"Your best friend's mom is not your friend. She may actually feel you are a threat to her precious baby."

"Forgive dad. He fears that you being overweight is a threat to his virility and that you'll turn into his brother. It doesn't make any sense once you say it aloud, does it? Lots of things lose their power once you announce them to the world."

"Buy a car the minute you can: it will get you out of Utica. Don't be afraid that it'll be like your parents and their permanent state of semi-broken, used American cars."

"You are a geek. It's totally going to be okay. You will get laid, you will find a wife, you will not be short of money even though your degree will be in philosophy. You may have no words for this now because it's 1982 and the only friend that's like you lives too far away to walk."

"Grampa is going to die when you're 16. Tell him now that you want to learn how he fixes old radios in the back room. Oh, and you know how he's kind of a bigot? He's actually freaked out that you're half Sicilian. Bond with him over the electronics stuff and he'll see you're... well, you're a honky."

"Oh, and you're a honky everywhere else in the US. Dad's talking about the 1950s. This is strangely important."

"Mom and dad are smart and intellectual, but they're not well-traveled. A lot of their knowledge is literate, not experiential. They're both great teachers, but they will be wrong about stuff."

"When you hit puberty, you're going to be fascinated by women that aren't interested in you. No, they just aren't. Discussing this with them will never change this -- it's an emotional response. Learn to ask sooner, accept the 'no', and move onto the next experience. Oh, and you'll like butchy girls -- start early. They're out there, and man -- they -- yeah, just ask."

"One last thing: the world will not end during the Reagan administration. We don't get H bombed. Short version: the Soviets run out of money and the Berlin Wall falls in October 1989. Stop worrying about nukes, okay? I'm serious. I'm talking to you from 2013. All that post-apocalyptic stuff never happens."