"There were four more messages from him: one at 9:12, one at 9:31, one at 9:46, and one at 10:04." (15)
"I timed myself and it took me 3 seconds to open a lock. Then I figured out that if a baby is born in New York every 50 seconds, and each person has 18 locks, a new lock is created in New York every 2.777 seconds. So even if all I did was open locks, I'd still be falling short by .333 locks every second." (41)
"You're mother and I never talk about the past, that's a rule." (108) The word past serves as a link to time, It shows that the past should not be brought up because it holds memories they do not want to discuss.
Oskar makes several statements about time, including the implication that our lives are meaningless because no matter what we do, time will go on. This statement does hold some truth, time is forever and our lives definitely are not.
What can also be derived from this is Oskar's peculiar traits for his young age, such as his rationality and precision.
"Well, what would happen if a plane dropped you in the middle of the Sahara Desert and you picked up a single grain of sand with tweezers and moved it one millimeter?" [Oskar's father said] .... "I changed the course of human history!" (86)
“I have no need for the past, I thought, like a child. I did not consider that the past might have a need for me.” (78)
Here, Oskar takes a deeper look into the concept of time and deals with an indefinite length rather than a definite one. He thinks that he can forget the past and that it will not affect him any longer, that he had "no need for [it]". "Like a child", he thought that what was done was done, and did not take time to consider the consequences of what had already happened.
Just in these two sentences Oskar takes the vantage point of two people: himself in the past as a "child" and himself in the present or future with a greater insight of what might and does happen. His review of how he thought previously is interestingly thought-provoking and, short though it is, this quote definitely invokes acknowledgement of Oskar's self-understanding.
Some of the pages with only one line repeatedly ask "what time is it?". (118, 125, 129)