Birthdays are a reward for having shown up 365 days in a row. It's like getting a badge for attendance.

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.

Fear looks both ways but still refuses to cross; fear looks twice and still doesn't leap. ... Fear usually arrives late, inevitably leaves early, and ends up never going out of town at all. Fear is the phantom hand on the back of the neck and the sound of a door opening downstairs when no one is coming home. ... Fear grows poor because it watches others gain wealth but cannot enter the fray; fear grows sick because it eats away at heath even as it fears its diminishment; fear grows old watching others live in ways that seem to threaten-but in reality only enhance-life.

Humor is a show of both strength and of vulnerability: you are willing to make the first move but you are trusting in the response of your listener.

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

The people I work with are like family. I don't mean this in a nice way.

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