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

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. The older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

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.

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

Be nice to your siblings. They are your link to the past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

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

Good art is art that allows you to enter it from a variety of angles and to emerge with a variety of views.