Time interval is a strange and contradictory matter in the mind. It would be reasonable to suppose that a routine time or an eventless time would seem interminable. It should be so, but it is not. It is the dull eventless times that have no duration whatever. A time splashed with interest, wounded with tragedy, crevassed with joy - that's the time that seems long in the memory. And this is right when you think about it. Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.

Fella in business got to lie an' cheat, but he calls it somepin else. That's what's important. You go steal that tire an' you're a thief, but he tried to steal your four dollars for a busted tire. They call that sound business.

If you understand each other you will be kind to each other.

It's one of the great fallacies, it seems to me, that time gives much of anything but years and sadness to man.

It’s a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it.

I wrote The Grapes of Wrath in one hundred days, but many years of preparation preceded it.