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

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

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

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.

The first gay person I ever met was surely not the first gay person I ever met.

The Thanksgiving meal should not be treated as a grad school exam or an Olympic dive. Whatever you cook will be good enough - unless you make that Twinkie turkey stuffing we're suddenly hearing too much about.

Linda Tripp has shown that a true friend is an archivist, a biographer.