If you've been taught to keep every part of you to yourself, don't expect people to come knocking on your door to run their hands over the choice parts-either for your pleasure or theirs.

Sports (and the often barely withheld violence around them) have become one of the few modern ways to connect with strangers. They give an amazing number of geeks things to talk about. In the old days we settled for, "Hello, how are you?

Remember that that "rude awakening" which your parents and well-meaning relatives threatened you with as a kid is better than no awakening at all.

Falling in love with another man is like falling into a vast vat of yourself. For some men this is ultimately nourishing, for others . . . it is drowning.

Learn to detest things that do not allow you to be yourself, and embrace things that make that self larger, more thrilling, and voluptuous.

The lowest form of barbarism is smugly to berate someone for extending an act of kindness.

Learn the absolute pleasure of kindness.