The central point of this final chapter is that - follow my logic carefully here - unless you die, you will continue to get older. (It's insights like this that separate the professional book author from the person with a real job.)

Many things have been written, including by me, linking humor and pain. Mostly, in my case, the humor part keeps me sane. If I spent all my hours writing things like "Fatal Distraction," I'd become a brooding, erratic melancholic. I'd be Raskolnikov.

The Internet is the most important single development in the history of human communication since the invention of call waiting.

As a professional journalist, I am always looking for new ways to get paid for being motionless.

And so by the fifteenth century, on October 8, the Europeans were looking for a new place to try to get to, and they came up with a new concept: the West.

Always remember that if editors were so damned smart, they would know how to dress.

I called a company and asked to speak to Bob. The person who answered said, "Bob is on vacation. Would you like to hold?