Thursday, June 11, 2015

Being lost breaks the ice

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 hi time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.
John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley in Search of America  (New York: Penguin Books, 1986), p. 9 (orig. published 1962)

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