Hold the door for an old man. Old ladies can take care of themselves; they've been doing it long enough.

There are certain restaurants where you should photograph the food rather than eat it. These are great places to bring a narcissistic boyfriend before you break up.

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?

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

Realize that the banality around us that passes as "hipness" or "mass culture" is as satisfying as "mass food"-only it comes in much more unappetizing portions.

There may be a point in your life in which you are drowning so fast and fighting it so furiously that you don't have the strength left to call out for help. At that point don't expect one of your friends to jump into the water, if you've spent most of your life instructing them to mind their own business.

Although computers allow people to talk at the speed of light, no one talks that fast.