Expensive sheets. Better than furniture, baby. Porthault turned my life around. That high thread count will keep your bed crowded.

On a budget? Forget those $7 bottles of Pellegrino and Evian in restaurants and drink from our excellent New York City supply. It’s in your coffee and soup anyway.

Answer the phone “Studio.” Everyone will think you’re an artist.

Don’t give too many people your cell phone number. Get a beeper and screen.

If you order white wine in a restaurant and it’s not cold enough, dump the contents of a salt shaker into the ice bucket and mix well.

Read the tabloids before you read the Times. It’s a more natural transition from the dream state to full wakefulness.

Don’t be afraid to ask the dentist for painkillers. There is no nobility in suffering and there are ten thousand dentists in the naked city.

Don’t buy stocks, buy good stuff. You can’t sit on, drive, wear or flaunt stocks and bonds. Some Japanese bank goes boom and the market crashes. But a ‘59 Cadillac Eldorado Seville will never go down in value and you can drive it to the bank looking good.

Black tie means you have to wear a tie. Duh.

If you want a good dog, go to the pound. Mutts are the true aristocrats of the canine gene pool, representing the nobility of natural selection.

Artists are the real saints. You can never know enough about Duke Ellington.

Don’t lie. Say what you think and smile. Be ruthless and affectionate. Let them think you’re being ironic. Speak the truth and beam.

When you eat a big meat sandwich, eat a pickle. It’s the antidote.

Make your bed when you get up. It gives you more of a will to live.

Have nice stationary and write thank you notes at every opportunity. Thanks for the gift, for the meal, for the appointment, for the shag, etc… Thank you for letting me be myself again. Flattery may get you somewhere. Gratitude will get you everywhere.

Consume ethically. When it comes to athletic footwear, don’t believe the hype. Kathie Lee Gifford took the rap for Nike. Philosophers don’t run sweatshops. Buy American. Buy New Balance and Converse.

Take your son to work on “take your daughter to work day.”

Don’t just read your own horoscope in the paper, read all twelve, that way you’ll know who to watch out for.