Postcards

How the power players do it - by Fortune senior editor at large Patricia Sellers

Nora Ephron's Best Advice

July 10, 2009: 1:31 PM ET

If you read only the on-line version of Fortune's "Best Advice I Ever Got"--our recent cover package that's on newsstands until Monday--you missed Nora Ephron. You know her quirky, intelligent wit from her best-selling books and movies like When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle. Here's "My Two Cents"--10 Best Advice tips, actually--from the director, screenwriter and novelist whom I've long admired and come to know:

Never put tomatoes in the refrigerator.

Location, location, location.

Life is too short.

Never run for a bus.

Don't learn how to iron or someone will make you do it.

Don't eat anything that's not worth eating.

You know as much about investing your money as they do.

Yelling at your children is no more effective than speaking softly.

Marry a man who was unhappily married to his first wife for 17 years.

Get a dog.

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About This Author
Pattie Sellers
Patricia Sellers
Senior Editor at Large, Fortune
Executive Director of MPW/Live Content, Time Inc.

Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), and "Remodeling Martha" (Martha Stewart). She has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" package every year since its launch in 1998. Pattie is Executive Director of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business and beyond. She oversees MPW programs that enable women leaders to extend their influence and empower the next generation—such as Fortune MPW Entrepreneurs and the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Beyond her Fortune duties, she is also developing Live Content across Time Inc. Pattie grew up in Allentown, PA, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984. Her blog, Postcards, is about how power players lead, manage others, and navigate their careers.

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