Read with caution and take it in.

Advice I ought to follow:

• Know your neighborhood like the back of your hand.
• Find yourself a good hideout. Ideally, the corner booth in someplace with long hours and good coffee.
• Take a vacation from the Internet.
• Always wake up early enough to enjoy a full cup of coffee and read the newspaper. Freshly laundered pajamas are a must.
• On a night out with the gang, never be the first to go home.
• Identify your most commonly used word or phrase, and eliminate it.

• Collect things. Make em cheap but hard to find.
• A t-shirt is neither a philosophy nor an advertisement. It’s a shirt. Wear it plain.
• Limit your use of headphones.
• Memorize the Bill of Rights and a few favorite poems.
• Go camping. When building a fire, choose deadwood from a tree, not off the ground.

• A museum is a great place to beat a hangover. It’s cool, quiet, and full of water fountains.
• Support friends in the arts. Especially if they stink.
• Have a theme song. Live up to it.
• If you don't know what a word means, ask. Before it's too late.
• If you have to make more than one substitution, order something else.
• Try writing your own eulogy. Never stop revising.

• Drive a vintage car before you're thirty.
• The task of an American writer is not to describe the misgivings of a woman taken in adultery as she looks out of a window at the rain, but to describe four hundred people under the lights reaching for a foul ball. This is ceremony. (John Cheever)
• Smile at cute people. Shyness is overrated.
• Apparently, August 28 is a good day to make a speech.
• Never ask about another person's grades or salary.
• When you play hooky, play to win.

• Go all out on Halloween. Always make your own costume.
• If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.
• Enter a contest.
• If your art is bad, make it bigger. If its still bad, paint it red.
• Don't gossip. Not in person, not on paper, and never, ever, EVER on the internet.
• Give credit. Take the blame.

• Go down fighting.
• Don't panic.
• Never be afraid to ask out the best looking girl or guy in the room. You’ll be surprised how often it works.
• Surround yourself with smart people.
• Vote in your local elections.
• Stand up for the little guy. He’ll remember you.

• Know your furniture. But don't buy it all at once.
• Sing karaoke. Pick a song within your range. Elvis Costello is a good default.
• No one wants to watch you practice the guitar.
• Watch a lightning storm from a safe spot. But watch them.
• Don't get all fancy about your beer or coffee.
• Offer your seat to anyone who needs it.

• See it on the big screen.
• Thank the bus driver.
• Read before bed every night. A book every week is a good goal.
• There is no need to tell anyone you are leaving the bar. It’s called an Irish Goodbye. And it comes in handy.
• Have a signature look.
• Buy a plant. Never let it die.
• Do the crossword. Ask, but don’t cheat.
• Walk it off.

• Find your favorite painting. (The Burial of Count Orgaz by El Greco)
• A handshake beats an autograph.
• Forgive yourself but remember your mistakes.
• Forgive your enemies but remember their names.
• Coach.
• If you aren't hungry enough to eat an apple, you aren't hungry.

• It’s never too late for an apology.
• Admit when you are wrong. Make it convincing.
• Don't boast aboput projects in progress. Wait, then celebrate their completion.
• Live in New York  (someday...)
• Its better to offer no excuse than a bad one.

• Jump off the high dive. Keep it simple.
• Have a signature dish. Even if its your only one.
• Don't pose by holding up your booze. Be the photo's token classy kid.
• Write a minimum of two letters a month.
• If you've made your point, stop talking.
• Get your pumpkins from a pumpkin patch.
• Follow the rules, find the loopholes.

• Order dessert.
• It's not enough to be proud of your ancestry. Live up to it.
• People-watch, but don't stare.
• Twice a year, write down your goals. Take them very seriously.
• You are what you do, not what you say.
• Be like a duck. Remain calm on the surface and paddle like hell underneath.

• Never go on trips with someone you don't love. (Ernest Hemingway)
• Know when to ignore the camera.
• When it comes to opening presents, no one likes a good guesser.
• Sympathy is a crutch. Never fake a limp.
• Bring your mitt to the ballpark. If you can touch it,k you can catch it.
• Suck it up.

• In Monopoly, buy the orange properties.
• Keep a copy of your letters. It makes it easier on your biographer.
• Search others for their virtue, and yourself for your vices. (Buckminster Fuller)
• If you absolutely have to fight, punch first and punch hard.
• All drinking challenges must be accepted (unless issued by a chanting mob).
• Eat lunch with the new kid.
• Try to lose the adverbs. Seriously.

• Bodysurf.
• Most bad days can be turned into funny stories.
• Be a great story teller. The less prefacing the better.
• Be a good passer but don't forget to shoot.
• Sleep with the window open.
• Keep a scrapbook, avoid collage. Black pages with two pictures each will do nicely.

• If you're going to reinvent yourself, be original.
• You won't always be the strongest or fastest. You can be the toughest.
• Never be bored. No exceptions.

Got it here