In Russia, as I sat there day after day wearing headphones, listening to the interpreter struggle to make our words relevant, I wondered if we could establish meaningful rapport with a nation that had never seen raisins dance in dark glasses on TV...never had a garage sale.

Cats invented self-esteem.

I take a very practical view of raising children. I put a sign in each of their rooms: 'Checkout Time is 18 years.'

There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, 'Yes, I've got dreams, of course I've got dreams.' Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they're still there. These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to hold them up and say, 'How good or how bad am I?' That's where courage comes in.

A friend never defends a husband who gets his wife an electric skillet for her birthday.

Before we sent kids to computer camps and told them they were having a good time, there was imagination among the human species.

Someone once threw me a small, brown, hairy kiwi fruit, and I threw a wastebasket over it until it was dead.