When you have the paparazzi hiding in the bushes outside your home, the only thing you can control is how you respond publicly.

Christians get trees. Jews get bushes. To stay in good standing with the Tribe, you've got to refer to a Christmas tree as a Hanukkah bush.

"I. Those of us born by water are never afraid enough of drowning. Bruises used to trophy my knees from my death-defying tree climb jumps. Growing up, my backyard was a forest of blackberry bushes. I learned early nothing sweet will come to you unthorned.

Think of something useless, and that's probably what I'll be doing. Listen, Virginia, we need to love the useless. We need to raise pigeons without a thought of eating them, plant rose bushes without expecting to pick roses, write without aiming at publication. We need to do things without expecting benefits in return. The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, but it's in the curving paths that the best things are found. . . . We must love the useless, because there is beauty in uselessness.

When you have the paparazzi hiding in the bushes outside your home the only thing you can control is how you respond publicly.