You have to take the chance to bomb and disappoint audiences.

The best time to have a baby is when you're a black teenager.

I commend you on all you've done for PETA, wrestling the one-eyed trouser snake with your bare hands, gently cuddling it in your arms, and nurturing it back to health.

I really think everything is fair game.

I'm lucky because I intentionally keep my overhead low, and so I can say, "No, thank you."

Since so many people these days don't seem to start their families until around age forty, I predict there will be less child beating, but more slipped disks from lifting babies out of cribs. Even the father of advanced age who's not inclined to spare the rod is likely to suffer more than his victim: The first punch he throws might well be the last straw for his rotator cuff, reducing his disciplinary options to mere verbal abuse and napping.

My stepfather, John O'Hara, was the goodest man there was. He was not a man of many words, but of carefully chosen ones. He was the one parent who didn't try to fix me. One night I sat on his lap in his chair by the wood stove, sobbing. He just held me quietly and then asked only, "What does it feel like?" It was the first time I was prompted to articulate it. I thought about it, then said, "I feel homesick." That still feels like the most accurate description - I felt homesick, but I was home.