Quotes & Sayings About One's Birthday

I'm not really interested in the audience's enjoyment,' Cave mumbles once he has changed into clean pants. 'It doesn't bother me one way or another. I just don't give a shit. People feel more and more disappointed with each concert because less and less happens. It's really easy to suck an audience in. Like, I can wiggle my bum and back-flip on my head and they love it. I could make an audience love me until the end of my days. There's just no point in it any more. I wish they'd just ... die. — Antonella Gambotto-Burke

At the end of the day, you should try to remember that it's not about the number of followers you have or the numbers of likes, comments, and shares your posts are getting.
It's the number of people who will be present in the hospital room when you fall terribly sick.
It's the number of people who will remember your birthday like they remember their first name.
It's the number of people who will invite you to celebrate Christmas or new year's eve.
It's the number of people who will actually show up to look at your newborn child or to bless your newly bought house.
It's the number of people who will actually cross an ocean to see your face.
It's the number of people who will wipe your tears when one of your parents passes away.
It's the number of people who will make a slightly larger than a thumb effort to be there for you. — Malak El Halabi

Have a good time"
Yesterday it was my birthday.
I hung one more year on the line.
I should be depressed.
My life's a mess.
But I'm having a good time.
I've been loving and loving and loving.
I'm exhausted from loving so well
I should go to bed.
But a voice in my head says,
"Ah, what the hell — Paul Simon

Greta is great, but he's a little ... extremely ... moody. Take my birthday last year. At the stroke of midnight, he appeared at my door.
"I wrote this poem for you," he said, shoving a piece of crumpled paper into my hands.
'The world must burn.
Lava exploding into faces.
Their skeletons are screaming now.
No survivors.
- From Greta'
"Oh ... uh ... wow ... " I began.
"Don't bother thanking me," he said. "I just wanted to comfort you for being one year closer to the grave. Of course, I failed miserably, because comfort doesn't exist in this universe. — Bratniss Everclean

We just sent some footage to ABC Primetime, who is doing a segment that alleges to tell our side of the story, and in that, a week before she became ill, there's Eliza Jane at her friend's birthday party, blowing, over and over again, a party horn - the one with the long, curly thing that sticks out when you blow it and retracts when you breathe in - over and over and over again ... this child that, a few weeks later, would be said to have died of fatal pneumonia. — Christine Maggiore

Actually, I came because I have a last-minute invitation. My friend Erika Gill is having a big party tomorrow night, one of those all-out birthday bashes that girls like. Want to go?"
"No. Sorry."
"Since it's a catered thing, at a restaurant, I'll pick you up at- what did you say?"
"I'm sorry. I can't do it."
"You're busy?"
"I just can't do it," I said. — Elizabeth Chandler

Here is one fact 1 minute to finish the class, 1 day to die, one day behind that fact, one day in that fact, one day before my birthday will come, one day before I will finish... (So far one day is popular... that's a fact called itself zipf law... )...
Call it how you want, but for my it's zipfy law! — Deyth Banger

Gunner shook his head; he wasn't in the mood. He stared down at his bottle as he spoke. "Yeah, and what if I do go after it and what if I find no one, and I'm alone for the next sixty years? What then? Huh? Friends and family will get married. I'll be stuck buying gifts. Years pass: children, birthday parties. At dinner parties, I'll be odd man out, forcing people to arrange five chairs around a table instead of four or six. Or, okay, let's say maybe twenty years down the line I meet someone nice and I've already given up on ever finding true love. Let's say the girl is a few pounds overweight, has fizzy hair and an annoying laugh, but at this point, I'm also a few pounds overweight and my hair is thinning and my laughter is annoying. Maybe then the two of us get married, and both our groups of friends will say, 'See I told you that you'd find true love. It just took a while.' And we'll smile, but we'll both know it's a lie-- — Michael Anthony

Honey, have you seen my measuring tape?"
"I think it's in that drawer in the kitchen with the scissors, matches, bobby pins, Scotch tape, nail clippers, barbecue tongs, garlic press, extra buttons, old birthday cards, soy sauce packets thick rubber bands, stack of Christmas napkins, stained take-out menus, old cell-phone chargers, instruction booklet for the VCR, some assorted nickels, an incomplete deck of cards, extra chain links for a watch, a half-finished pack of cough drops, a Scrabble piece I found while vacuuming, dead batteries we aren't fully sure are dead yet, a couple screws in a tiny plastic bag left over from the bookshelf, that lock with the forgotten combination, a square of carefully folded aluminum foil, and expired pack of gum, a key to our old house, a toaster warranty card, phone numbers for unknown people, used birthday candles, novelty bottle openers, a barbecue lighter, and that one tiny little spoon."
"Thanks, honey."
AWESOME! — Neil Pasricha

You know, we'd just had a birthday, he was ... you know, he still had a future out of him, and all I can is he was just one of the most beautiful people in the world ... a very gifted man, and it's a loss to the world, not just for us. — Robin Gibb

It's my birthday today. I'm not 17 anymore. The 17 Janis Ian sang about where one learns the truth. But what she failed to mention is that you keep on learning truths after 17 and I want to keep on learning truths till the day I die. — Melina Marchetta

I wanted to tell you that it's my birthday on Thursday and I would have wanted you to give me the gift of your guts on the floor, one last time,
to see if you still had it in you. — Lucas Regazzi

If there's one thing I really want for my birthday, that is for the mining company not to mine my daddy's reserve. — Bindi Irwin

What could be more exciting than an October day? It's your birthday, Fourth of July and Christmas all rolled into one. — Peggy Toney Horton

I love my mom so much. I don't care if that's corny to say. I think on my next birthday, I'm going to buy her a present. I think that should be a tradition. The kid gets gifts from everybody, and he buys one present for his mom since she was there, too. It think that would be nice. — Stephen Chbosky

One thing that was really dope for me was that my dad had a '78 Corvette, '78 or '76 Corvette all my life. It always needed to be fixed up. I remember it's just been sitting in the driveway for years, and I got it fixed from top to bottom for his birthday. — Sevyn Streeter

I'll be one year younger having missed my birthday and my mirror confirms it; so what's wrong with that. — Francis Norris, 1st Earl Of Berkshire

Coup de foudre; perhaps it was real. One went from believing, when twenty, that it was the one kind of love that was real, to believing, once closer to forty, that it was not only fragile but false
the inferior, infantile, doomed love of twenty-year-olds. Somewhere between, the norms of one culture of love were discarded, and those of the other assumed. When did it happen, at midnight of one's thirty-first birthday? On the variable day that, while browsing a grocery-store aisle with a man, the repeating refrain of the rest of one's life for the first time resounds in one's ear? — Susan Choi

A BIRTHDAY
Something continues and I don't know what to call it
though the language is full of suggestions
in the way of language
but they are all anonymous
and it's almost your birthday music next to my bones
these nights we hear the horses running in the rain
it stops and the moon comes out and we are still here
the leaks in the roof go on dripping after the rain has passed
smell of ginger flowers slips through the dark house
down near the sea the slow heart of the beacon flashes
the long way to you is still tied to me but it brought me to you
I keep wanting to give you what is already yours
it is the morning of the mornings together
breath of summer oh my found one
the sleep in the same current and each waking to you
when I open my eyes you are what I wanted to see. — W.S. Merwin

The birthday celebrations in Sergiyev Posad emphasized St. Sergius's role in shaping a unified Russia, a narrative that dovetails with the nationalism and conservative morals that Mr. Putin espouses. Some historians and church figures are crying foul, however, over what they say are the Kremlin's efforts to reshape the saint's legacy to enhance political goals, fostering what one critic called an official cult. — Anonymous

One survey conducted in 2010 estimated that the average parent spends $6,800 on baby items before a child's first birthday.7.9 — Charles Duhigg

And for the city's birthday, we will host events in every neighborhood of the city, inviting all of our residents to share in the celebration of Boston's great epic - the story of neighbors who support one another where it matters most. — Thomas Menino

The first memory I have in the world is of death and tears. That is how I would mark the beginning of my life: the way people mark the end of one. My family had gathered at Papa Joe's house because Mam' Grace was slipping away, only I didn't register it that way. For some reason I thought that it was her birthday. — Charles M. Blow

Covered in slivered almonds and soaked in booze, Italian rum cake is everything kids hate about everything. No one even ate it. It just got thrown away. Cake Time is supposed to be the climax of a birthday, but instead it was a crushing disappointment for all. I imagine it's like being at a bachelor party only to find that the stripper has overdosed in the bathroom. — Tina Fey

Thanks for staying with me last night," I said, stroking Toto's soft fur. "You didn't have to sleep on the bathroom floor."
"Last night was one of the best nights of my life."
I turned to see his expression. When I saw that he was serious, I shot him a dubious look. "Sleeping in between the toilet and the tub on a cold, hard tile floor with a vomiting idiot was one of your best nights? That's sad, Trav."
"No, sitting up with you when you're sick, and you falling asleep in my lap was one of my best nights. It wasn't comfortable, I didn't sleep worth a shit, but I brought in your nineteenth birthday with you, and you're actually pretty sweet when you're drunk."
"I'm sure between the heaving and purging I was very charming."
He pulled me close, patting Toto who was snuggled up to my neck. "You're the only woman I know that still looks incredible with your head in the toilet. That's saying something. — Jamie McGuire

If only, I thought, I could talk to Eugene just one more time. This was before I came to understand that you cannot make someone fall in love with you But here's what you can do. By arguing and pleading and screaming and crying and throwing plates and phoning a lot and bringing hot food and sending flowers and buying gifts and doing unsolicited favors and remembering a birthday and being nice and declaring your abiding love and trying hard or sometimes merely by being present, you can make someone who was hitherto lukewarm really detest you. — Patricia Marx

Just sharing one little smile can change someone's whole world. — Heather Wolf

Sometimes you wake up, and there's a little voice inside your head that tells you that today is a special day. For a lot of kids, it sometimes happens on their birthday, and always on Christmas morning.
I remember exactly one of those Christmases, when I was little and my dad was still alive. I felt it again, eight or nine years later, the morning that Justin Demourn came to pick me up from the orphanage. I felt it one more time the morning Justin brought Elaine home from whatever orphanage she had been in.
And now, the little voice was telling me to wake up. That it was a special day.
My little voice is some kind of psycho. — Jim Butcher

In regard to dogs, my most memorable thoughts concern my daughter's dog and her fondness for them. In fact, one day while working at the office, she hosted a birthday party for one of her Newfoundlands and the party was attended by dogs of other coworkers. It was a hectic few hours, but I believe the guests enjoyed themselves. — Tom Monaghan

With the abundance of toys available, a child's room (or the whole house) can be overtaken by Kid Stuff with just one Christmas or birthday and a small group of well-meaning relatives. — Dana White

My mother died of colon cancer one week after my eleventh birthday, and that fact has shaped my life. All that I have become and much that I have not become, I trace directly or indirectly to her death ... In my professional and personal life, I have lived with the awareness of death's imminence for more than half a century, and labored in its constant presence for all but the first decade of that time. — Sherwin B. Nuland

Cheerios
One bright morning in a restaurant in Chicago
as I waited for my eggs and toast,
I opened the Tribune only to discover
that I was the same age as Cheerios.
Indeed, I was a few months older than Cheerios
for today, the newspaper announced,
was the seventieth birthday of Cheerios
whereas mine had occurred earlier in the year.
Already I could hear them whispering
behind my stooped and threadbare back,
Why that dude's older than Cheerios
the way they used to say
Why that's as old as the hills,
only the hills are much older than Cheerios
or any American breakfast cereal,
and more noble and enduring are the hills,
I surmised as a bar of sunlight illuminated my orange juice. — Billy Collins

One of the best moments is right here (during History Tour in Copenhagen, on his birthday in 1997). Right here. It's right in the middle of the show and it's my birthday and I'm thousands of miles away from my family. When they surprised me with the full marching band and then they brought out this huge, beautiful birthday cake.. I realized that I've got family all over the world. Everywhere I go, because my fans really show me the love and I love them just as much. — Michael Jackson

Every year before a big competition, I get hurt doing stuff I should not be doing. One year it was my little brother's 12th birthday. We all played hide-and-seek late at night. I climbed up a 30-foot tree, thinking he'd never catch me. I tripped and fell on one of the branches and I hit my head. — Ryan Lochte

Manchee comes outta the bushes and sits down next to me cuz I've stopped right there in the middle of a trail. He looks around to see what I might be seeing and then he says, "Good poo, Todd."
"I'm sure it was, Manchee."
I'd better not get another ruddy dog when my birthday comes. What I want this year is a hunting knife like the one Ben carries on the back of his belt. Now that's a present for a man.
"Poo," Manchee's says quietly. — Patrick Ness

Once upon a time there was a mother who, in order to become a mother, had agreed to change her name; who set herself the task of falling in love with her husband bit-by-bit, but who could n ever manage to love one part, the part, curiously enough, which made possible her motherhood; whose feet were hobbled by verrucas and whose shoulders were stooped beneath the accumulating guilts of the world; whose husband's unlovable organ failed to recover from the effects of a freeze; and who, like her husband, finally succumbed to the mysteries of telephones, spending long minutes listening to the words of wrong-number callers ... shortly after my tenth birthday (when I had recovered from the fever which has recently returned to plague me after an interval of nearly twenty-one years), Amina Sinai resumed her recent practice of leaving suddenly, and always immediately after a wrong number, on urgent shopping trips. — Salman Rushdie

Isn't it so weird how the number of dead people is increasing even though the earth stays the same size, so that one day there isn't going to be room to bury anyone anymore? For my ninth birthday last year, Grandma gave me a subscription to National Geographic, which she calls "the National Geographic." She also gave me a white blazer, because I only wear white clothes, and it's too big to wear so it will last me a long time. She also gave me Grandpa's camera, which I loved for two reasons. I asked why he didn't take it with him when he left her. She said, "Maybe he wanted you to have it."
I said, "But I was negative-thirty years old." She said, "Still." Anyway, the fascinating thing was that I read in National Geographic that there are more people alive now than have died in all of human history. In other words, if everyone wanted to play Hamlet at once, they couldn't, because there aren't enough skulls! — Jonathan Safran Foer

I read one psychologist's theory that said, "Never strike a child in your anger." When could I strike him? When he is kissing me on my birthday? When he's recuperating from measles? Do I slap the Bible out of his hand on Sunday? — Erma Bombeck

The parlor was inhabited by a monstrous hog's head (afflicted with droop-jaw & lazy-eye), killed by the twins on their sixteenth birthday, & a somnambulant Grandfather clock (at odds with my own pocket watch by a margin of hours. Indeed, one valued import from New Zealand is the accurate time). — David Mitchell

Washington's birthday is worthy of celebration - he is one of the greatest men in history. But Washington himself would likely have seen celebration of the office of the presidency itself as monarchic in nature. — Ben Shapiro

I would stay at my grandma's house on my birthday every year and I remember she had a bookshelf of murder mystery books along with really frightening books, like one on Jack the Ripper. She also had a poster of a shark in the closet which also terrified me at the time. — Christopher Bollen

Thousands of stars in the night sky,
And shells on the shore together,
Hundreds of birds that go singing by,
Especially in sunny weather.
Millions of dewdrops to greet the dawn,
Thousands of leaves in the fall,
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn,
But only one father, that's all.
Happy Birthday
To the One and Only — John Walter Bratton

I was wondering," he began, murmuring the words into my cheek as I rolled over. "Seeing as it's my birthday, do you think we could get away with spending the entire day in bed?"
I smiled and forced my sleepy eyes open. "And who will run the country?"
"No one. Let it fall to pieces. So long as I have my America in my arms. — Kiera Cass

Mick required far less hand-holding than Michael. Signing the Stones, though, had required a full frontal assault worthy of General Patton, one of my heroes. The final battle exploded at the Ritz Hotel in Paris back in '83. After months of relentless pursuit, I had them. All they had to do was sign when suddenly at 3 A.M. Mick goes mental and calls me a "stupid motherfuckin' record executive." I lose it. I reach for his throat. I have a vision of punching out all ninety-eight pounds of him. I stop myself, envisioning tomorrow's headline - "Yetnikoff Kills Jagger." Jagger relents, signs and from then on it's wine and roses. It was Mick - wily and witty Mick - who later that year plotted with my girlfriend, the one called Boom Boom, to throw me a surprise fiftieth birthday bash where Henny Youngman emceed and Jon Peters, Barbra — Walter Yetnikoff

Oh, that,' said Ginny, giggling. 'Well-Percy's got a girlfriend.'
Fred dropped a stack of books on George's head.
'What?'
'It's that Ravenclaw prefect, Penelope Clearwater,' said Ginny. 'That's who he was writing to all last summer. He's been meeting her all over the school in secret. I walked in on them kissing in an empty classroom one day. He was so upset when she was-you know-attacked. You won't tease him, will you?' she added anxiously.
'Wouldn't dream of it,' said Fred, who was looking like his birthday had come early. — J.K. Rowling

Just one act of kindness can change someone's whole world. — Heather Wolf

A toast to the birthday boy!' Myrna shouted. 'Welcome to the adult world, hon. It's lonely, it's miserable, and God help you. But there are bright spots, and nights like tonight are one of them. — Natalie Standiford

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

A jewelry box? Ballerinas? She'd been such an active girl that any jewelry she'd been given would have been lost or broken right away. It was Faye Marie who'd loved-
"My sister," she gasped, then louder. "My sister!" She clasped her hands together in a pleading gesture. "My lord, I beg pardon of you, but you're mistaken. I believe you gifted that treasure box to my older sister, Faye Marie. She's the one who loved ballerinas. I was obsessed with-"
"Pegasus." The old justice's eyes melted from cold to kindness. "It was a trick question. I'd forgotten your birthday was so close to mine, and shared my spice cake out of pure guilt." His lined face wrinkled as he smiled with a fond memory. "You were a kind little soul, unspoiled for a girl raised in such wealth. You forgave me instantly and informed me that spice cake was, indeed, your favorite present ever received. — Kerrigan Byrne

Mandy, I hardly think this was appropriate, not after ... you know ... after the funeral we haven't had the money for any of your weird little games and I was hoping you'd be more mature now that Jud's gone," her father had disappointedly added. "How much'd that cake cost you?"
"It's paid for," Mandy had argued, but her voice had sounded tiny in the harbour wind. "I used the cash from my summer job at Frenchy's last year and I ... it was my birthday, dad!"
"You can't even be normal about this one thing, can you?" her father had complained.
Mandy hadn't cried, she'd only stared back knowingly, her voice shaky. " ... I'm normal. — Rebecca McNutt

The grandmothers decided on William's eighth birthday that the time had come for the boy to learn the value of money. With this in mind, they allocated him one dollar a week as pocket money, but insisted that he keep an inventory accounting for every cent he spent. Grandmother Kane presented him with a green leather-bound ledger, at a cost of 95 cents, which she deducted from his first week's allowance. From then on the grandmothers divided the dollar up every Saturday morning. William could invest 50 cents, spend 20 cents, give 10 cents to charity and keep 20 cents in reserve. At the end of each quarter they would inspect the ledger and his written report on any unusual transactions. — Jeffrey Archer

I'm sorry Mr Lichtenstein, but your January birthday means only one thing and that's you're probably conceived
on April Fools Day. — Olivia Lichtenstein

Hannah ran past, beaming. I remember that feeling
when you're a kid and it's your birthday and for one day everyone makes you feel like the most special person in the world. — Jojo Moyes

Yeah, I know," he agreed. "It was a surprise," he admitted. "I mean, who the hell would have expected a ninety-seven-year-old man to just up and die?" Bill's dad had indeed been only three years from his one-hundredth birthday when he shocked everyone by waking up dead one morning. — Hope Jahren

Wishing, like sipping a glass of punch, or pulling aside a bearskin rug in order to access a hidden trapdoor in the floor, is merely a quiet way to spend one's time before the candles are extinguished on one's birthday cake. — Lemony Snicket

On the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi's 70th birthday. Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth. — Albert Einstein

One, one, two, zero," I told him through the chattering of my teeth. "It's my birthday. — Patricia Briggs

It's odd the things that people remember. Parents will arrange a birthday party, certain it will stick in your mind forever. You'll have a nice time, then two years later you'll be like, 'There was a pony there? Really? And a clown with one leg?' — David Sedaris

Hey, it's your birthday ?. Sit back, relax and enjoy it ? you've earned it! Have a Great One. — Margaret Jones

My family suffered. My hair turned up in every corner, every drawer, every meal. Even in the rice puddings Tessie made, covering each little bowl with wax paper before putting it away in the fridge
even into these prophylactically secure desserts my hair found its way! Jet black hairs wound themselves around bars of soap. They lay pressed like flower stems between the pages of books. They turned up in eyeglass cases, birthday cards, once
I swear
inside an egg Tessie had just cracked. The next-door neighbor's cat coughed up a hairball one day and the hair was not the cat's. — Jeffrey Eugenides

Wyatt was, in fact, finding the Christian system suspect. Memory of his fourth birthday party still weighted in his mind. It had been planned cautiously by Aunt May, to the exact number of hats and favors and portions of cake. One guest, no friend to Wyatt (from a family "less fortunate than we are"), showed up with a staunchly party-bent brother. (Not only no friend: a week before he had challenged Wyatt through the fence behind the carriage barn with - Nyaa nyaa, suckinyerma's ti-it-ty ... ) Wyatt was taken to a dark corner, where he later reckoned all Good works were conceived, and told that it was the Christian thing to surrender his portion. So he entered his fifth year hatless among crepe-paper festoons, silent amid snapping crackers, empty of Christian love for the uninvited who asked him why he wasn't having any cake. — William Gaddis

When I was four, I think I just wanted to make noise. When I was about 10 years old I was given five CDs for my birthday: Pink Floyd's Dark side of the Moon, the Sex Pistols, Prodigy, Jimi Hendrix, and I can't remember the fifth one, but really different kinds of music. That's when I started to grasp it and enjoy it, listening to it. Then I started being in bands at school. — Eliot Paulina Sumner

He does cry a lot. It's nothing new, nothing special! And actually I think everyone was crying in my box, so I think he wasn't the only one. I was crying, as well. But my dad is very emotional. I have that from him. It's my dad. He has a birthday tomorrow, so I'm just glad that he has a nice present. — Petra Kvitova

There's no magic numbers in birthdays in my life, there are no milestones, there's no event. Every birthday has to be celebrated to its fullest, even if it's with one person or with 20. — Sandra Bullock

A prison chaplain in the West of England confessed he had given up one prisoner as hopeless, so stubborn was he against any approach by him, and known throughout the jail as the most truculent and obstinate troublemaker.
But one day the governor was told of a visitor who insisted on seeing him. To his surprise, it was a little girl. "He's my daddy," she explained, "It's his birthday." The governor allowed the prisoner to be sent for.
"Daddy," said the child as he was brought in, "this was your birthday, so I wanted to come and see you." Then taking a lock of hair out of her pocket, she offered it to him. "I had no money to buy a present for you. But I brought this, a lock of my own hair."
The prisoner broke down and clasped her in his arms, sobbing. He became a changed man after that and guarded, as his most precious possession, the lock of hair that reminded him that somebody still loved him. — Francis Gay

Andy: Andrew Makepeace Ladd, the Third, accepts with pleasure the kind invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Channing Gardner for a birthday party in honor of their daughter Melissa on April 19th, 1937 at half past three o'clock.
Melissa: Dear Andy: Thank you for the birthday present. I have a lot of Oz books, but not 'The Lost Princess of Oz.' What made you give me that one? Sincerely yours, Melissa.
Andy: I'm answering your letter about the book. When you came into second grade with that stuck-up nurse, you looked like a lost princess.
Melissa: I don't believe what you wrote. I think my mother told your mother to get that book. I like the pictures more than the words. Now let's stop writing letters. — A.R. Gurney

Life. It's your birthday present. Open it up and play with it. Act like you like it. (The One who gave it to you is watching, after all. Don't want to hurt his feelings.) And if you don't like your life, CHANGE IT. It is all yours. — Jill Conner Browne

Food is one of life's really great pleasures. My 20th birthday party was all about booze, my 30th birthday was about drugs, and now I realise that my 40s are about food. It's something you appreciate more and more as you get older. — Alex James

The weird thing about having your birthday on a school day is that by the time you get to be ten, or eleven for sure, no one at school knows it's your birthday anymore. It's not like when you're little and your mom brings cupcakes for the whole class. But even though no one knows, you walk around like it's supposed to be a national holiday. You walk around thinking that people are supposed to be nice to you, like maybe on your birthday you're ten times more breakable than on any other day. Well, it doesn't work that way. It just doesn't. — A.M. Homes

Honey, you're the one who stopped sleeping with me, OK?
It'll be a year come April 20th.
I remember the date exactly, because it was Hitler's birthday — Woody Allen

I'm a Virgo and I'm more - I don't want to say 'negative' - but I'm the girl who thinks no one's coming to my birthday party, no one's buying my clothes, no one's reading my book, no one's watching my show - that's just how I think. — Rachel Zoe

Pulling back, he gave her a little space and grinned as she found her balance again.
"Do you think that will ever get old?" Harper asked with an embarrassed blush.
"Christ, I hope not. Just remember how you feel right now because you might be really mad at me in about one minute."
"Uh-oh. I don't think I like the sound of that." Harper raised an eyebrow at him.
He took her hand and led her toward the studio before pulling her in front of him, her back to his chest. It was the safest position to avoid a kick in the nuts and the best position to block a fast escape.
He felt Harper's quick intake of breath as she turned to face him with a hand over her mouth.
"What did you do?" she said through her fingers.
"Happy birthday, sweetheart." He pushed her through the door as everyone inside shouted, "Surprise! — Scarlett Cole

The worst part is, you know they're not going to be together forever. I mean, come on, she's fifteen. Okay, sixteen. Still. It's not like they're going to get married or anything. Even if they last a couple of years which they won't she'll go to one college and he'll go to another, and pretty soon they'll forget all about each other. That's what always happens. That's why teenage dating is so dumb, because it's doomed to fail. You'd think people would have learned that by now, but I guess they haven't. They go right on falling in love and thinking it's going to survive high school. Allie and Burke, true love always. Whatever.
Anyway, happy birthday, Allie. I hope it was a good one. — Michael Thomas Ford

I ONCE READ somewhere that the odds of getting hit by lightning are one in a million. One in a friggin' million. So, if this situation were to be viewed optimistically, I'm a pretty unique individual. But here's the thing - I just got hit by lighting on my birthday, so optimism can go kiss pessimism's — E.J. Mellow

A real man is one who remembers the lady's birthday, but never knows how old she is. A man who never remembers her birthday, but knows exactly how old she is, - is her husband. — Faina Ranevskaya

Dear Hilde,
I assume you're still celebrating your 15th birthday. Or is it the morning after? Anyways, it makes no difference to your present. In a sense, that will last a life time. But I'd like to wish you happy birthday one more time. Perhaps you understand now why I send the cards to Sophie. I am sure she will pass them on to you.
P.S. Mom said you lost your wallet. I hereby promise to reimburse you the 150 crowns. You will probably be able to get another school I.D. before they close for the summer vacation.
Love from Dad. — Jostein Gaarder

I put my hand on the altar rail. 'What if ... what if Heaven is real, but only in moments? Like a glass of water on a hot day when you're dying of thirst, or when someone's nice to you for no reason, or ... ' Mam's pancakes with Toblerone sauce; Dad dashing up from the bar just to tell me, 'Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite'; or Jacko and Sharon singing 'For She's A Squishy Marshmallow' instead of 'For She's A Jolly Good Fellow' every single birthday and wetting themselves even though it's not at all funny; and Brendan giving his old record player to me instead of one of his mates. 'S'pose Heaven's not like a painting that's just hanging there for ever, but more like ... Like the best song anyone ever wrote, but a song you only catch in snatches, while you're alive, from passing cars, or ... upstairs windows when you're lost ... — David Mitchell

That's swell. That's what I call answering like a man. When is your birthday?" "In January." "I'd have sworn to it. So is mine. I believe the highest types are born in January. It's barometric - you can look it up in Ellsworth Huntington. The parents make love in spring when the organism is healthiest and then the best specimens are conceived. If you want children you should plan to knock up your dear one in that season. Ancient wisdom is right. Now science comes lately and finds it out. — Saul Bellow

If I could choose the perfect Dad
There's no one I would rather
Have Dad, than you Dad
Coz you go further, Father
Happy Birthday Father — John Walter Bratton

During our journey there were two occasions that we celebrated by honoring someone's talent. Everyone is recognized by a special party, but it has nothing to do with age or birthdate - it is in recognition of uniqueness and contribution to life. They believe that the purpose for the passage of time is to allow a person to become better, wiser, to express more and more of one's beingness. So if you are a better person this year than last, and only you know that for certain, then you call for a party. When you say you are ready, everyone honors that. — Marlo Morgan

I am trying to stop being mystified. Important to concentrate on good hard facts. But which facts? One week before mu eighteenth birthday, on August 8th, did Pakistani troops in civilian clothing cross the cease-fire line in Kashmir and infiltrate the Indian sector, or did they not? In Delhi, Prime Minister Shastri announced "massive infiltration ... to subvert the state:; but here is Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's Foreign Minister, with his riposte: "We categorically deny any involvement in the rising against tyranny by the indigenous people of Kashmir". — Salman Rushdie

N this changing world, it's nice to know that one thing is forever ... you'll always be my sister! Happy Birthday to a Wonderful Sister — Rob Jackson

Live not one's life as though one had a thousand years, but live each day as the last. — Marcus Aurelius

The main prank that we play with props is for people's birthdays. The special effects people will put a little explosive in the cake so it blows up in their face - that's always fun to play on a guest star, or one of the trainees or someone who's new. — Catherine Bell

I can sing 'Happy Birthday' to you in twelve different places, but one of them is going to make you feel a certain thing, maybe it's a vulnerability, maybe an innocence, maybe another way is sexy and soulful or bluesy whatever it is, but with singers, exploring keys, I think, is important. — Idina Menzel

One week before my 17th birthday, I had a blind date with June Rose, a television actress on network soap operas, a model, and a regular on the popular Dick Clark's Saturday night 'American Bandstand' show from New York. We were married five years later, one week after my graduation from Columbia. — Robert C. Merton

To divide one's life by years is of course to tumble into a trap set by our own arithmetic. The calendar consents to carry on its dull wall-existence by the arbitrary timetables we have drawn up in consultation with those permanent commuters, Earth and Sun. But we, unlike trees, need grow no annual rings. — Clifton Fadiman

Celebration is the sparkle in the eye of the one who glows. It is the song that plays in the house of freedom. Celebration is the dance of life, it's the one dancing to the drumbeat of the heart, it's your birthday cake, it's you blowing out the trick candles, it's you delighting in the fire of life. — Tehya Sky

Helmut, if I had known that one can make it to 90 on 60 cigarettes a day, I would have started smoking 30 years ago. [at Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's 90th birthday] — Henry Kissinger

Most of us can remember a time when a birthday - especially if it was one's own - brightened the world as if a second sun has risen. — Robert Staughton Lynd

My New Year's Eve is always 2 July, the night before my birthday. That's the night I make my resolutions. And this year scares the life out of me, because no matter how successful, how good things appear, there is always a deep core of failure within me, although I am trying to deal with it. My biggest fear, this coming year, is that I will be waking up alone.
It makes me wonder how many bodies will be fished out of the Thames, how many decaying corpses will be found in one-room flats.
I'm just being realistic. — Tracey Emin

The way to beat Luke," he said. "If I'm right, it's the only way you'll stand a chance." I took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm listening." Nico glanced inside my room. His eyebrows furrowed. "Is that ... is that blue birthday cake?" He sounded hungry, maybe a little wistful. I wondered if the poor kid had ever had a birthday party, or if he'd ever even been invited to one. :Come inside for cake and ice cream," I said. "It sounds like we've got a lot to talk about. — Rick Riordan

Or consider how we citizens of rich countries obtain our oil and minerals. Teodoro Obiang, the dictator of tiny Equatorial Guinea, sells most of his country's oil to American corporations, among them Exxon Mobil, Marathon, and Hess. Although his official salary is a modest $60,000, this ruler of a country of 550,000 people is richer than Queen Elizabeth II. He owns six private jets and a $35 million house in Malibu, as well as other houses in Maryland and Cape Town and a fleet of Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and Bentleys. Most of the people over whom he rules live in extreme poverty, with a life expectancy of forty-nine and an infant mortality of eighty-seven per one thousand (this means that more than one child in twelve dies before its first birthday). — Peter Singer

That's definitely true! It was before my father died, so I can't attribute it to an obsession with death. When I was seven, I loved those old Sherlock Holmes movies with Basil Rathbone. The Scarlet Claw was one of my faves. And I loved all the Halloween's and that film about the haunted house ... Burnt Offerings, with Oliver Reed. Every birthday party was a slumber party and we'd watch horror films. — Cate Blanchett

I don't see any option except to stick to the plan. Split up, infiltrate, find out why they're here. If things go bad - " "We use the backup plan," Piper said. Jason hated the backup plan. Before they left the ship, Leo had given each of them an emergency flare the size of a birthday candle. Supposedly, if they tossed one in the air, it would shoot upward in a streak of white phosphorus, alerting the Argo II that the team was in trouble. At that point, Jason and the girls would have a few seconds to take cover before the ship's catapults fired on their position, engulfing the palace in Greek fire and bursts of Celestial bronze shrapnel. — Rick Riordan

When I'd come in one day in the late winter and asked him why he was working the grill with a kid's birthday hat on, he'd said Because today I'm fifty-seven, buddy. Which makes me an official Heinz. — Stephen King

I can't even help it. There's just this thread of anticipation that I can't seem to quell. So when the school day ends and nothing extraordinary has happened, it's a tiny heartbreak. It's like eleven o'clock on the night of your birthday, when you realize no one's throwing you a surprise party after all. — Becky Albertalli

There's one gift that we all want It's something we can give On every day In every way As long as we shall live! It's something that's invisible To feel inside the heart It's something that can make us laugh Or make us fall apart It's better than a birthday cake Or better than a gift It's something that is oftentimes Expressed with a hug and kiss This gift called Love is nothing new But it also never dies So give this gift to anyone The very best surprise! — Etoile Grace

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

A noble maiden must convey dignity and chastity without appearing to think about either one. Let common-born girls tussle in the hay with their loutish swains. The future of your family's bloodline and your future lord's bloodline should be your greatest concern. Let no man but one of your family embrace you. Let no man but your betrothed kiss any more than your fingertips; let your betrothed kiss you only on fingers, cheek, or forehead, lest he think you unchaste. And never allow yourself to be alone with a man, to safeguard the precious jewel of you reputation. No well-born maiden ever suffered from keeping her suitors at arm's length. Your chastity will make you a prize to you future husband's house and an honor to your own."
- form Advice to a Young Noblewoman, by Lady Fronia of Whitehall (in Maren) given to Ally on her twelfth birthday by her godmother, Queen Thayet — Tamora Pierce