The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.
John SteinbeckAnd, of course, people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen.
John SteinbeckHe drank too much when he could get it, ate too much when it was there, talked too much all the time.
John SteinbeckI have named the destroyers of nations: comfort, plenty, and security - out of which grow a bored and slothful cynicism, in which rebellion against the world as it is, and myself as I am, are submerged in listless self-satisfaction.
John SteinbeckWar ... a reversal of the rules where a man is permitted to kill all the humans he can.
John Steinbeck