Birthday Picked Quotes & Sayings

When the music started and the dancing commenced, they appreciated the extent of their gratitude for Jockey. Once again he picked the right day for a birthday. He had been attuned to a shared tension, a communal apprehension beyond the routine facts of their bondage. It had built up. The last few hours had dispelled much of the ill feeling. They could face the morning toil and the following mornings and the long days with their spirits replenished, however meagerly, by a fond night to look back on and the next birthday feast to look forward to. By making a circle of themselves that separated the human spirits within from the degradation without. — Colson Whitehead

Adrian: "I've made my position clear, Mr. Skerry. It's not my job to protect people from their own stupidity."
Resonator: "And I like to give hand granades to babies ... let's be friends!? — Jesse Hajicek

If I have renounced the search of truth, if I have come into the port of some pretending dogmatism, some new church, some Schelling or Cousin, I have died to all use of these new events that are born out of prolific time into multitude of life every hour. I am as bankrupt to whom brilliant opportunities offer in vain. He has just foreclosed his freedom, tied his hands, locked himself up and given the key to another to keep. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

We've tried to make a Superman movie where he does stuff and you go, 'Yeah, if I was Superman, that's what I'd do.' Even though he's an alien, he's more relatable, more human. — Zack Snyder

Happy belated birthday, Cat," he said, giving me a self-deprecating smile.
"Aren't you glad Juan picked the place and not me?
We wold have had lattes and hors d'oeuvres instead of liquor and G-strings.
Anyone get you a gin yet? — Jeaniene Frost

I first picked up a guitar when I was ten years old; my parents surprised me with it for my tenth birthday. I started taking lessons when I was thirteen, but only for a few months, and then I just kept teaching myself. — Alessia Cara

Embroidery? I sucked at embroidery. Aunt Hyacinth had tried to teach me, but we'd both given it up as a lost cause.Lucy, strangely, had picked it up really quickly and embroidered a tapestry of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow for my last birthday. — Alyxandra Harvey

You can't trust actors. — Emma Roberts

Gift cards?" Hi's complaining brought me back to the present. "Why not just hand me a note that says: I don't care enough to make an effort."
April 7. Hiram Stolowitski's sixteenth birthday.
"When exactly were we supposed to shop?" Shelton was scrolling Rex Gable emails on his laptop. "It's been a hectic week, bro."
"I bought you Assassin's Creed six weeks before your birthday," Hi shot back. "Waited in line all afternoon. The guy behind me smelled like fish tacos, but I stuck it out."
Ben clapped Hi's shoulder. "If it helps, I didn't remember to get you any gift. Tory and Shelton picked that up. I signed the card though. See? Ben. Right there."
"These are the memories that scar," Hi huffed. "I'm gonna be so complicated when I grow up. I'll probably film documentaries. — Kathy Reichs

The turning point was when I hit my 30th birthday. I thought, if really want to write, it's time to start. I picked up the book How to Write a Novel in 90 Days. The author said to just write three pages a day, and I figured, I can do this. I never got past Page 3 of that book. — James Rollins

So instead of naming me Harmony or Mary, they agreed to let me decide ... And then on my seventh birthday, my present was that I got to pick my name. Cool, huh? So I spent the whole day looking at my dad's globe for a really cool name. And so my first choice was Chad, like the country in Africa. But then my dad said that was a boy's name, so I picked Alaska. — John Green

Louie's mother, Louise, took a different tack. Louie was a copy of herself, right down to the vivid blue eyes. When pushed, she shoved; sold a bad cut of meat, she'd march down to the butcher, frying pan in hand. Loving mischief, she spread icing over a cardboard box and presented it as a birthday cake to a neighbor, who promptly got the knife stuck. When Pete told her he'd drink his castor oil if she gave him an empty candy box. "You only asked for the box, honey," she said with a smile. "That's all I got." And she understood Louie's restiveness. One Halloween, she dressed as a boy and raced around town trick-or-treating with Louie and Pete. A gang of kids, thinking she was one of the local toughs, tackled her and tried to steal her pants. Little Louise Zamperini, mother of four, was deep in the melee when the cops picked her up for brawling. — Laura Hillenbrand

Muslim Girlhood

I never found myself in a pink aisle.
There was no box for me
with glossy cellophane like heat
and a neat packet of instructions in six languages.

Evenings, I watched TV like a religion I moderately believed.
I watched to see how the others lived, not knowing I was the other - no laugh track in my living room, no tidy and punctual resolution waiting.

I took tests in which Jane & William had so many apples.

I fasted through birthday parties
and Christmas parties
and ate leftover tajine at plastic lunch tables,
picked at pepperoni from slices like blemishes and tried not to complain.

I prayed at the wrong times in the wrong tongue.
I hungered for Jell-O & Starburts & margarine;
could read mono- and diglycerides by five,
knew what gelatin meant, and
where it came from. — Leila Chatti

I considered the prevention of war as the test of our security policy; in addition to being able to rapidly and forcefully end any war forced upon us. — Yitzhak Rabin

You know what, Gwen?" he managed, once he'd caught his breath.
-"What?"
"I'm glad you picked me as your birthday present." -Ethan Banks — Heidi Betts

I want to thank you, first, Person Who Bought This Book. Because of you, I have a job I love. Because of you, the people in my head get to live outside of it. When I meet you, you talk about my characters as if they are old friends (or enemies) we have in common; I cannot explain how miraculous this feels. If you are one of those people who have put my books into the hands of other readers - either professionally as a god-called lunatic who loves books so much you hand-sell them or as a reader who picked one for book club or gave it to your best friend for a birthday - well. This book exists because of you. I hope you are happy about this. I am - happy and grateful and a little bit in love with you. — Joshilyn Jackson

Was it tacky to get a cake during a hostage crisis? What was the protocol? She pictured chocolate frosting with white lettering: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HOPE YOUR DAUGHTER ISN'T DEAD. But this year was her fiftieth, a year with a zero. Veronica had to do something. So on her way to the condo she'd swung by a bakery and picked up a small German chocolate cake. It was her mom's favorite - or at least it had been, a decade ago. — Rob Thomas

Sergeant Bellow marched us to the quartermaster's. It was there we were stripped of all vestiges of personality. It is the quartermasters who make soldiers, sailors and marines. In their presence, one strips down. With each divestment, a trait is lost; the discard of a garment marks the quiet death of an idiosyncrasy. I take off my socks; gone is a propensity for stripes, or clocks, or checks, or even solids; ended is a tendency to combine purple socks with brown tie. My socks henceforth will be tan. They will neither be soiled, nor rolled, nor gaudy, nor restrained, nor holey. They will be tan. The only other thing they may be is clean. — Robert Leckie

People change. It can happen quickly or it can happen slowly, but it will happen. Your job is to see it, recognize it. You gotta talk to each other. You might love blueberry pie and think it's the best fuckin' food on earth. Then one day, you decide you want to try lemon meringue. But your husband, he still thinks you like blueberry, so he keeps giving you blueberry every year for your birthday thinking he's doing the right thing. Your job is to tell him you want to try something different, and his job is to ask if you still like it. It goes both ways. She stopped liking blueberry pie a long time ago, Inky. Maybe if I'd asked, maybe if I hadn't worked long hours, I'd have noticed. So that's my advice. — J.B. Hartnett

But I've kept first of March as my birthday as I like to tease Zed about dating an older woman. And my parents wouldn't understand if I told them about the soulfinder bond and tried to change it."
"They don't know?"
"Well, I think they've picked up that there's something special between Zed and me but I'm not sure how I'd even start to explain to non-savants. I was exactly overjoyed when Zed filled me in about it all the first time."
"What did you do?"
"Thumped him with a shopping bag and told him he was a jerk."
"Ouch. — Joss Stirling

I'm not romantic at all, ha ha, I need teaching. The closest I ever came was taking a girl out on her birthday and getting her picked up and dropped off at a hotel. The room was all done up, like with flowers and stuff. But that was a struggle for me! — Tinchy Stryder