I did not attend my college graduation. Instead, I spent the morning working at Newsweek’s Washington bureau (where I toiled during the six years it took me to get through college – and where I got the only education I remember). Then, since my father happened to be in town, we had a very festive lunch at the late Le Pavillon (Yannick Cam’s former four-star place), where I remember having lobster in some amazing sauce of reduced pan juices and cream and maybe some truffles, washed down with a Puligny Montrachet, which I’m sure he (laughingly) complained about. (He loves to make my mother and I cringe by telling wine stewards things like, “Well, I’d like a Meursault but I don’t want to pay for it, so what you got?”)

Who would I like to hear now? Warren Buffett, because he has one of the most active, engaged minds I’ve ever encountered. Also, I love the fact that he was so awkward and shy in his youth (and thus totally incapable of giving any kind of speech) that he took a Dale Carnegie course to help him get past it. The degree is one of the few pieces of wall art in his typically modest office!

Who else? Well, I just spent an extraordinary two days in Houston with President George H.W. and Barbara Bush (it was the twentieth-anniversary gala of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy and I was one of the very fortunate featured authors) and I now know why fellow featured author Chris Buckley referred to them as his “other Mom and Pop” in a recent Daily Beast post. You could learn a lot about decency and grace and humor – and, most of all, that underused word (and concept) honor – just by being around them. Much has been made of the former president’s prodigious letter-writing skills, but I was not prepared for the power and the beauty of the letter he wrote to his wife after the loss of their daughter Robin to leukemia. On a visit to his presidential library, I stood next to their daughter Doro as we listened to Barbara read it as part of an audio exhibit, and tears just poured down both of our faces.

Finally, anyone would benefit by hearing from my friend, the novelist Jim Harrison, and listening to his extraordinarily nimble and passionate mind at work (and watching it too – you can actually visualize the loop-de-loops of his acute intelligence). He could teach a lot to any generation about curiosity and hunger and the art (and great value) of noticing things. (The good news is you don’t have to wait for him to speak – just go pick up his last two novels, Returning to Earth and The English Major.)

P.S. Nobody asked me, but if I were to give a speech, I’d start off with what I try to remind myself every morning: Be grateful, damn it. Be really, really grateful for every day you are given, and get on with things as joyously as possible. This is so much easier said than done, I know – especially on the days when it is far more appealing to simply pull the covers back over your head – but otherwise, what a waste. I also think about the time, years ago, when I interviewed Richard Gere and he was going on and on about the Dalai Lama. I had to suppress a laugh when he said, “It’s a tough gig keeping your heart open, man.” But he was right – it is a tough gig. You gotta stay on top of it.