck

Life is a Canvas. Every action of ours is a stroke of paint and at the end, how beautiful our painting is will depend upon all our strokes, all our Actions. -RVM ~ R.v.m.

Some lives drift here and there like reeds in a stream, depending on changing currents for their activity. Others are like swimmers knowing the depth of the water. Each stroke helps them onward to a definite objective. ~ Margaret Sanger

That was very bad of you, Elena, Raphael said once they were in the air. You know the coming sun shower will pass in but a moment.
I also know Tasha McHotpants is regretting she didn't scoop you up when you were young and single. Altering her mental tone, she said, Oh, Raphael, what luck I caught you. And me dressed up like a warrior with a sword and everything. She snorted. Luck my ass. ~ Nalini Singh

He did not believe in luck at all, good or bad. Gamblers believed in luck, and he was not a gambler. Never had been, never would be. John Henry Holliday believed in mathematics, in statistics, in the computation of odds. Fifty-two cards in a deck. Make it easy. Say it's fifty. Any card has a 2 percent chance of being dealt from a full deck. Keep track of what's out. Adjust the probabilities as the hand progresses. ~ Mary Doria Russell

It is in the nature of things that some people should be unlucky enough to get their heads chopped off. ~ Lu Xun

It is still this moment and that will be true of every moment that follows, assuming this moment ever ends, which, if I am lucky, it won't. ~ Justin Taylor

The fact that I fell into this seemed more like a stroke of good fortune than hard work. Not to say that I didn't work hard, but it wasn't like, "I'm going to be a musician." ~ Jack Tatum

Most people were oblivious to the luck already bestowed upon them. I'd certainly been guilty of it. ~ Vicki Pettersson

I can't speak for them, of course, but I believe that most economists would accept the view that, while you sometimes can make a score by sheer luck, you can't do it constantly, unless you're willing to put the resources in. ~ Merton Miller

RUSSEL. I may very well find her satisfactory - if she's on my level, of course. I've always wanted to meet a girl on my level. Let's see how sharp you are: define "supererogatory".
BONGI. Superfluous; unnecessary.
RUSSEL. Probably luck. What does "comminution" mean?
BONGI. I don't know. What?
RUSSEL. It means pulverization; reduction to fine powder. Define "umbilicate".
BONGI. I give.
RUSSEL. That was an easy one. What's the word sounds like? Obviously, it means having an umbilicus. I'll give you one more chance. Define "wimple".
BONGI. I haven't the vaguest.
RUSSEL. It is...
(He hesitates, surreptitiously pulls a two by five card from his pocket, glances hastily at it and puts it back).
...it means ripple. Well, don't feel to badly; you got the first one right; besides, you're not too bad looking, or, at least, you wouldn't be if you'd put a skirt on and look like a woman. ~ Valerie Solanas

There seldom is a single wave. Another way to look at it is, 'when it rains, it pours.' Good luck or bad luck often followed by more of the same. Whatever path you begin, it's almost impossible to change your direction. You're sent hurtling through space, crashing through experiences decided by the first few decisions you ever made. Binary choices set against something as simple as a yes or no in your earliest stages of development. As a Future Child, that would be your primitive choices in Genus. Actions, friendships, whether to smile in one moment or frown in the next. Those are all paths that, once set upon, are entirely unchangeable. At least, that's what I was designed to think. ~ Brandon R. Chinn

Losing one's mother to a car crash at age four isn't a readily accessible idea of good luck, but I've come to accept it as the condition that was required for my luck to fall into place. ~ Allegra Huston

I was slightly cynical of the American mentality before I came over here, but now I preach it. Here, no one's going to tear you down if you buy yourself a $300,000 car. They're likely to say: "Well, you probably worked hard for it. Good luck to you." ~ Simon Cowell

We suffer the threat of breathing in water; we fight the nightmares that would drown us. And just as we feel the deceptive joy of floating, we flex our muscles and learn to kick, propelling ourselves into deeper waters where we can't see the bottom or touch the side.

There, in the deep, we stroke.

Then, surprising ourselves, saving ourselves, we swim. ~ Lynne Hugo

It means my luck sucks," she said. "It was nice dating a guy wo treated me like a friend instead of a blow-up doll."
"You were the one trying to unzip my pants in the truck!"
"Yeah, well, I thought you weren't interested. I didn't realize that your divining rod just pointed into a different direction."
"You're killing me," he said. But it sounded like he was smiling. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

You and I hear of sudden deaths and yet we imagine we shall not die suddenly. We cannot think God's wrath will be kindled in a little time and that He will take us away with a stroke. We get the idea that we shall die in our nests, with a slow and gradual death and have abundance of time for preparation. Oh, I beseech you, let no such delusion destroy your soul! "Kiss the Son now, lest He be angry in a little while and you perish from the way." Now bow before Him and receive His grace. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

You were a negative, a dark absence, a clump of cells crying to come together. You were a pause in the flickering before consciousness. And when the atoms swirled, and when the skies yawned, and when a nervous god, still virgin to creation, called you forth: did you marvel at your
luck? Clumsy thumbprint of an awkward deity - did you slaughter the heavens, once freed? Did you grab the stars by their throats? Did you wear the skins of dead galaxies, your eyes ablaze with impossible fury? ~ Amber Sparks

Ben stands just behind me, and we begin to wedge out a fresh piece of clay. I try my best to concentrate, to ignore the fact that my heart is beating at five times its normal speed. I watch his arms as he kneads the clay - almost a little too hard - and as the muscles in his forearms flex. "That's good," I say, in an effort to stay focused. I dip a sponge into a bowl of water and squeeze the droplets down over his hands to keep things moist.
After several minutes, Ben lets me take the lead. I place my palms over the clay mound and close my eyes. Meanwhile, Ben's chest grazes my shoulders, and his clay-soaked fingers stroke the length of my arms.
"You're doing great," he whispers in my ear.
We continue to sculpt for another hour, working the mound down into a flattened surface - until we have a total of four tiles.
And until I can no longer hold myself back.
I turn around to face him.
"Camelia?" He squints slightly.
I bite my lip, wishing that he could read my mind, and that he would kiss me until my lips ache. "What are you thinking?" I ask, slipping my hand inside the waistband of his jeans and pulling him closer. ~ Laurie Faria Stolarz

Gray watched her,watched the rush of pink travel up from her chest to her neck and out her throat.It was beautiful.Stunning.
He turned.To his right,another female,one who had been shadowing him all night,had her hands on him,trying to stroke him through his jeans.
"What´s your name?"he shouted.
She smiled."Marina."
"You have a very pretty mouth,Marina."
"So do you."
His turn.He smiled too."Would you like to use it?"
"Gotcha,baby,"she thought,then let her tongue flicker out to swipe at her lower lip.Grinning,she unzipped his fly and released his straining prick.
Gray´s nostrils flared as she wrapped her soft hand around him,then lowered her head and took him into her mouth. ~ Laura Wright

Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure. ~ Earl Wilson

Medicine in its present state is, it seems to me, by now completely discovered, insofar as it teaches in each instance the particular details and the correct measures. For anyone who has an understanding of medicine in this way depends very little upon good luck, but is able to do good with or without luck. For the whole of medicine has been established, and the excellent principles discovered in it clearly have very little need of good luck. ~ Hippocrates

Never expect justice in this world. That is not part of God's plan. Everybody thinks that if they don't get it, they're some kind of odd man out. And it's not true. Nobody gets justice - people just get good luck or bad luck. ~ Orson Welles

For the unified mind in accord with the Way all self-centered striving ceases. Doubts and irresolutions vanish and life in true faith is possible. With a single stroke we are freed from bondage; nothing clings to us and we hold nothing. All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind's power. ~ Sengcan

Life is a series of stupid decisions interrupted by luck. ~ Alessandra Torre

Good and bad luck is a synonym in the great majority of instances, for good and bad judgment. ~ John Lyman Chatfield

Luck is of little moment to the great general, for it is under the control of his intellect and his judgment. ~ Livy

Still she did not blench: maiden of Rohirrim, child of kings, slender but as a steel-blade, fair yet terrible. A swift stroke she dealt, skilled and deadly. The outstretched neck she clove asunder, and the hewn head fell like a stone. Backward she sprang as the huge head crashed to ruin, vast wings outspread crumpled on the earth; and with its fall the shadow passed away. A light fell about her, and her hair shone in the sunrise. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

When someone is honestly 55 percent right, that's very good and there's no use wrangling. And if someone is 60 percent right, it's wonderful, it's great luck, and let him thank God.

But what's to be said about 75 percent right? Wise people say this is suspicious. Well, and what about 100 percent right? Whoever says he's 100 percent right is a fanatic, a thug, and the worst kind of rascal. ~ Czeslaw Milosz

You could fall suddenly into the void the dead go to: I would be comforted if you would bequeath me your hands. Only your hands would continue to exist, detached from you, unexplainable like those of marble gods turned into the dust and the limestone of their own tomb. They would survive your actions, the wretched bodies they caressed. They would no longer serve as intermediaries between you and things: they themselves would be changed into things. Innocent again now, since you would no longer be there to turn them into your accomplices, sad like greyhounds without masters, disconcerted like archangels to whom no god gives orders, your useless hands would rest on the lap of darkness. Your open hands incapable of giving or taking the slightest joy would have let me slump like a broken doll. I kiss the wrists of these indifferent hands you will no longer pull away from mine: I stroke the blue artery, the blood column that once spurted continuously like a fountain from the ground of your heart. With little sobs of contentment, I rest my head like a child between these palms filled with the stars, the crosses, the precipices of my previous fate. ~ Marguerite Yourcenar

But as I stood across from Archer, I couldn't forget that I was completely, stupidly in love with the one person I could never have.
The laughter died on my lips, and I dashed at my eyes with the back of my hand. "I need to get back," I said.
"Right," he replied. He was still holding his sword in his right hand, and he twirled the hilt, the point sratching the wooden floor. "So this is it. We're done."
"Yeah," I said, my voice cracking. I cleared my throat. "And I have to say, the world's first and last Eye-demon reconnaissance mission went pretty well." It was a struggle to meet his eyes, but I managed it. "Thank you."
He shrugged, his dark gaze full of something I couldn't quite read. "We were a good team."
"We were." In more ways than one, I thought. Which is why this sucked so bad.
I stepped back. "Anyway, I should go. See ya,Cross." Then I laughed, only it sounded suspiciously like another sob. "Except I won't, will I So I guess I should say goodbye." I felt like I was about to shatter into a million tiny shards, like the mirrors I'd broken with Dad. "okay, well, best of luck with the whole Eye thing, then. Try not to kill anyone I know." I turned away, but he reached out and caught my wrist.
I could feel my pulse hammering under his fingers. "Mercer, that day in the cellar..." He searched my face, and I could sense him struggling for what he wanted to say. Then finally, "I didn't kiss you back because I had to. I kissed you because I w ~ Rachel Hawkins

But what was fortune? She had come to believe it was being exactly the same on the inside as on the outside. What was misfortune but the quality of existing as something, or someone else, inside? ~ Madeleine Thien

Every time the women appear, Snowman is astonished all over again. They're every known colour from the deepest black to whitest white, they're various heights, but each one of them is admirably proportioned. Each is sound of tooth, smooth of skin. No ripples of fat around their waists, no bulges, no dimpled orange-skin cellulite on their thighs. No body hair, no bushiness. They look like retouched fashion photos, or ads for a high priced workout program.
Maybe this is the reason that these women arouse in Snowman not even the faintest stirrings of lust. It was the thumbprints of human imperfection that used to move him, the flaws in the design: the lopsided smile, the wart next to the navel, the mole, the bruise. These were the places he'd single out, putting his mouth on them. Was it consolation he'd had in mind, kissing the wound to make it better? There was always an element of melancholy involved in sex. After his indiscriminate adolescence he'd preferred sad women, delicate and breakable, women who'd been messed up and who needed him. He'd liked to comfort them, stroke them gently at first, reassure them. Make them happier, if only for a moment. Himself too, of course; that was the payoff. A grateful woman would go the extra mile. But these new women are neither lopsided nor sad: they're placid, like animated statues. They leave him chilled. ~ Margaret Atwood

The vital elements are often momentary, change-sent things ... a gleam of light on water, a trail of smoke from a passing train, a cat crossing the threshold. Sometimes they are a matter of luck, sometimes of patience, waiting for an effect to be repeated that you have seen. It is usually some incidental detail that heightens the effect of a picture, stressing a pattern, deepening the sense of atmosphere. ~ Bill Brandt

You know what it's like to ride fire in battle," said Roston. "You've watched good men fall around you for causes they don't believe in. You know, Captain, as I do, that many of the things we're ordered to do are done solely to fulfill the self-satisfying agendas or stroke the egos of men who've never risked blood on a battlefield. ~ Robin Parrish

<…>….That's how he made his living. He gave me a pen and ink. This," he lifted his left arm then dropped it back to the bed. "After he died, I had it inked on me. Took what he gave me to a tattoo parlor right after the funeral and got it started."
Her voice held a tone of light dawning as she whispered, "So he was your Ella."
Her light dawned clear for her and for Walker because she was right.
"Yeah, he was my Ella."
"So it was Tuku who brought out my Ty."
My Ty.
My Ty.
Christ. Fuck.
Christ.
Two words. Just two words. Walker had no clue until that moment that two words could mean so fucking much. He'd never belonged to anyone. He'd never belonged anywhere. Never thought he wanted to.
Until he heard those two words.
He couldn't keep the thick out of his voice when he confirmed, "Yeah, it was him."<…> ~ Kristen Ashley

You know when you say something but you want to change in the middle? Like one time I was a bout to say take care but changed in the middle to good luck so it sounded like TAKE LUCK.. If you have any luck take care of it. Take luck you now. SHUT UP! ~ Brian Regan

Domestic pain can be searing, and it is usually what does us in. It's almost indigestible: death, divorce, old age, drugs; brain-damaged children, violence, senility, unfaithfulness. Good luck with figuring it out. It unfolds, and you experience it, and it is so horrible and endless that you could almost give up a dozen times. But grace can be the experience of a second wind, when even though what you want is clarity and resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on. Through the most ordinary things, books, for instance, or a postcard, or eyes or hands, life is transformed. Hands that for decades reached out to hurt us, to drag us down, to control us, or to wave us away in dismissal now reach for us differently. They become instruments of tenderness, buoyancy, exploration, hope. ~ Anne Lamott

When bad luck comes around, your reaction to it is a combination of how bad the luck is plus how prepared your body is for the stress. ~ Anonymous

I don't believe in luck. Luck is just preparation meeting the moment of opportunity. ~ Oprah Winfrey

I'll be right here. Good luck, or break a leg, or something."
As Jay and Gregory turned and headed into the crowd, my traitorous eyes returned to the corner and found another pair or eyes staring darkly back.
I dropped my gaze for three full seconds, and then lifted my eyes again, hesitant. The drummer was still staring at me, oblivious to the three girls trying to win back his attention. He put up one finger at the girls and said something that looked like, "Excuse me."
Oh, my goodness. Was he...? Oh, no. Yes, he was walking this way.
My nerves shot into high alert. I looked around, but nobody else was near. When I looked back up, there he was, standing right in front of me. Good gracious, he was sexy-a word that had not existed in my personal vocabulary until that moment. This guy was sexy like it was his job or something.
He looked straight into my eyes, which threw me off guard, because nobody ever looked me in the eye like that. Maybe Patti and Jay, but they didn't hold my stare like he was doing now. He didn't look away, and I found that I couldn't take my gaze off those blue eyes.
"Who are you?" he asked in a blunt, almost confrontational way.
I blinked. It was the strangest greeting I'd ever received.
"I'm...Anna."
"Right. Anna. How very nice." I tried to focus on his words and not his luxuriously accented voice, which made everything sound lovely. He leaned in closer. "But who are you?"
What did that mean? Did I need ~ Wendy Higgins

Will: 'Singing the praises of our fair city? We treat you well here, don't we, James? I doubt I'd have that kind of luck in Shanghai. What do you call us there again?'
Jem: 'Yang guizi ... foreign devils. ~ Cassandra Clare