Nora Ephron: God’s Side-Kick

Nora Ephron: God’s Side-Kick June 27, 2012

Nora Ephron has died, and with her at his right hand, God will surely get some much-deserved comic relief.

Ephron was  endearingly funny. If you are a female over 40 and have not yet read Ephron’s book I feel bad about my neck you need to rush out today and get a copy. Nora’s musings on aging will remind you what it is like to laugh out loud with a girlfriend on a sleepover. Men will find it funny, too, but never having faced menopause, much of the humor will be lost to you.

Ephron wrote what is hands down my favorite movie of all time — You’ve Got Mail. There are very few movies that I will commit to watching over again. You’ve Got Mail is the one I’ve re-watched the most, even more than Gone with the Wind. The scene of Ryan closing down the book shop has been lived out for so many of my friends over the years that it seems almost prophetic in retrospect.

 

I thought it fitting to let Nora speak for herself, because, as they say, words are eternal.

 

Twenty-Five Things People have a shocking capacity to be surprised by over and over again

by Nora Ephron


1. Journalists sometimes make things up.
2. Journalists sometimes get things wrong.
3. Almost all books that are published as memoirs are initially written as novels, and then the agent/editor says, this might work better as a memoir.
4. Beautiful young women sometimes marry ugly, old rich men.
5. In business, there is no such thing as synergy in the good sense of the term.
6. Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one.
7. Nothing written in today’s sports pages makes sense to anyone who didn’t read yesterday’s sports pages.
8. There is no explaining the stock market but people try.
9. The Democrats are deeply disappointing.
10. Movies have no political effect whatsoever.
11. High-protein diets work.
12. A lot of people take the Bible literally.
13. Pornography is the opiate of the masses.
14. You can never know the truth of anyone’s marriage, including your own.
15. People actually sign pre-nuptial agreements.
16. Mary Matalin and James Carville are married.
17. Muslims hate us.
18. Everybody lies.
19. The reason why it’s important for a Democrat to be President is the Supreme Court.
20. Howard Stern is apparently very nice in person.
21. In Manhattan a small one-bedroom apartment that needs work costs $1 million.
22. People look like their dogs.
23. Cary Grant was Jewish.
24. Cary Grant wasn’t Jewish.
25. Larry King has never read a book.

 

 


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