The aging process seems to strike first at the mechanism which warns that we have been talking too much and the listener is growing restless. The signal isn't perfect at any age - drink, for instance, throws it right out of kilter - but it is almost non-existent in old people.

I happen to disagree with the well-entrenched theory that the art of conversation is merely the art of being a good listener. Such advice invites people to be cynical with one another and full of fake; when a conversation becomes a monologue, poked along with tiny cattle-prod questions, it isn't a conversation any more.

If it's a woman, it's caustic; if it's a man, it's authoritative.

Most attractive males talk to most attractive women as if they were Rotarians comparing sales percentages in Des Moines.

I was the kind nobody thought could make it. I had a funny Boston accent. I couldn't pronounce my R's. I wasn't a beauty.

I didn't have a very religious family.

To excel is to reach your own highest dream. But you must also help others, where and when you can, to reach theirs. Personal gain is empty if you do not feel you have positively touched another's life.