Clockwork

If you want something you can have it, but only if you want everything that goes with it, including all the hard work and the despair, and only if you're willing to risk failure.

You don't win races by wishing, you win them by running faster than everyone else does.

Still, Fritz was an optimist, and Karl was a pessimist, and that makes all the difference in the world.

We can control the future, my boy, just as we wind up the mechanism in a clock. Say to yourself: I will win that race--I will come first--and you wind up the future like clockwork. The world has no choice but to obey! Can the hands of that old clock in the corner decide to stop? Can the spring in your watch decide to wind itself up and run backward? No! They have no choice. And nor has the future, once you have wound it up.

... And here it is: You don't win races by wishing, you win them by running faster than everyone else. And to do that you have to train hard and strive your utmost, and sometimes even that isn't enough, because another runner just might be more talented than you are. Here's the truth: If you want something, you can have it, but only if you want everything that goes with it, including all the hard work and the despair, and only if you're willing to risk failure. That's the problem with Karl: He was afraid of failing, so he never really tried.

The world is a cruel place sometimes, and warm-hearted people do most of the good in it. And much of the time, they're mocked and scorned for their pains.

Fritz had to stop himself from interrupting when Karl spoke about the difficulty of working. Stories are just as hard as clocks to put together, and they can go wrong just as easily--as we shall soon see with Fritz's own story in a page or two. Still, Fritz was an optimist, and Karl was a pessimist, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Ovo je Fritz: beskoristan je, kao što vidiš. Posve neodgovoran. No, s druge strane, Fritz se samo igrao pripovjedača. Da je pravi majstor poput urara, znao bi kako svaki čin ima svoju posljedicu. Iza svakog tik slijedi tak. Iza rečenice - Bio jednom... - mora slijediti priča, inače će slijediti nešto drugo, a to može biti puno opasnije od priče.