Although fear in the right dosage and under the right circumstance protects us ... imaginary fear offers straitjackets instead of lifejackets, nooses instead of safety nets.

...there is a celebrated aphorism insisting that the best way to live is to 'work like you don't need the money, dance like nobody is watching, and love like you've never been hurt.'...After years of hearing and reading these lines I have decided to tell the truth: the original version is wrong. There is a grave error in the wording of this adage. The correct version should go as follows: Love like you don't need the money, Work like nobody is watching, Dance like you've never been hurt. See? Doesn't that make more sense?

Most cooks would not, for example, prepare an important, elaborate, and difficult dish on the back-burner. Neither should we relegate the cultivation and preparation of happiness for a position where it is both hard to reach and difficult to infuse with new ingredients.

Anger is the quintessential individual-signature emotion: I am what makes me mad.

If anger were mileage, I'd be a very frequent flyer, right up there in First Class.

Once we hit forty, women only have about four taste buds left: one for vodka, one for wine, one for cheese, and one for chocolate.

While I do not believe the earth loaned to us by our ancestors should be plagued by chemical horrors and thereby corrupted for future generations, neither do I believe I should have to face anything that has more eyes than I have during dinner. It was my rule when I was dating and, heck, it's still my rule now.