“As it is, I guess I find "Jack and Diane" a little disgusting.As a child of immigrant professionals, I can't help but notice the wasteful frivolity of it all. Why are these kids not at home doing their homework? Why aren't they setting the table for dinner or helping out around the house? Who allows their kids to hang out in parking lots? Isn't that loitering?I wish there was a song called "Nguyen & Ari," a little ditty about a hardworking Vietnamese girl who helps her parents with the franchised Holiday Inn they run, and does homework in the lobby, and Ari, a hardworking Jewish boy who does volunteer work at his grandmother's old-age home, and they meet after school at Princeton Review. They help each other study for the SATs and different AP courses, and then, after months of studying, and mountains of flashcards, they kiss chastely upon hearing the news that they both got into their top college choices. This is a song teens need to inadvertently memorize. Now that's a song I'd request at Johnny Rockets!”

“I wish there was a song called “Nguyen and Ari,” a little ditty about a hardworking Vietnamese girl who helps her parents withthe franchised Holiday Inn they run, and does homework in thelobby, and Ari, a hardworking Jewish boy who does volunteerwork at his grandmother’s old-age home, and they meet afterschool at Princeton Review. They help each other study for theSATs and different AP courses, and then, after months of study-ing, and mountains of flashcards, they kiss chastely upon hear-ing the news that they both got into their top college choices.This is a song teens need to inadvertently memorize. Now that’sa song I’d request at Johnny Rockets!”

“As it is, I guess I find “Jack & Diane” a little disgusting.As a child of immigrant professionals, I can’t help but notice the wasteful frivolity of it all. Why are these kids not home doing their homework? Why aren’t they setting the table for dinner or helping out around the house? Who allows their kids to hang out in parking lots? Isn’t that loitering?”

“A miracle is a single mom who works two jobs to care for her kids and still helps them with their homework at night. A miracle is a child donating all the money in their piggy bank to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. That's where you'll find the hand and face of God.”

“But, y'know, today I got a lot of help myself. There're tons of things we can't do ourselves, right? And that's why we're helped out. If someone, or something, can lend you a helping hand, great, I say! After all, we're all in this together!”

“A kid might help another kid who fell into a river, and a kid might help another kid search for a lost baseball, but there isn't a kid I've met who will help another kid out of a humiliating situation. We just aren't built that way.”