The porpoises said hello to Molly. She told them all her teeth were green.

I walked out of the movie "Lincoln" and bought the book [of Doris Kearns Goodwin] at the bookstore next door.

During bomb drills, we students were told to crouch under our desks. Apparently the desks used in classrooms in the fifties were made of an exceptionally missile-resistant variety of wood. During the Cold War years I often wondered why it never occurred to our defense planners to protect the entire nation from nuclear attack by simply covering it, from sea to shining sea, with a huge Strategic Classroom Desk.

Aside from Velcro, time is the most mysterious substance in the universe.

I'm not the only taxpayer who has no idea what he's sending to the IRS. This year, only 28 percent of all Americans will prepare their own tax returns, according to a voice in my head that invents accurate-sounding statistics.

Eventually everyone has to die, except Elvis.

English history consists largely of royal people getting their heads chopped off...Needless to say, this brand of history was a hit with our son.