When your mother asks, 'Do you want a piece of advice?' it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.

With boys, you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane.

Those magazine dieting stories always have the testimonial of a woman who wore a dress that could slipcover New Jersey in one photo and thirty days later looked like a well-dressed thermometer.

With boys you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane. It's all there. The fruit flies hovering over their waste can, the hamster trying to escape to cleaner air, the bedrooms decorated in Early Bus Station Restroom.

Authorities say brain cells may shrink, but they don't necessarily die. Frankly, I am cheered by the fact that something is shrinking. I'd be even more thrilled if what was shrinking affected my dress size, but you can't have everything.

We even switched to a newly-formed church across the town that gave one hundred and twenty trading stamps each time we attended. (We now worship a brown and white chicken with a sunburst on its chest.)

Sometimes I can't figure designers out. It's as if they flunked human anatomy.