Thanksgiving without tension is like a Thanksgiving without turkey. It can be done, but it is not the norm.

Replace the words "have to" with "get to" and watch how the cold rain on your life changes to sunshine.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

The movies we love and admire are to some extent a function of who we are when we see them.

The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within narcissistic cocoons of private conversations. Like faxes, computer modems and other modern gadgets that have clogged out lives with phony urgency, cell phones represent the 20th Century's escalation of imaginary need. We didn't need cell phones until we had them. Clearly, cell phones cause not only a breakdown of courtesy, but the atrophy of basic skills.

Families are ecosystems. Each life grows in response to the lives around it

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.