Let me put it this way. According to my girth, I should be a ninety-foot redwood.

Know the difference between success and fame. Success is Mother Teresa. Fame is Madonna.

Enter my first neighbor - a woman who spoke in complete, coherent sentences, who ate with a knife and fork and who only cried at weddings. I couldn't help myself. In a dramatic gesture, I bolted the door and threw my body across it to prevent her exit. She understood.

I love my mother for all the times she said absolutely nothing.... Thinking back on it all, it must have been the most difficult part of mothering she ever had to do: knowing the outcome, yet feeling she had no right to keep me from charting my own path. I thank her for all her virtues, but mostly for never once having said, "I told you so.

It's [motherhood] the biggest on-the-job- training program in existence today.

Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they're not trying to keep up with you.

The age of your children is a key factor in how quickly you are served in a restaurant. We once had a waiter in Canada who said, "Could I get you your check?" and we answered, "How about the menu first?"