F. L. Lucas
F. L. Lucas
Frank Laurence Lucaswas an English classical scholar, literary critic, poet, novelist, playwright, political polemicist, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and intelligence officer at Bletchley Park during World War II...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionCritic
son wife given
I have a wife, I have sons; all these hostages have I given to fortune.
knowing means money ton
Knowing what it means to sometimes have a ton of money, and sometimes have no money and have to come up on-the-fly with something.
ideas two sides
The simile sets two ideas side by side; in the metaphor they become superimposed.
might
Might was the measure of right.
running honesty character
Since in the long run deception is likely to be found out, your character had better not only seem good, but be it.
memories liars reading
It seems to me as natural and necessary to keep notes, however brief, of one's reading, as logs of voyages or photographs of one's travels. For memory, in most of us, is a liar with galloping consumption.
war epidemics insecurity
The more populous the world and the more intricate its structure, the greater must be its fundamental insecurity. A world-structure too elaborately scientific, if once disrupted by war, revolution, natural cataclysm or epidemic, might collapse into a chaos not easily rebuilt.
writing people clarity
And how is clarity to be achieved? Mainly by taking trouble and by writing to serve people rather than to impress them.
art war tired
The two World Wars came in part, like much modern literature and art, because men, whose nature is to tire of everything in turn... tired of common sense and civilization.
overcoming overcoming-fear daring
Great fear is concealed under daring.
mind lasts facts
The most emphatic place in a clause or sentence is the end. This is the climax; and, during the momentary pause that follows, that last word continues, as it were, to reverberate in the reader's mind. It has, in fact, the last word.
men may tomorrow
A man can make himself put down what comes, even if it seems nauseating nonsense; tomorrow some of it may not seem wholly nonsense at all.
voice failing pulpit
Poetry had far better imply things than preach them directly... in the open pulpit her voice grows hoarse and fails.
simple ears matter
Apart from a few simple principles, the sound and rhythm of English prose seem to me matters where both writers and readers should trust not so much to rules as to their ears.