Because of some defect in my motor skill, I can never COMPLETELY wrap [gifts]....If I had been an ancient Egyptian in the field of mummies, the lower half of the Pharaoh's body would be covered only by scotch tape.

You're not allowed to park a truck in your driveway. You're not allowed to work on your house on Sunday. The people who enforce these laws are nuts. After I wrote a column on this, I got I don't know how many letters from Coral Gables homeowners, story after story after story, wonderfully horrible stories. And the venom they felt for their own government!

I report as a machine; I write as a person. That clear dichotomy softens the transition.

People in the computer industry use the term 'user,' which to them means 'idiot.'

Sometimes you panic and find yourself emitting remarks so profoundly inane that you would be embarrassed to say them to your dog. Your dog would look at you and think to itself, 'I may lick myself in public, but I'd never say anything as stupid as that.'

The planes are crowded and noisy and late, and everybody hates everybody. If armed terrorists had tried to hijack any of the flights I've been on lately, we passengers would have swiftly beaten them to death with those hard rolls you get with your in-flight meals.

Thanks to modern medical advances such as antibiotics, nasal spray, and Diet Coke, it has become routine for people in the civilized world to pass the age of 40, sometimes more than once.