“
And presently I was driving through the drizzle of the dying day, with the windshield wipers in full action but unable to cope with my tears.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita)
“
As he fell toward the highway, a horrible scenario flashed through his mind: his body smashing against an SUV's windshield, some annoyed commuter trying to push him off with the wipers. "Stupid 16-year-old kid falling from the sky! I'm late!
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, #2))
“
If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d seen. The truth is, you wouldn't remember that movie a week later, except you’d feel robbed and want your money back. Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.
But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to be meaningful. The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won't make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either
”
”
Donald Miller (A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life)
“
It began to drizzle rain and he turned on the windshield wipers; they made a great clatter like two idiots clapping in church.
”
”
Flannery O'Connor (Wise Blood)
“
And then suddenly Danny's arms were around me, and his lips were on mine, and the crazy windshield wipers commenced singing our names together.
”
”
Irene Hunt (Up a Road Slowly)
“
Dirk turned on the car wipers, which grumbled because they didn't have quite enough rain to wipe away, so he turned them off again. Rain quickly speckled the windscreen. He turned on the wipers again, but they still refused to feel that the exercise was worthwhile, and scraped and squeaked in protest.
”
”
Douglas Adams (The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Dirk Gently, #2))
“
Nooooooooooo!" Screaming the word, Amy and Dan moved as one.
Time slowed down, which, Dan knew from experience, often happened when you were in midair. By the time they leaped onto the hood of Fiske's car (oops, dents), and Dan had ripped off a windshield wiper to use as a weapon (probably not the best idea, but hey, he was improvising), Scarey Harley Dude had turned around.
He strode off in his motorcycle boots, moving swiftly to his bike without seeming to hurry. His helmet back on, sunglasses adjusted, he roared off straight into the road, weaving through the thick traffic like smoke.
Amy's face was squashed against the windshield. Dan held the wiper aloft like a club.
And Evan Tolliver stood on the sidewalk, blinking at them.
Dan waved the windshield wiper at him. "Hey, bro. We didn't want to miss our ride.
”
”
Jude Watson (Vespers Rising (The 39 Clues, #11))
“
In a society that is essentially designed to organize, direct, and gratify mass impulses, what is there to minister to the silent zones of man as an individual? Religion? Art? Nature? No, the church has turned religion into standardized public spectacle, and the museum has done the same for art. The Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls have been looked at so much that they've become effete, sucked empty by too many stupid eyes. What is there to minister to the silent zones of man as an individual? How about a cold chicken bone on a paper plate at midnight, how about a lurid lipstick lengthening or shortening at your command, how about a Styrofoam nest abandoned by a 'bird' you've never known, how about a pair of windshield wipers pursuing one another futilely while you drive home alone through a downpour, how about something beneath a seat touched by your shoe at the movies, how about worn pencils, cute forks, fat little radios, boxes of bow ties, and bubbles on the side of a bathtub? Yes, these are the things, these kite strings and olive oil cans and Valentine hearts stuffed with nougat, that form the bond between the autistic vision and the experiential world, it is to show these things in their true mysterious light that is the purpose of the moon.
”
”
Tom Robbins
“
That was the way it was that beautiful evening of cold November rain and muddy country roads and crazy windshield wipers. That was the moment of my greatest security and confidence; it was the time when I realized that love makes one a better person, a kinder gentler one.
”
”
Irene Hunt (Up a Road Slowly)
“
Respect is something that should be earned, like eyebrows shaped like windshield wipers in a stormy arcade evening. I like my respect with lots of elbow room and melted cheese on top.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (This is the best book I've ever written, and it still sucks (This isn't really my best book))
“
I used to sit in front of my father's Jag, watching the raindrops run their kamikaze suicide missions from one edge of the windshield to the wiper blade.
”
”
Jodi Picoult
“
When something large and oncoming passed, the windshield's big rectangle was for a moment incandesced and opaque with water, which the wipers heaved mightily to displace.
”
”
David Foster Wallace (The Pale King)
“
Laughter is like a windshield wiper, it doesn't stop the rain but allows us to keep going.
”
”
Oscar Auliq-Ice
“
For a mile, the Old Man and I rode in blessed silence, the giraffes looking back like they’d acquired a taste for gospel singing, with the windshield wipers slapping time.
”
”
Lynda Rutledge (West With Giraffes)
“
That is what journaling is about. It’s spiritual windshield wipers, as the writer Julia Cameron once put it.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (Stillness is the Key)
“
Sound is so important to creative writing. Think of the sounds you hear that you include and the similes you use to describe what things sound like. 'As she walked up the alley, her polyester workout pants sounded like windshield wipers swishing back and forth.' Cadence, onomatopoeia, the poetry of language are all so important. Learn all that you can about how to bring sound into your work.
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”
Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
“
They recruited the most supple and athletic of the cops to train as mounted policemen, and a small kid could be mesmerized just watching one who’d been lazing majestically down the street stop to write a parking ticket and then lean way over in the saddle so as to place the ticket under the car’s windshield wiper, a physical gesture, if ever there was one, of magnificent condescension to the machine age.
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”
Philip Roth (The Plot Against America)
“
When they’d been children there’d been a fallen log in the river, and John had walked on it, keeping his balance, instructing his brother: If you don’t think about it, you won’t fall.—That would be a perfect epitaph, thought Tyler malevolently, crushing the space invader raindrops with his windshield wipers.
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”
William T. Vollmann (The Royal Family)
“
around. You can use the three-hole or five-hole stitch, or make up your own version. Some artists I know have worked with take-out menus, junk mail, fliers left on their car windshield wipers—it is fun to take ephemeral materials
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”
Esther K. Smith (How to Make Books: Fold, Cut & Stitch Your Way to a One-of-a-Kind Book)
“
he fell toward the highway, a horrible scenario flashed through his mind: his body smashing against an SUV’s windshield, some annoyed commuter trying to push him off with the wipers. Stupid sixteen-year-old kid falling from the sky! I’m late!
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, #2))
“
When it rains, my windshield wiper fades into the trunks of twisted oaks, but I drive straight, because the trees are drunk. When the trees drink, it's because they've been watered with alcohol, and who feeds trees alcohol, except drunks?
-Jarod Kintz and Stefan Dimov
”
”
Jarod Kintz (liQUID PROse QUOtes)
“
Poetic Terrorism
WEIRD DANCING IN ALL-NIGHT computer-banking lobbies. Unauthorized pyrotechnic displays. Land-art, earth-works as bizarre alien artifacts strewn in State Parks. Burglarize houses but instead of stealing, leave Poetic-Terrorist objects. Kidnap someone & make them happy. Pick someone at random & convince them they're the heir to an enormous, useless & amazing fortune--say 5000 square miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or an orphanage in Bombay, or a collection of alchemical mss. ...
Bolt up brass commemorative plaques in places (public or private) where you have experienced a revelation or had a particularly fulfilling sexual experience, etc.
Go naked for a sign.
Organize a strike in your school or workplace on the grounds that it does not satisfy your need for indolence & spiritual beauty.
Graffiti-art loaned some grace to ugly subways & rigid public monuments--PT-art can also be created for public places: poems scrawled in courthouse lavatories, small fetishes abandoned in parks & restaurants, Xerox-art under windshield-wipers of parked cars, Big Character Slogans pasted on playground walls, anonymous letters mailed to random or chosen recipients (mail fraud), pirate radio transmissions, wet cement...
The audience reaction or aesthetic-shock produced by PT ought to be at least as strong as the emotion of terror-- powerful disgust, sexual arousal, superstitious awe, sudden intuitive breakthrough, dada-esque angst--no matter whether the PT is aimed at one person or many, no matter whether it is "signed" or anonymous, if it does not change someone's life (aside from the artist) it fails.
PT is an act in a Theater of Cruelty which has no stage, no rows of seats, no tickets & no walls. In order to work at all, PT must categorically be divorced from all conventional structures for art consumption (galleries, publications, media). Even the guerilla Situationist tactics of street theater are perhaps too well known & expected now.
An exquisite seduction carried out not only in the cause of mutual satisfaction but also as a conscious act in a deliberately beautiful life--may be the ultimate PT. The PTerrorist behaves like a confidence-trickster whose aim is not money but CHANGE.
Don't do PT for other artists, do it for people who will not realize (at least for a few moments) that what you have done is art. Avoid recognizable art-categories, avoid politics, don't stick around to argue, don't be sentimental; be ruthless, take risks, vandalize only what must be defaced, do something children will remember all their lives--but don't be spontaneous unless the PT Muse has possessed you.
Dress up. Leave a false name. Be legendary. The best PT is against the law, but don't get caught. Art as crime; crime as art.
”
”
Hakim Bey (TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone (New Autonomy))
“
I admire the flow of your dancing moves, and I'd love to bottle them up and sell them as windshield wiper fluid. I only wish they came in Ozarks Rain Flavor.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (The Lewis and Clark of The Ozarks)
“
It was shame that swiped across her soul, like these windshield wipers before her: two large black long fingers, relentless and rhythmic in their chastisement.
”
”
Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kitteridge)
“
Outside, a light rain began to fall. The coat turned on our windshield wipers.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Red Pyramid (The Kane Chronicles, #1))
“
That's about as effective as a windshield wiper on a goat's ass.
”
”
Denise Tompkins
“
A car is a couch with wheels. My windshield wipers don’t work, so I’ve decided to stop watering my living room carpet. Honk if you want coffee, and I’ll pour you an umbrellaful.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (I love Blue Ribbon Coffee)
“
sky dribbled just enough to make the windshield wipers squeal at the slowest setting.
”
”
Daniel Price (The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers, #1))
“
She looked straight ahead at the briskly working windshield wipers. The windshield was just like the never-ending cycles of her mind. Confusion. Clear. Confusion. Clear. Confusion. Clear.
”
”
Liane Moriarty (Big Little Lies)
“
My heart beats to the rhythm of the windshield wipers. I’d better never drive in the desert, unless I want to die. Our relationship has one too many cactuses in it to be deserving of my love.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
“
Eyes blurred, she drove away. Alone, buzzing down the asphalt trail to Kayenta, heart beating, her pistons leaping madly up and down, Bonnie Abbzug relapsed into the sweet luxury of tears. Hard to see the road. She turned on the windshield wipers but that didn't help much.
”
”
Edward Abbey (The Monkey Wrench Gang (Monkey Wrench Gang, #1))
“
He started his engine and turned on the windshield wipers in time to see a tall old man stepping out of the cab. He paid the driver, then turned and stood motionless under a misty streetlamp’s glow, staring up at a window of the house like a melancholy traveler frozen in time. As
”
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William Peter Blatty (The Exorcist)
“
There was a parking ticket on her windshield. She rolled down her window and reached out, yanking the paper from beneath the rusted windshield wiper. She wadded it into a ball and tossed it out the window. To her mind, ticketing this rattrap and expecting to get paid was like leaving a bill on the pillow at a homeless shelter.
”
”
Kristin Hannah (Summer Island)
“
Samaras don’t look like much—a bit of paper and a tiny seed. Inside each one, though, is the possibility of a maple tree but to become more than a possibility, they need to escape the shadows cast by bigger trees.”
With a click, she turns on the windshield wipers.
“I don’t believe you would ever willingly return to the shadows.
”
”
Maria Vale (Wolf in the Shadows (The Legend of All Wolves, #5))
“
A severed ear sticks to the windshield, and Philip puts the wipers on. They
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”
Robert Kirkman (Rise of the Governor (The Walking Dead #1))
“
One popular story had it that Los Alamos was a wartime plant that made windshield wipers for submarines. Others insisted that workers were actually assembling submarines in a factory. This theory persisted even though there was no deep water for hundreds of miles around: against all reason, people actually believed the army had cut a secret passage to float the subs down the Rio Grande.
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Jennet Conant (109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos)
“
The Glock is lighter by a good measure than the Beretta I was trained on, with a better grip, and I’ve heard it’s accurate, but weapons are like cars—you know they have standard stuff like lights and an ignition and windshield wipers, but it still takes a few seconds to figure them out when they’re unfamiliar. So I burn precious moments getting a feel for it before I’m ready to point and shoot—
”
”
Bill Clinton (The President Is Missing)
“
What if something happens to me out here and I can’t get home again?” Susan worried.
“I’ll take care of you,” Martie promised, although in light of her own peculiar state of mind, the promise might prove empty.
“But what if something happens to you?”
“Nothing is going to happen to me,” Martie vowed as she switched on the windshield wipers.
“Something can happen to anybody. Look at what happened to me.
”
”
Dean Koontz (False Memory)
“
The windshield wipers were on, and periodically, they made a swipe that gave her a momentarily clear view of the opposite shore. And it was funny, life was a bit like that, wasn't it. You went along, doing your thing, not really seeing the full landscape of where you were for all the daily minutiae you had to take care of—when suddenly, things crystallized and you got a brief picture that left you going, Ah so I am here.
”
”
J.R. Ward (The Bourbon Kings (The Bourbon Kings, #1))
“
Lord, what will I be? Where will the careless conglomeration of environment, heredity and stimulus lead me? Someday I may say: It was of great significance that I sat and laughed at myself in a convertible with the rain coming down in rattling sheets on the canvas roof. It influenced my life that I did not find content immediately and easily - - and now I am I because of that. It was inestimably important for me to look at the lights of Amherstn town in the rain, with the wet black tree-skeletons against the limpid streetlights and gray November mist, and then look at the boy beside me and feel all the hurting beauty go flat because he wasn't the right one - not at all. And I may say that my philosophy has been deeply affected by the fact that windshield wipers ticked off seconds too loudly and hopelessly, that my clock drips loud sharp clicks too monotonously on my hearing. I can hear it even through the pillow I muffle it with - the tyrannical drip drip drip drip of seconds along the night. And in the day, even when I'm not there, the seconds come out in little measured strips of time. And I wind the clock. And I look at the windshield wipers cutting an arch out of the sprinkled raindrops on the glass. Click-click. Clip-clip. Tick-tick. snip-snip. And it goes on and on. I could smash the measured clicking sound that haunts me - draining away life, and dreams, and idle reveries. Hard, sharp, ticks. I hate them. Measuring thought, infinite space, by cogs and wheels. Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that - I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much - so very much to learn.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
The wind howled about the bus, and the wipers slooshed heavily back and forth across the windshield, smeering the city into a red and yellow neon wetness. It was early afternoon, but it looked like night through the glass
”
”
Neil Gaiman (American Gods)
“
I could never tell how other people saw me. Most of the time I felt like I was riding around in a car with a fogged windshield that made it difficult to decipher the perceptions of others. They were all just kind of pantomiming outside, grunting, while I ran the wipers over and over. No matter how fast I wiped, I couldn't clear the fog.
”
”
Melissa Broder (Milk Fed)
“
Morning pages are, as author Julia Cameron puts it, “spiritual windshield wipers.” It’s the most cost-effective therapy I’ve ever found. To quote her further, from page viii: “Once we get those muddy, maddening, confusing thoughts [nebulous worries, jitters, and preoccupations] on the page, we face our day with clearer eyes.” Please reread the above quote. It may be the most important aspect of trapping thought on paper (i.e., writing) you’ll ever encounter. Even if you consider yourself a terrible writer, writing can be viewed as a tool. There are huge benefits to writing, even if no one—yourself included—ever reads what you write. In other words, the process matters more than the product.
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
“
No one ever understood what got into us that year, or why we hated so intensely the crust of dead bugs over our lives. Suddenly, however, we couldn't bear the fish flies carpeting our swimming pools, filling our mailboxes, blotting out stars on our flags. The collective action of digging the trench led to cooperative sweeping, bag-carting, patio-hosing. A score of brooms kept time in all directions as the pale ghosts of fish flies dropped from walls like ash. We examined their tiny wizards' faces, rubbing them between our fingers until they gave off the scent of carp. We tried to light them but they wouldn't burn (which made the fish flies seem deader than anything). We hit bushes, beat rugs, turned on windshield wipers full blast. Fish flies clogged sewer grates so that we had to stuff them down with sticks. Crouching over sewers, we could hear the river under the city flowing away. We dropped rocks and listened for the splash
”
”
Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides)
“
The Model S also offered a way to fix issues in a manner that people had never before encountered with a mass-produced car. Some of the early owners complained about glitches like the door handles not popping out quite right or their windshield wipers operating at funky speeds. These were inexcusable flaws for such a costly vehicle, but Tesla typically moved with clever efficiency to address them. While the owner slept, Tesla’s engineers tapped into the car via the Internet connection and downloaded software updates. When the customer took the car out for a spin in the morning and found it working right, he was left feeling as if magical elves had done the work. Tesla soon began showing off its software skills for jobs other than making up for mistakes. It put out a smartphone app that let people turn on their air-conditioning or heating from afar and to see where the car was parked on a map. Tesla also began installing software updates that imbued the Model S with new features. Overnight, the Model S sometimes got new traction controls for hilly and highway driving or could suddenly recharge much faster than before or possess a new range of voice controls. Tesla had transformed the car into a gadget—a device that actually got better after you bought it. As Craig Venter, one of the earliest Model S owners and the famed scientist who first decoded man’s DNA, put it, “It changes everything about transportation. It’s a computer on wheels.” The
”
”
Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future)
“
This is not a good driving technique, especially if it happens to be raining and you still don’t know how to work the windshield wipers.
”
”
James Rallison (The Odd 1s Out: How to Be Cool and Other Things I Definitely Learned from Growing Up)
“
It was raining harder now; the fat drops were falling too fast for the windshield wipers to keep up with them, making it look like as through we were heading straight into an impressionist’s vision of West Virginia.
”
”
Alexandra Bracken (The Darkest Legacy (The Darkest Minds, #4))
“
She made her way to her favorite area of the daycare. The smaller of the two playrooms' aesthetic was a nod to her Frenchie's white-and-black piebald coat, with splashes of purple to add a royal flare. Portraits of Duchess hung on the walls in gilded frames. Was it a bit over the top? Absolutely. But when it came to her baby there was no top.
Seconds after she entered the room, Ashanti was bombarded by a cadre of feisty canines with Napoleon complexes. This is what she missed the most. Having to devote so much time to baking, she didn't get to play with the dogs nearly as much as she wanted to.
"Hey, Lulu and Sparkle," she greeted the Pomeranians, giving each dog one of the dime-sized treats from her pocket. "And how is my favorite Chihuahua," she called to Bingo, who had been coming to the daycare since the first week it opened. She followed the treats with quick head rubs for each dog, then went in search of Duchess.
"Where's my dog?" Ashanti asked Leslie, who was running the Parkers' Cavalier King Charles through the agility maze. Leslie gestured to cushioned mats in the corner.
Ashanti walked over and found Duchess hugged up next to Puddin'. The two lay in a yin-yang pattern, with Duchess's head nestled against Puddin's chest, and her squat legs arcing around the puffy topknot atop the poodle's head.
"Kara was right. You two really do need a room."
At the sound of her voice, Duchess's stubby tail started wagging like a windshield wiper gone haywire, but she still didn't move away from Puddin'.
"If you don't get over here," Ashanti said. She reached down and lifted Duchess into her arms. "Don't forget who keeps you in tiaras and rawhide," she said, nuzzling the dog's flat nose with her own.
”
”
Farrah Rochon (Pardon My Frenchie (Doggone Delightful, #1))
“
Juma Fejo tells me everything in creation has Dreaming, even windshield wipers and cell phones, so why must our knowledge of creation be frozen in time as an artifact?
”
”
Tyson Yunkaporta (Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World)
“
If you want to be wealthy—as measured in money, time, relationships, ease of sleep, or otherwise—“spiritual windshield wipers” will help you get there with fewer accidents and less headache.
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
“
Morning pages are, as author Julia Cameron puts it, “spiritual windshield wipers.
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
“
I love you.”
I froze, my heart pounding.
Linking our fingers together, he set them on his thigh. The windshield wipers slid from side to side, their rhythmic tempo mocking the racing of my pulse.
Swallowing hard, I whispered, “Say that again.”
He slowed at a light. Turning his head, Gideon looked at me. He looked weary, as if all his usual pulsing energy had been expended and he was running on fumes. But his eyes were warm and bright, the curve of his mouth loving and hopeful. “I love you. Still not the right word, but I know you want to hear it.”
“I need to hear it,” I agreed softly.
“As long as you understand the difference.” The light changed and he drove on. “People get over love. They can live without it, they can move on. Love can be lost and found again. But that won’t happen for me. I won’t survive you, Eva.”
My breath caught at the look on his face when he glanced at me.
“I’m obsessed with you, angel. Addicted to you. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted or needed, everything I’ve ever dreamed of. You’re everything. I live and breathe you. For you.
”
”
Sylvia Day (Reflected in You (Crossfire, #2))
“
New York’s attack, dubbed “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” by Sports Illustrated’s Jack McCallum, was the NBA’s most predictable. “Windshield wipers offer more variety than the Knicks’ offense,” mused New York magazine writer Chris Smith. For many years, their possessions often went something like this: a guard would dribble down to the wing and dump an entry pass into Ewing on the block. The center, forced to deal with the spacing of a crowded Twister mat, would turn and face the basket, deciding instantly whether he had enough time to get off a shot before a second and third defender could swarm. If he didn’t have a good look, he would kick the ball out to reset the offense, or, in what was often a victory for the defense, set up a wide-open perimeter try for a shooting-deficient teammate. “If this were football, every time [his teammates] shoot, they’d be accused of intentional grounding,” New York Post columnist Peter Vecsey wrote. Every now and then, there was a pick-and-roll mixed in, or a cross screen to shake things up. When the universe allowed, a Ewing kick-out would lead to a made jumper by one of the guards. But even when players misfired, Ewing was often there to corral the miss, then gracefully put it back for a score. If his teammates were leaving messes, the 7-footer was the Bounty paper towel cleaning up after them.
”
”
Chris Herring (Blood in the Garden: The Flagrant History of the 1990s New York Knicks)
“
Mom has her headlights on. That’s a rule in Maine, Rainie told me— if you’re using your windshield wipers, you have to have your lights on.
”
”
Betty Culley (Three Things I Know Are True)
“
Jack fussed as I dragged him from the swing set. As we marched through the parking lot, I glimpsed a man in a car, his arm slung over the steering wheel. Achille. He raised his head, his glare piercing. I ripped out the piece of notebook paper with the lyrics, folded it, and stuck it under his windshield wiper. Then I tugged Jack’s hand and we left.
”
”
Vanessa Waltz (Claimed (Sinners of Boston, #4))
“
I could never tell how other people saw me. Most of the time I felt like I was riding around in a car with a fogged windshield that made it difficult to decipher the perceptions of others. They were all just kind of pantomiming outside, grunting, while I ran the wipers over and over. No matter how fast I wiped, I couldn’t clear the fog.
”
”
Melissa Broder (Milk Fed)
“
Rain pounded on the Packard, reverberating through the car and into her bones. The wipers going full speed, banging on the steel frame of the windshield like a metronome out of control, she still could not see more than a few feet in front of her.
”
”
Jeffrey Stepakoff (Fireworks Over Toccoa)
“
Like most cars, the Honda Fit and Nissan LEAF have two windshield wipers. In the LEAF, they’re about the same size. In the Fit, one wiper is the size of that tree in California you can drive under, while the other is about as long a golf course pencil. Why is this important? Because as a professional automotive journalist, I have deemed it so. Isn’t that enough? Advantage: LEAF.
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”
Doug DeMuro (Plays With Cars)
“
He'll walk into any room I'm sitting in, turn the lights down and walk out. He throws away everything I need. He starts a fight the day of every party. He takes off his shirt to poop. He insists on adjusting the color on the television when I'm trying to watch something — and I don't care about the color. He washes dark clothes with towels so all the nice black things are covered in lint. He notices when I'm low on windshield wiper fluid and refills me. He makes me coffee every morning and cooks practically every dinner. He gets nervous when he can't fix what I'm upset about. He loves animals so much it causes him pain. He'll run to the store at the drop of a hat. When my friend asked me what marriage was maybe I should have said marriage is when he's in the garage building me a new TV cabinet and I'm holding the flashlight while he looks for a drill bit. That would have been a better answer.
”
”
Cindy Caponera (I Triggered Her Bully (Kindle Single))
“
One of the optional subjects that we could study at Eton was motor mechanics, roughly translated as “find an old banger, pimp it up, remove the exhaust, and rag it around the fields until it dies.”
Perfect.
I found an exhausted-looking, old brown Ford Cortina station wagon that I bought for thirty pounds, and, with some friends, we geared it up big-time.
As we were only sixteen we weren’t allowed to take it on the road, but I reckoned with my seventeenth birthday looming that it would be perfect as my first, road-legal car. The only problem was that I needed to have it pass inspection, and to do that I had to get it to a garage. This involved having an adult drive with me.
I persuaded Mr. Quibell that there was no better way that he could possibly spend a Saturday afternoon than drive me to a repair garage (in his beloved Slough). I had managed to take a lucky diving catch for the house cricket team the day before, so was in Mr. Quibell’s good books--and he relented.
As soon as we got to the outskirts of Slough, though, the engine started to smoke--big-time. Soon, Mr. Quibell had to have the windshield wipers on full power, acting as a fan just to clear the smoke that was pouring out of the hood.
By the time we made it to the garage the engine was red-hot and it came as no surprise that my car failed its inspection--on more counts than any car the garage had seen for a long time, they told me.
It was back to the drawing board, but it was a great example of what a good father figure Mr. Quibell was to all those in his charge--especially to those boys who really tried, in whatever field it was. And I have always been, above all, a trier.
I haven’t always succeeded, and I haven’t always had the most talent, but I have always given of myself with great enthusiasm--and that counts for a lot. In fact my dad had always told me that if I could be the most enthusiastic person I knew then I would do well.
I never forgot that. And he was right.
I mean, who doesn’t like to work with enthusiastic folk?
”
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Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)