Fixed Gear Quotes

When it came time to die, we knew and went to deep yards where we lay down and our bones turned to brass. We were picked over. We were used to fix broken clocks, music boxes; our pelvises were fitted onto pinions, our spines soldered into cast works. Our ribs were fitted as gear teeth and tapped and clicked like tusks. This is how, finally, we were joined.

Mothers took their mothering so seriously now. Their frantic little faces. Their busy little bottoms strutting into the school in their tight gym gear. Ponytails swinging. Eyes fixed on the mobile phones held in the palms of their hands like compasses.

I am not a toy, September! Fairyland cannot just cast me aside when it’s finished playing with me! If this place could steal my life from me, well, I, too, can steal. I know how the world works—the real world. I brought it all back with me—taxes and customs and laws and the Greenlist. If they wanted to just drop me back in the human world, I can drop the human world into theirs, every bit of it. I punished them all! I bound down their wings and I set the lions on them if they squeaked about it. I made Fairyland nice for the children who come over the gears, I made it safe. I did it for every child before me who had a life here, who was happy here! Don’t you see, September? No one should have to go back. Not ever. We can fix this world, you and I. Uncouple the gears and save us both! Let this be a place where no one has to be dragged home, screaming, to a field full of tomatoes and a father’s fists!

WINTER FEAR Is it just winter or is this worse. Is this the year when outer damp obscures a deeper curse that spring can’t fix, when gears that turn the earth won’t shift the view, when clouds won’t lift though all the skies go blue.

Air and earth form an anthill traversed, level upon level, by roads live with traffic. Air trains, ground trains, underground trains, people mailed through tubes special-delivery, and chains of cars race along horizontally, while express elevators pump masses of people vertically from one traffic level to another; at the junctions, people leap from one vehicle to the next, instantly sucked in and snatched away by the rhythm of it, which makes a syncope, a pause, a little gap of twenty seconds during which a word might be hastily exchanged with someone else. Questions and answers synchronize like meshing gears; everyone has only certain fixed tasks.

Hipster (n.): Yes, you ride a fixed-gear bike and drink single-origin chai from a local specially abled artist’s hand-thrown ceramic mug. Your bi-friend only listens to cassettes, and you just love vintage flats, and your rescue dog is named Cobain. Please just wear your hat and glasses and turned-up pants and defy categorizing. Remember: you will one day be driving a Volvo with toys thrown willy-nilly and Burger King wrappers on the floor, listening to Sade and digging it unironically. Even the freshest kale can go brown and wilt. Cave futurum.

Mothers took their mothering so seriously now. Their frantic little faces. Their busy little bottoms strutting into the school in their tight gym gear. Ponytails swinging. Eyes fixed on the mobile phones held in the palms of their hands like compasses. It made Mrs. Ponder laugh.

She often wished that she would wake up one day with some kind of epiphany that would satisfy her mother; some sort of realization that would set her life back into motion; a missing gear into the machine that her mother wanted desperately to fix.

In Haida’s brain there must have been a kind of high-speed circuit built to match the pace of his thoughts, requiring him to occasionally engage his gears, to let his mind race for fixed periods of time. If he didn’t—if he kept on running in low gear to keep pace with Tsukuru’s reduced speed—Haida’s mental infrastructure would overheat and start to malfunction. Or at least, Tsukuru got that impression.

Where is he?” Leo sat up, but his head felt like it was floating. They’d landed inside the compound. Something had happened on the way in—gunfire? “Seriously, Leo,” Jason said. “You could be hurt. You shouldn’t—” Leo pushed himself to his feet. Then he saw the wreckage. Festus must have dropped the big canary cages as he came over the fence, because they’d rolled in different directions and landed on their sides, perfectly undamaged. Festus hadn’t been so lucky. The dragon had disintegrated. His limbs were scattered across the lawn. His tail hung on the fence. The main section of his body had plowed a trench twenty feet wide and fifty feet long across the mansion’s yard before breaking apart. What remained of his hide was a charred, smoking pile of scraps. Only his neck and head were somewhat intact, resting across a row of frozen rosebushes like a pillow. “No,” Leo sobbed. He ran to the dragon’s head and stroked its snout. The dragon’s eyes flickered weakly. Oil leaked out of his ear. “You can’t go,” Leo pleaded. “You’re the best thing I ever fixed.” The dragon’s head whirred its gears, as if it were purring. Jason and Piper stood next to him, but Leo kept his eyes fixed on the dragon. He remembered what Hephaestus had said: That isn’t your fault, Leo. Nothing lasts forever, not even the best machines. His dad had been trying to warn him. “It’s not fair,” he said. The dragon clicked. Long creak. Two short clicks. Creak. Creak. Almost like a pattern…triggering an old memory in Leo’s mind. Leo realized Festus was trying to say something. He was using Morse code—just like Leo’s mom had taught him years ago. Leo

Doubtless, if, at that time, I had paid more attention to what was in my mind when I pronounced the words "going to Florence, to Parma, to Pisa, to Venice,” I should have realised that what I saw was in no sense a town, but something as different from anything that I knew, something as delicious, as might be, for a human race whose whole existence had passed in a series of late winter afternoons, that inconceivable marvel, a morning in spring. These images, unreal, fixed, always alike, filling all my nights and days, differentiated this period in my life from those which had gone before it (and might easily have been confused with it by an observer who saw things only from without, that is to say who saw nothing), as in an opera a melodic theme introduces a novel atmosphere which one could never have suspected if one had done no more than read the libretto, still less if one had remained outside the theatre counting only the minutes as they passed. And besides, even from the point of view of mere quantity, in our lives the days are not all equal. To get through each day, natures that are at all highly strung, as was mine, are equipped, like motor-cars, with different gears. There are mountainous, arduous days, up which one takes an infinite time to climb, and downward-sloping days which one can descend at full tilt, singing as one goes. During this month—in which I turned over and over in my mind, like a tune of which one never tires, these visions of Florence, Venice, Pisa, of which the desire that they excited in me retained something as profoundly personal as if it had been love, love for a person—I never ceased to believe that they corresponded to a reality independent of myself, and they made me conscious of as glorious a hope as could have been cherished by a Christian in the primitive age of faith on the eve of his entry into Paradise. Thus, without my paying any heed to the contradiction that there was in my wishing to look at and to touch with the organs of my senses what had been elaborated by the spell of my dreams and not perceived by my senses at all—though all the more tempting to them, in consequence, more different from anything that they knew— it was that which recalled to me the reality of these visions that most inflamed my desire, by seeming to offer the promise that it would be gratified.

Old Hubert must have had a premonition of his squalid demise. In October he said to me, ‘Forty-two years I’ve had this place. I’d really like to go back home, but I ain’t got the energy since my old girl died. And I can’t sell it the way it is now. But anyway before I hang my hat up I’d be curious to know what’s in that third cellar of mine.’ The third cellar has been walled up by order of the civil defence authorities after the floods of 1910. A double barrier of cemented bricks prevents the rising waters from invading the upper floors when flooding occurs. In the event of storms or blocked drains, the cellar acts as a regulatory overflow. The weather was fine: no risk of drowning or any sudden emergency. There were five of us: Hubert, Gerard the painter, two regulars and myself. Old Marteau, the local builder, was upstairs with his gear, ready to repair the damage. We made a hole. Our exploration took us sixty metres down a laboriously-faced vaulted corridor (it must have been an old thoroughfare). We were wading through a disgusting sludge. At the far end, an impassable barrier of iron bars. The corridor continued beyond it, plunging downwards. In short, it was a kind of drain-trap. That’s all. Nothing else. Disappointed, we retraced our steps. Old Hubert scanned the walls with his electric torch. Look! An opening. No, an alcove, with some wooden object that looks like a black statuette. I pick the thing up: it’s easily removable. I stick it under my arm. I told Hubert, ‘It’s of no interest. . .’ and kept this treasure for myself. I gazed at it for hours on end, in private. So my deductions, my hunches were not mistaken: the Bièvre-Seine confluence was once the site where sorcerers and satanists must surely have gathered. And this kind of primitive magic, which the blacks of Central Africa practise today, was known here several centuries ago. The statuette had miraculously survived the onslaught of time: the well-known virtues of the waters of the Bièvre, so rich in tannin, had protected the wood from rotting, actually hardened, almost fossilized it. The object answered a purpose that was anything but aesthetic. Crudely carved, probably from heart of oak. The legs were slightly set apart, the arms detached from the body. No indication of gender. Four nails set in a triangle were planted in its chest. Two of them, corroded with rust, broke off at the wood’s surface all on their own. There was a spike sunk in each eye. The skull, like a salt cellar, had twenty-four holes in which little tufts of brown hair had been planted, fixed in place with wax, of which there were still some vestiges. I’ve kept quiet about my find. I’m biding my time.

Stay on Course Let your eyes look right on [with fixed purpose], and let your gaze be straight before you. Consider well the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established and ordered aright. Turn not aside to the right hand or to the left; remove your foot from evil. PROVERBS 4:25- 27 Jesus knew what His purpose was. He disciplined Himself to stay on course, living His life to fulfill that purpose for which He came. As Christians, we need to follow in His steps and focus on our purpose. We were bought with a price to live our lives in such a way that we become the salt of the earth, the light of the world (see Matthew 5). We are to lay down our selfish, self-centered lifestyles, and gear our lives toward doing something for the betterment of someone else. Then we will experience that “joy unspeakable, and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8).

Guys, you should always fight the urge to put your mouth in gear before taking your brain out of park.

You described U Street in Washington, DC, as “an inferno of hipsterdom” (“Bring on the hipsters”, February 21st, 2015). Please. U Street is so passé. H Street is the current epicentre of designer facial hair, overpriced small plates, Mumford & Sons, and slow, “ironic” fixed-gear bicycles. The always soon-to-open H Street streetcar, a multimillion dollar “cool” boondoggle that combines the charm of a slow-moving bus with the steering manoeuvrability of a railway train, will only increase the area’s cachet. I would mock further. However, as I am reading your newspaper on an iPad, accompanied by a $12 White Lady expertly concocted by a

If Jack had a rough night, he didn’t show it. He was playing a rock tape and tapping his fingers on the dashboard. When Julie rushed down the steps and climbed into the truck, he had a poem ready for her: She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes . . . Julie laughed as she pulled out her comb and tried to fix her windblown hair. “Thanks, Jack. It’s not very accurate, but I appreciate the thought.” “You memorized that?” I asked him. “I tried to, but I gave it up.” He showed me the slip of paper in his hand, then put the truck in gear. “I kept forgetting the middle part.” Julie reached over and kissed him on the cheek. “That’s sweet.” Jack grinned. “Hey, you’ve got to work on your aim. You missed my lips by three inches.

The bicycle world provides a great example. For years, major bicycle brands focused on the latest in high-tech equipment: mountain bikes with suspension and ultrastrong disc brakes, or lightweight titanium road bikes with carbon-fiber everything. And it was assumed that bikes should have multiple gears: three, ten, or twenty-one. But recently, fixed-gear bicycles have boomed in popularity, despite being as low-tech as you can get. These bikes have just one gear. Some models don’t have brakes. The advantage: They’re simpler, lighter, cheaper, and don’t require as much maintenance.

I grabbed the flashlight and the backpack before closing the seat and resuming my sitting position. Switching on the light, I unzipped the main compartment and began to rummage in search of the key. Within it was another knife, a box of matches, a loop of rope, an unlabeled white tube of pills that looked suspiciously like Benuxupane, a compass, a camera… and then two photographs. I removed the compass and placed it in a small holder that was fixed beneath the gears. Then I picked up the photographs and shone my light down on them. My breath hitched. One of them displayed an all-too-familiar sight: the table in the queen's library, etched with the words "FOR THE BOYS OF MATRUS". The second displayed a different message.

by the rain. The demonstration had been mostly peaceful, but a bus was stopped on Fillmore, and a car was overturned in front of Northern Station. Police in riot gear were stationed along the route. The media frenzy was fully engaged. “We’ll get through it, Gio,” I said. “Easy for you to say.” “We need to focus on what we can control.” “The chief won’t let me come to work. He said that I have to take a leave until Johnny’s case is resolved.” It was probably for the better. “I need you to focus on Johnny.” “I need you to get him out of jail.” “Working on it.” “Work harder. I heard that you couldn’t get a judge to set bail.” “We’ll try again at the arraignment.” “What are the chances?” Not great. “Hard to predict. If it’s first-degree murder, it’s going to be an uphill battle.” “He’ll wear a monitoring device. We’ll agree that he’ll stay with Maria and me.” “We’ll make that offer in the morning.” His tone turned pointed. “We need the judge to agree.” I leveled with him. “You know how things work, Gio. I can’t give you any guarantees.” “We’re talking about my son, Mike.” Luca put a hand on Gio’s shoulder. “Mike’s doing everything that he can, Gio. It’s been less than a day. Things take time.” I appreciated the vote of confidence, albeit tepid. Gio wouldn’t let it go. “My son is in jail.” “We’ll fix it,” I said. “It would be helpful if you, Maria, and the boys are in court in the morning. It’s good to have

Beauregard hit the clutch and shifted into third. There were no numbers on the gearshift knob. It was an old 8-ball his Daddy had fixed to fit on top of the shifter. He didn’t need numbers. He knew what gear he was in by feel. By sound. The car shivered like a wolf shaking its pelt.

Warning signs went unheeded as the ferocious kisses continued, kicking Trevor’s need into high gear. But the unfamiliar prickle of Edgard’s beard on his cheek began to rouse him from that dark desire. Coupled with the low-pitched masculine moans—not Chassie’s feminine sighs—and Trevor broke away, knocking Edgard’s hands free. “Stop. No.” “Yes,” Edgard grabbed Trevor’s shirt. “This is why I’m here. Because it’s still there, Trevor. This need didn’t go away just because I did.” “It don’t matter.” “It should. God. Please let it matter.” “Ed—” “Don’t. Just…don’t.” Edgard gently rested his forehead against Trevor’s and retreated into silence. The heat of their bodies, the cold air, the confusion, the passion, the anger, the guilt, all swirled in Trevor’s head until he didn’t know which way was up. Unable to squirm either closer or away, damn near unable to breathe, Trevor squeezed his eyes shut and gave in, leaning against Edgard, just for a moment. Finally he dredged up a semblance of sanity. “I love her, Ed. I’m not with her because she was my second choice.” “I know. Why do you think it hurts me so bad, meu amore?” My love. That single, familiar endearment could prove to be his undoing. Another pause lingered before Trevor said, “I can’t do this. I swear to f**king God I cannot do this again.” “We’ll figure something out this time.” “No.” “Look at me.” Trevor shook his head. “Goddammit. Look. At. Me.” Heart thumping crazily, Trevor pulled back and caught the golden gaze that’d haunted his dreams since the day they’d gone from friends to something more. Edgard curled one hand around Trevor’s face, keeping the other fisted in his shirt. “Tell me how to fix this.” “We can’t and talkin’ about it ain’t gonna change nothin’.” “We were always better at f**king away our problems rather than talking them out, eh?” No hint of a smile graced either of their faces.

to look forward to. The family were all present at the breakfast table, except Dulcie. Ralph, always a little crusty without his morning paper, observed Thea’s glance at the empty seat. ‘Your sister declines breakfast this morning,’ he said. ‘Happy Christmas!’ ‘Happy Christmas!’ Thea kissed Venetia, helped herself to kidneys and bacon from the sideboard, and went to her place. Sophie was beside her. She wore her grey, reserved for religious feasts of the highest order. Thea thought, not for the first time, what a handsome woman her aunt was, and how well the grey became her. But the wearing of the grey did not automatically infuse Sophie’s bosom with the festive spirit. ‘Dulcie should eat a proper breakfast. Especially as we shall be attending matins and luncheon will be late,’ she told them. ‘She often goes without . . .’ Thea smiled placatingly. ‘It doesn’t seem to bother her. She has a tiny appetite.’ ‘We don’t eat purely to gratify our appetites, Thea. We eat to sustain ourselves. It would be more responsible if Dulcie were to have some breakfast.’ Ralph made an unnecessarily loud clatter with his cup and saucer. ‘You seem to be implying that Dulcie will get the vapours in church and embarrass us all,’ he said, not looking at his sister, but fixing the dregs of his tea with a basilisk stare. ‘If so, let me reassure you. I do not breed the kind of woman who swoons. My daughters are tough. They are known for it. Be comforted.’ Venetia tried to catch her husband’s eye, but failed, since he was now biting into his toast with vampire-like ferocity. Instead, with the smooth and graceful change of gear that typified her, she remarked, ‘We mustn’t be too long, if we’re to give the servants their presents in good time before the others arrive. Sophie, the handkerchiefs are exquisite. You’re so clever in that way.’ ‘Thank you. I hope they will be acceptable.’ ‘I know they will be. Such beautiful work.’ Thea watched for a moment as her mother kindly and expertly soothed Sophie. Poor Maurice; as usual, it was he who suffered in these confrontations. Now he sat rigidly upright, but with downcast eyes, his hands clasping the edge of the table as though it were all that mattered in the world. She put her foot out and gave his shin

She wasn’t going to be moved on the issue, and time was a factor he couldn’t ignore. Somewhere, hundreds of thousands of clones were gearing up for a battle. He had to fix his mistake, or people who hadn’t volunteered to be put in the line of fire were going to die. He wiped the blood from his nose and followed her into the Etheric. The mists were as agitated as he expected, given his wife’s mood. He spotted her heading in the direction of the planet. “Bethany Anne, wait.” She lifted a hand and extended her middle finger without slowing her pace or turning to look at him. As he broke into a run, Michael reminded himself that he loved her, not despite her tendency toward an uncompromising nature but because of it. Like attracted like, and while that could easily lead to a battle of wills that neither of them would emerge from as the victor, it also made them strong enough to be the support the other needed when faced with a seemingly insurmountable challenge. Lightning struck five feet ahead of Michael at the same time a lightbulb came on in his mind. I’m sorry, he sent. She ignored him, but she didn’t slam down the barrier to block their mental link. I shouldn’t have presumed I could flirt my way around your moral objections. Your very valid objections, he added. It was manipulative, and you fucking suck for doing it. If it makes any difference, I was not attempting to manipulate you. Just…ease you past your misgivings. Another lightning strike crashed into the mist barely five feet from where he was standing. Which, I realize, was manipulative. I’m sorry. Can we talk about it? You can talk. I’ll listen until you piss me off again, and the next bolt of lightning won’t miss.

Shan slid up beside Cotillion, eyes fixed on Tulas Shorn. A moment later Baran, Rood, Blind, and Gear arrived, padding round the rulers of the Realm of Shadow, and onward to encircle the Tiste Edur. Who held out his hands, as if inviting the beast to draw close. None did. 'They preferred you living, I think', Cotillion observed. 'The dead surrender so much.

As they watched, the Malefict lumbered into view. It was the size of a small house, powerfully but crudely built, its bearlike form missing ears, a nose, and even eyes, the leather of its muzzle crisscrossed with badly stitched seams. A heavy chain dragged behind it, each link large enough to yoke an ox, the other end attached to a system of gears and pulleys fixed to the cavern’s wall. It wagged its head back and forth, disoriented by the pain of the iron collar around its neck. Ink wept from open sores, gleaming wet down its shoulders, and old scars scored its leather-bound hide.

We can’t get seduced by the idea that if only we just rebuild the DNC we’ll be fine. We really have to jump in now to shape the narrative. The starting point—and this is the gift that abolition as an ideology and a practice has given me—is the idea that the system isn’t actually broken. Right? Because then I’m not preoccupied with trying to fix it. That’s not my goal. All I want to do is abolish and end it, therefore the imperatives of what I’m trying to do—the training, the questions, the analysis—all have to be geared towards that, and then this doesn’t force me to run around in circles plugging my fingers in the dyke everywhere as the water is just threatening to overwhelm all of us. Also, this allows me to think of how we can crowd out the current system by building the things that we want to see in the world, that will promote our well-being.

I reach for Cay, looping my arm in his. “When the game ends, trade jerseys with me.” “What?” “You heard me,” I say with a grin. He glances down at me, those dark brows narrowed. He works through my angle in his mind, the gears churning fast. His carefree smile turns to a matching grin as he leans in. “Oh, you really are out here fixing to get me killed tonight.” “Don’t worry,” I sing. “The boys might just let you beg for mercy.

The orrery stood on an oak dais in the middle of a room that had been the study of probably eight generations of Mrs. Hale’s forefathers. Four brass legs supported two horizontal brass dials connected by vertical posts, in between which was a series of coaxial shafts, stacked with telescoping gears, and a long brass hand crank with a wooden handle. A kettle-sized brass sphere, set above the middle of the upper dial, represented the sun. Its surface was so polished and reflective it not only threw the room’s light back out, as if generating the glow itself, but also seemed to possess depth, as if one might be able to plunge into its fish-eyed fathoms, into another brassy room. The planets and their moons were made of proportionally sized ivory balls. Each was fixed at the end of a brass arm. My grandfather and I stood looking at the marvelous machine in silence.

Much of what we’ve been taught about metabolism is incorrect. The ‘eat less and exercise more’ versions of diets are dinosaurs that ignore the current known facts about how our bodies actually function.

So again, why are you climbing a tree?” Christine asked as she shielded her eyes from the sun. She and everyone else sat around on blankets watching Kellen help Stevie put her gear on. “I wanted to learn how to do it, and Kellen fixed up this dead tree for me. I want to show off my new skills, too, because Linden made fun of me,” Stevie said and struck a pose. “Be still, I’m trying to connect the climb line to your saddle,” Kellen said, focused on the task. Kenzie climbed onto Trent’s shoulders and made a face. “Uncle Linden says Aunt Stevie’s gonna break her butt.” “Thanks, Linden,” Stevie said and shot him a look. “She won’t.” Kyle laughed. “I’ve never seen so much safety equipment in my life. Kell, you forgot to bubble wrap her butt before you put the saddle on.” “Where’d you get them giant pads from?” Walt asked. “They’re the ones the track team at the school used to use for pole vaulting.” Kellen adjusted the chinstrap on Stevie’s helmet. “This is our exercise tree.” Stevie patted the trunk. “I want iron legs like Kellen’s, so she topped it for me, cut most of the branches off, and put out the pads. See how she spoils me?” “Yeah, she gave you what looks like fifty feet of dead tree,” Kyle said with a grin. “Most people just get flowers.” Trent snorted. “Nothing says love like a fifty-foot stump.” Kellen double-checked her own gear just in case Stevie got into trouble and she had to go up for her. “Okay, babe, don’t go past the fifteen-foot mark, trust your saddle when your legs get tired, pay attention to the depth of your spikes.” She patted Stevie’s cheek and whispered, “Now show them your monkey.

She had only the faintest ugly memory of what had brought BZ and Helene together, and to erase it from her mind she fixed her imagination on a needle dripping sodium pentathol into her arm and began counting backward from one hundred. When that failed she imagined herself driving, conceived audacious lane changes, strategic shifts of gear, the Hollywood to the San Bernardino and straight on out, past Barstow, past Baker, driving straight on into the hard white empty core of the world. She slept and did not dream.