I don’t lose sleep when the college team I pull for doesn’t win.

When people ask how the diet’s going, they want a short answer.

It takes me minutes to write something good, then hours to revise it into something special.

When commentators refer to an athlete as a “gutsy young competitor,” you can be sure that person just lost an important match.

When things aren’t going well, it helps to go back and read the instructions.

You can learn a lot about a person from the way he or she plays golf.

I know the moment I hear bad news that sadness will come and I will get over it.

I can only eat asparagus so many days in a row.

Most people who say “what’s in a name?” don’t know where the quote originated and have never pondered the relative importance of names.

The word “callipygian” (in the 1957 Limeliters song “Vikki Dougan”) means “having shapely buttocks.”

For some people, “leisure time” is nothing more than a smokescreen.

“There’s nothing wrong with looking at the past … as long as you don’t stare” (David Roth).

Posturing an issue as “on the one hand, this, and on the other hand, that” has a limiting effect on the number of solutions to be considered.

You’re never too old to learn something new in a crossword puzzle.

I never tire of watching “Miracle on 34th Street.”

“People should never feed moralistic animals” (Annie Dillard).

I can get wonderfully lost in the poetry of Robert Frost.

“The reason life works … is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day” (Anne Lamott).

It’s darn near impossible to teach without learning.

Everything that goes around does not necessarily come around -- the frequency with which one hears to the contrary notwithstanding.

“A fool and his money …” raises the question “How’d they get together in the first place?”

“The jury is in and you are the verdict” (Anne Lamott).

It never hurts to ask, “Can it be done?” and “Can I do it?” (apologies to Annie Dillard).

Negotiation will almost never work unless the parties have at least a minimal level of respect for each other. (Thank you, Christopher Moore.)

To think outside the box does not mean to ignore the box altogether.

My dog recognizes the sound of my car and my wife’s car from about a block away.

It’s better to let the cake cool before applying the frosting.

Vic Fleming is a district court judge in Little Rock, Ark., where he also teaches at the William H. Bowen School of Law. Contact him at [email protected].