Our mother's first gift to us comes at the moment we are born, because Mom, as she will subsequently remind us over and over, gives us the Gift of Life Like many of the gifts we receive from our mothers, the Gift of Life usually doesn't fit properly and is almost never returnable without a major hassle.

Single people slip out of the dating market for many social, economic, psychological, and ideological reasons including marriage, illness, bankruptcy, job promotion, exhaustion, and common sense. Inevitably, however, they return because of divorce, boredom, loneliness, and memory loss.

Your sister is the only creature on earth who shares your heritage, history, environment, DNA, bone structure, and contempt for stupid Aunt Gertie.

My sister taught me everything I really need to know, and she was only in sixth grade at the time.

If you talk about yourself, he'll think you're boring. If you talk about others, he'll think you're a gossip. If you talk about him, he'll think you're a brilliant conversationalist.

Tip the world over and everything loose falls into L.A.

A careful blending of sarcasm, irony, and teasing, bickering has its own distinctive cadence and rhythm and is as difficult to master as French, Spanish, or any elective second language. Like Chinese, the fine points of bickering can be discerned in the subtle rise and fall of the voice. If not practiced properly, bickering can be mistaken for its less sophisticated counterpart: whining.