It's surely one of the strange phenomena of this decade that the most thoughtful gift you can bring a date is not flowers, chocolates, or ankle-length pearls, but a note from your doctor.

A basic rule of baking is that, in general, it's almost impossible to make an inedible batch of brownies.

My sister taught me everything I really need to know, and she was only in sixth grade at the time.

desserts are the most crucial part of any meal.

More than Santa Claus, your sister knows when you've been bad and good.

If you don't understand how a woman could both love her sister dearly and want to wring her neck at the same time, then you were probably an only child.

Your sister is the only creature on earth who shares your heritage, history, environment, DNA, bone structure, and contempt for stupid Aunt Gertie.

I discovered, quite early in motherhood, that the longest and most painful deliveries occur when you give birth to stepchildren.

If sisters were free to express how they really feel, parents would hear this: "Give me all the attention and all the toys and send Rebecca to live with Grandma."

There are three very good reasons to travel: 1. See the world. 2. Meet new people. 3. Room service.

I wasn't very good about the pain. I started screaming for painkillers after the third contraction and didn't stop until my daughter was eating solid food.

Here is the world, and you live in it, and are grateful. You try to be grateful.

...and my loneliness, always my loneliness - that airless bubble of despair that is slowing stifling me.

Death is a distant rumor to the young.

What you start learning is that to get over a breakup, you kind of have to live through the emotions and not run away from it because then it lasts longer.

Every Marine is, first and foremost, a rifleman. All other conditions are secondary.

Film-making was not at all what I had expected.

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.

Always think that in any area of the arts, you get maybe ten percent of people who are creative, original... and the rest are generally following on, copying.

I've stopped apologizing to myself for having this great period of success and financial acceptance.

It [live performance] is just very difficult. Doing an hour, hour and a half of live standup is an endurance test. You almost have to do it every day to stay up on it.