The teacher in our adult-education creative-writing class told us to write “I love you” in 25 words or less, without using the words “I love you.” She gave us 15 minutes. A woman in the class spent about ten minutes looking at the ceiling and wriggling in her seat. The last five minutes she wrote frantically, and later read us the results:

• “Why, I’ve seen lots worse hairdos than that, honey.”
• “These cookies are hardly burned at all.”
• “Cuddle up—I’ll get your feet warm.”

Charlotte Mortimer, in Feb., 1990, Reader’s Digest