Top 395 Birthday Quotes

Here we have the best Birthday Quotes from famous authors such as Trea Turner, Rachel Riley, John Glenn, Kailash Kher, Kimberly Schlapman. Find the perfect quotation from our collection.

My mom's always asking me for hits and stolen bases and
My mom’s always asking me for hits and stolen bases and home runs and different things on Mother’s Day and her birthday.

For my 21st birthday party, I had a ‘Strictly‘-themed fancy dress.

There is still no cure for the common birthday.

My birthday is a day when all I want is to bask in the love of my family and rarely accept offers for concerts and shows if they are to be held on this day.

I like to do special things for people. Any time someone has a birthday, I make them a really special cake that they all seem to love – it’s a Coca-Cola cake.

I wanted to buy a candle holder, but the store didn’t have one. So I got a cake.

I remember I asked my mom for a ukulele, and she said no because she thought I would never play it. So then I got my birthday money up, and I bought my own. It was the most rebellious thing I’ve ever done.

I want to say that probably 24 hours after I told CBS that I was stepping down at my 65th birthday, I was already regretting it. And I regretted it every day since.

I am a big popcorn fanatic. I love popcorn. In fact one year for my birthday, my husband bought me one of those big popcorn machines like they have in movie theaters.

Debbie Macomber
I have always told my family that I don’t want my birthday to be celebrated and that they shouldn’t get me anything, even though if they didn’t I’d probably write a standup routine about it.

As he approached his 28th birthday in February 1840, Dickens knew himself to be famous, successful and tired. He needed a rest, and he made up his mind to keep the year free of the pressure of producing monthly installments of yet another long novel.

In fact, my mother got a ‘Bigg Boss‘ themed cake on my 17th birthday because I was so obsessed with the show. I am one of those obsessed fans who ask everyone to keep quiet when the show comes on TV.

For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier… I put them in the same room and let them fight it out.

I gave a funny speech at my wife’s birthday party, and I’m thinking, ‘Hey, I’ve still got it.’

My brother got a .22 for his 12th birthday; I got a .22. He got a hunting knife; I got a hunting knife.

Stephanie Cutter
I’ve never hosted a party in my life, not even my own birthday party. I’d feel really uncomfortable saying, ‘Hey everybody, let’s celebrate me!’ But I’m not antisocial. I don’t hate people.

In 1980, shortly before my 11th birthday, I wrote my first essay in English.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

I think my first album was a gift for my birthday and a Faith Hill album; I loved her.

My mum and dad weren’t wealthy people. We used to have pasta every day, meat once a week, fish was once every two weeks, presents only at Christmas and birthday.

I have been a frequent air traveler since I was a few months shy of my sixth birthday, when my parents packed me off to boarding school two plane rides away from home. Those days of being willingly handed from air hostess to air hostess as an ‘unaccompanied minor‘ made me blase about the rigors of air travel.

I married two weeks after my 18th birthday, far too young, and by the time I was 23 I was a single mother of three small children, Sean, Daniel and Victoria, living in a prefab house.

The first glimpse I had of what Mario Batali’s friends had described to me as the ‘myth of Mario’ was on a cold Saturday night in January 2002, when I invited him to a birthday dinner.

My birthday is Feb. 11, and I’m both excited and not excited by it. You’ll never be 15 again, and you really, really need to savor every day like it’s your last.

I’ll sometimes forget it’s my birthday, but my mom has taken to calling me at the exact time of my birth, so that’ll usually remind me. It was an important moment for me, obviously, but I guess a more memorable one for her.

Every year on my birthday, I start a new playlist titled after my current age so I can keep track of my favorite songs of the year as a sort of musical diary because I am a teenage girl.

My life is better with every year of living it.

My birthday is always around Thanksgiving, and I always had to have turkey on my birthday. My mom was always, ‘Let’s celebrate your birthday on Thanksgiving.’ My other siblings got to have special dinners they liked. I resented turkey. For a long time, I hated turkey. I’ve kind of gotten over it.

I once choked on a chip at a friend’s birthday when I was seven and had to be sent home, as I’d broken my collarbone coughing.

My first proper kiss was from Cara Shucksmith when I was 13 or 14 at her birthday party.

I spent my 18th birthday in jail. Charges were dropped as long as I promised never to return to the state of Kansas. My parents took me home to Louisiana. I lasted there a week. Then I ran away.

I saw Farrah Fawcett originally when she and her boyfriend, Lee Majors, came over to my house for a birthday party that I was having for my ex-wife, Leigh Taylor-Young.

Ryan O’Neal
I tried to bake a cake for my mother’s birthday – it took me four hours. It was terrible, and I cried for three days.

I quit high school on my birthday. It was my senior year and I didn’t see the point. This was 1962, and I was ready to make music.

Barry White
It has to do a lot more than just twerking. It’s feel good music; it makes people have a good time. It doesn’t matter what type of situation they’re in, we bounce all around New Orleans. Weddings, birthday parties, funerals. The whole nine yards, and it’s a happy music, it turns people from a frown to a happy smile.

I have angel wings and a halo on my wrist, which I got done on my 30th birthday in memory of my brother.

Don’t invite me to a surprise birthday party. I don’t have room for that secret. I’ve got enough real secrets I have to keep: dark, life-destroying secrets.

About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.

I count the weeks and days before my birthday.

In the world of online invitations, nothing is sacred. People will invite all 500 of their ‘closest’ friends to their birthday party – and 485 of those people will RSVP ‘yeswithout intending to show up.

I wasn’t very good about juggling family and my career. I was interested in who was coming to the children’s birthday party, what my son was writing. I was thinking about Legos.

Jill Clayburgh
I filed a brief as a friend of the court in the U. of Michigan to keep affirmative action at the U. of Michigan, which I attended the law school. And I was one of the original sponsors of making the Martin Luther King birthday a federal holiday.

I’ve been a Nick Cave fan since the early ’80s when he was part of The Birthday Party thing singing Australian self-destructive rock band and I’ve always followed his work and loved it.

I was given this beautiful coffee table book of Soviet architecture for my birthday. It has a lot of holiday camps, swimming pools, theatres, and buildings that were built for leisure activities. Incredible architecture in the most obscure places. It’s a little bit sad, because a lot of it has been left to fall apart.

As a kid, I always went to therapists; the first time was when my parents were separated on my sixth birthday, then on and off since then.

My 3rd birthday party was ‘Funny Girl’ themed.

Now that I think about it, my 40th birthday was the most anxiety I’ve ever had, and my wedding was also the second time I’ve had that much anxiety. So I’m starting to realize that I can’t be throwing these big bash parties because I need to own that I get anxiety with a lot of people diverting their attention to me.

There’s definitely something special about a working birthday, it’s the perfect way to bring in the new birthday year!

The question on my husband’s birthday is always, What do you get for the man who has nothing?

I actually had the pleasure of meeting David Bowie at his 50th birthday party in New York City. I handed him the cassette of ‘Eight Arms to Hold You,’ which I had just got an advance of that day. He very graciously thanked me and tucked it into his jacket pocket.

Louise Post
I can remember the three restaurant experiences of my childhood. All I wanted to do on my birthday was to go to the Automat in New York… but I don’t know if you consider that a real restaurant.

I was on the train; I did play, but I also played in bars, in the streets, at birthday parties for people who discovered me on the train.

I have given myself a Tesla for my 60th birthday.

We all have special numbers in our lives, and 4 is that for me. It’s the day I was born. My mother’s birthday, and a lot of my friends’ birthdays, are on the fourth; April 4 is my wedding date.

I always knew that good stuff would come along when I was older. So when I was 18, I longed to be 30; when I was 30, I longed to be 50. I’ve always looked forward to my next birthday.

A gift, with a kind countenance, is a double present.

I would watch ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ and borrow a few lines here and there from guests like Red Buttons and Buddy Hackett to create a routine. Then I started getting invited to do political functions like the governor’s birthday ball or mayor‘s dinner.

There are two great days in a person‘s life – the day we are born and the day we discover why.

William Barclay
Sinatra invited me once to his birthday party in L.A. I was young, and I felt great about it. But when I got there, the Rat Pack were all in the kitchen laughing their heads off.

In a bar mitzvah, you do the candle-lighting ceremony with the cake. Every birthday, the cake is the big moment.

Every five years, I like to do a big birthday party. I had my 45th birthday with 75 friends in Marrakesh, Morocco.

I didn’t start auditioning until my 10th birthday when I auditioned for ‘Matilda’ The Musical in London! It was actually the first time I realized that it was a career I could pursue.

I would recommend ‘Lesson Of The Evil‘ to be given as a DVD gift on a child’s 15th birthday. In Japan, children under 15 are not allowed to watch it. Plus, ‘Lesson Of The Evil’ is one film where the older you get, the more you will be able to understand and enjoy the film.

I’m good in summer. My birthday is in summer. I don’t like it when it’s too hot, but, you know, blue skies, I think people genuinely loosen up a bit, and it’s nicer.

In December of 1990, just before my eighth birthday, I left China for the United States. My father was a political dissident, and after he was released from prison, we joined my mother in a little town in the mountains of Utah. It was quite a change from my hometown of Shanghai, a city of 25 million people.

I’ll never forget my 24th birthday when my tooth got punched out. And for a second I was like, it would be really hilarious if I sold it on eBay. But I can’t, that’s just too creepy. I don’t think I can go there.

Most artists don’t get paid for what they do, and they are lucky if they can persuade a friend to let them show something at a kid’s birthday party.

Andrei Codrescu
This is going to make me sound awful, but I was 18 when I took my first flight because the Prince of Brunei flew Mis-Teeq over to play at his birthday party! I was in business class being fed amazing food. I got over my fear pretty quickly.

I was born full grown in the middle of a hurricane and an earthquake on 10 September 1954, 12.52 P.M. When I found out that I had missed lunch, I gave such a shout that the Earth stopped and spun backwards two days. That’s why I celebrate my birthday on 8 September.

More and more, there are things in my life that I find hard to say. Like, ‘David Bowie and Lorde were at my birthday party.’ She’s a phenomenal spirit.

I was hurtling towards 40, and I’d always wanted to write. It does focus your mind, heading towards that big birthday. If there is anything you think you want to do, you think, ‘I probably should have a go now!’

I found myself in a meeting on my 13th birthday, which I really had no idea the enormity of, but I was in a meeting with the CEO of Atlantic Records, who sort of signed me right then and there as I was playing guitar for him.

I sing a little bit. I got a guitar for my 16th birthday.

I was in my mid-teens when someone gave me a copy of ‘Pears Encyclopaedia of Myth and Legends‘ as a birthday present. It sat on my shelves for many months before I looked at it. When I did, I couldn’t stop reading it.

Love the giver more than the gift.

Brigham Young
I wrote ‘The Room’, ‘The Birthday Party’, and ‘The Dumb Waiter‘ in 1957, I was acting all the time in a repertory company, doing all kinds of jobs, traveling to Bournemouth and Torquay and Birmingham.

In the time of social media, I get lots of wishes. It’s overwhelming! What makes the day most special is the love I get from my fans, who try to make the occasion extra special. Almost 50 days before my birthday, they have started making plans. In fact, I have been receiving letters, too.

Everyone who reaches a milestone birthday in their lives has an opportunity to truly appreciate the fact that presumably we have acquired all the gifts that maturity and age can bring us.

I saw Richard Linklater’s film ‘Slacker’ for my twenty-first birthday. That was the moment when it all seemed possible. This guy gave me hope.

Reaching F1 was always the ultimate goal, I suppose, ever since driving a go-kart my father had bought me for my fifth birthday.

I saw these little trucks that I was obsessed with, and my dad got me one for my eighth birthday. That was the start of my racing career.

I’d be happy to live till 80 as long as I was comfortable and in good health. Mind you, ask me again on the eve of my 80th birthday. Even so, I hope we don’t all start living to be 120. I’m not sure I’d cope with another 60 years.

The first time I ever heard Airborne Toxic Event, my friend was turning 11 or something. And he had a paintball birthday party where him and me and two of our other friends went out to these paintball courses and I got obliterated. I don’t think I got one hit.

I have had fans make me the big picture collages of the photo books; I have had fans send me birthday cakes… sing to me on my voicemail. I have had fans flash me. I have had older fans give me their bras and underwear onstage.

The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.

My father was a legendary copywriter. He wrote ‘Timex Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking.’ He named Earth Day ‘Earth Day.’ It falls on his birthday, April 22. Earth Day, birthday. So the idea came easily.

Sarah Koenig
Let us never know what old age is. Let us know the happiness time brings, not count the years.

Ausonius
Every day, every birthday candle I blow out, every penny I throw over my shoulder in a wishing well, every time my daughter says, ‘Let’s make a wish on a star,’ there’s one thing I wish for: wisdom.

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.

My birthday, I don’t really see it as a special day, to be honest. It’s just another day for me.

We have to be able to grow up. Our wrinkles are our medals of the passage of life. They are what we have been through and who we want to be.

Lauren Hutton
You know, maybe I was just born in the wrong time, but I love all things romantic. Puffy understands that. For my last birthday, he covered my hotel room floor with rose petals and had flowers and candles all over the room.

I remember debating the finer points of flaky pastry with my chicken-pot-pie-obsessed American dad. I remember the divine mix of Thai food, TV dinners, and hearty, homemade goodness that have shaped this palate of mine to this day. I remember all this, but I still Google my husband’s birthday. Thank God he’s famous.

I jumped out of an airplane on my 34th birthday because I promised myself I would. I have an interest in confronting my fears.

School was a big source of anxiety for me. I hated school. I have social anxiety, and it developed when I was a kid. I had trouble going to birthday parties. It was always there. I begged my mom to let me be home-schooled at one point for a semester because I was so miserable at school.

I was quite a shy child. I would get terribly nervous and throw up before my birthday party. And then I would be fine. I feel the same now. I get nervous, then it’s fine.

We have a host of English teachers in the family. My mum is an English teacher, and so are my dad, my aunt and my uncle. I have grown up with family writing competitions, and I can’t remember a birthday or Christmas present that didn’t include books.

I had the worst birthday party ever when I was a child because my parents hired a pony to give rides. And these ponies are never in good health. But this one dropped dead. It just wasn’t much fun after that. One kid would sit on him and the rest of us would drag him around.

My parents screened ‘Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory‘ for my 6th birthday, and I became fascinated by the idea of living in a candy land with chocolate rivers and lollipop trees.

My best kiss was on stage. Kelly Rowland from Destiny‘s Child gave me a really nice soft kiss on my lips during a performance on my birthday. It was amazing.

To give somebody your time is the biggest gift you can give.

My interests were more extracurricular, more external, and more social than they were academic. My birthday is also in December, so I was one of the older kids. That meant I learned social leadership early on. I was always just much better in a team and work environment than I was in a classroom environment.

My mom won’t let me buy high-fashion stuff unless it’s TK Maxx or a birthday occasion.

I don’t really remember, but I’m positive that whenever I cried, my mother gave me something to eat. I’m sure that whenever I had a fight with the little girl next door, or it was raining and I couldn’t go out, or I wasn’t invited to a birthday party, my mother gave me a piece of candy to make me feel better.

Jean Nidetch
I always try to work on my birthday.

As I approached my 18th birthday and prepared to enter military service in World War II, I was recommended to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood.

For a meal out, my number one restaurant is Peter‘s Inn. I first went there when it was an old biker bar. Believe me, when it was Motorcycle Pete’s, that was fun. I had my 30th birthday there.

If I’m about to forget my kid’s birthday, I want the phone to scream at me until I do something about it.

To me, full-time mothering felt like way too much and yet not nearly enough. Lost in a landslide of diapers, birthday parties, and others’ needs, I ached to reestablish myself.

My 40th birthday I held in an old-age home. My 50th I had at Pravda before it opened in New York. My 60th I had at Pastis. For my 70th, I thought, ‘I don’t need to have a celebrity party this year. I’m going to go take my oldest, closest friends to Paris.’

When I was 11, I had an Ugly Sister birthday party. All my idea. Most girls want to be a fairy or a princess, but there I am with beauty spots and fur and fluorescent pink kiss-curls.

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
John Candy knew he was going to die. He told me on his 40th birthday. He said, well, Maureen, I’m on borrowed time.

I did not have a normal life. I’d be training when my sister would be at birthday parties and sleepovers. I finished high school by correspondence, basically working two full-time jobs. The last years were very, very tough. But I was willing to do that. It’s all about sacrifice.

My wife and I love to travel, so if we don’t have work on either her or my birthday, we definitely travel.

Mum loves me being famous! She is so excited and proud, as she had me so young and couldn’t support me, so I am living her dream, it’s sweeter for both of us. It’s her 40th birthday soon and I’m going to buy her 40 presents.

My sentence formally was imposed on my mothers 50th Birthday January 24th 1983. The jury recommended it July 1st 1982.

Our kids will never have to remember things, because it’s all in pictures. Want to remember your fourth birthday? There’ll be video of it on your phone.

I was concerned about being 40 and for my 40th birthday my wish was to go see Cher, and I got to meet her.

You don’t get older, you get better.

Shirley Bassey
For the youth, the indignation of most things will just surge as each birthday passes.

I’m not materialistic. I believe in presents from the heart, like a drawing that a child does.

I never knew anyone who have growing up who had a clown at their birthday party. They are something I think of as being from the past. So I never had strong feelings about them. I do think that they can be creepy, I guess it depends on the clown.

For my 10th birthday, what I wanted was Beatle boots and a Beatle wig. My parents couldn’t find Beatle boots, but down at the dime store, Woolworths or someplace, they found a Beatle wig!

When it comes to birthdays, I think there are two camps. There are people like me, who choose to treat it like any other day, and then there are the ‘birthday people.’ You know, those people who claim the full month in which they were born as their own.

I remember the one time, when I was in the 10th grade and the school president, my entire school had surprised me with a birthday song during the morning assembly. It will always be a very special memory!

Jewellery‘s not a big thing for me. The only thing I wear is a gold cross on a chain that I got for my 21st birthday. You have to take it off every day for filming, but that’s the only time I’m not wearing it. You won’t find me in rings, bracelets or earrings.

I began seeing certain things happen in my life and other people’s lives and getting inspired by it and writing about it. And that’s where you get ‘Happy Birthday’ from and ‘Ross Capicchioni’ from or you even get ‘I’m Sorry‘ from.

Joyner Lucas
Motorcycle riding has been a passion of mine since my 20th birthday, and as a proud member of the American Motorcyclist Association and the Harley Owners Group, I can attest that responsible riding has many unique recreational benefits for millions of Americans.

Tim Walberg
Yes, Leander locked me out. I’d gone with my child for a birthday party. Leander and his mother were running out of the building as I was entering. They even put my clothes in boxes and threw them out.

When I look on my mantelpiece and see these cards wishing me a happy 100th birthday, I can’t believe it.

I like working on my birthday, so I always do.

I was fired at the pinnacle of my career, on my 39th birthday. And in the year that followed, I learned that there are many psychological phases of being ‘let go.’

My 21st birthday was awesome. I was in L.A., and it was great. I had a bunch of friends that came out. The night ended up in a completely different direction than we thought it was going to go.

Jonathan Keltz
Well, I started conducting kind of by accident. I wanted to give myself a special birthday present for my fortieth birthday, and I was living in San Francisco at the time and I started attending some of the concerts and then simply dropping hints.

I wanted to be the next Dana Carvey. This was my ultimate goal. If I ever cut into a birthday cake and made a wish, I would wish to be on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ If I threw a coin into a fountain, I would wish to be on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ If I saw a shooting star, I would wish to be on ‘Saturday Night Live.’

The American flag is an enduring symbol of liberty, democracy, and justice. It is fitting that the House act to protect it as we approach our nation‘s birthday, and as our men and women in uniform rally behind it in Iraq‘s battlefields.

My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it.

The summer of 2002 at the Wilson birthday party I met Van Dyke again and I made plans to have dinner with him.

My every birthday wish was, ‘I want to someday be on TV.’

I miss my mom and dad. They brought me into this world and I wish they were with me on my birthday. So I don’t celebrate it much.

For my birthday my husband learned to cook and is cooking one day a week for me. But he only likes to do fancy dishes. So we end up with weird, obscure things in the refrigerator.

If you can give your child only one gift, let it be enthusiasm.

Bruce Barton
I joined the army on my seventeenth birthday, full of the romance of war after having read a lot of World War I British poetry and having seen a lot of post-World War II films. I thought the romantic presentations of war influenced my joining and my presentation of war to my younger siblings.

I think I’ve wanted to be an actress since the day I was born. I even asked my parents for an agent for my seventh birthday!

Shoshannah Stern
I wrapped my Christmas presents early this year, but I used the wrong paper. See, the paper I used said ‘Happy Birthday’ on it. I didn’t want to waste it so I just wrote ‘Jesus‘ on it.

Most of us have fond memories of food from our childhood. Whether it was our mom’s homemade lasagna or a memorable chocolate birthday cake, food has a way of transporting us back to the past.

I got my first tennis racket on my seventh birthday. And because we had a tennis court in our backyard, I played every day. By ten I was playing competitively.

I always wanted to shave. It is a very natural process. For my birthday I got a lot of shaving stuff.

I’m a big fan of Kurt Cobain. I put a picture of him holding a gun on my Instagram for his birthday. He’s definitely one of my favorite rock artists.

I think football saves many people. It can give you a life of luxury, but people don’t see all the effort that goes in behind the scenes. That might mean not seeing your family or missing your mother’s birthday; many players are so focused that they miss the birth of their children.

Just before my 16th birthday, Natalie Dormer said to me, ‘As soon as you turn 16, you’re going to work adult hours. People will try take advantage of you, so it’s important not to be a pushover.’

I am a very private person, so on my birthday too I will spend a cozy time with my family and a few close friends!

We think of the Warped Tour as kind of like everyone’s big birthday party.

I’m really not the party type. I more like to have friends over at the house and chill. I’ve never been the super party type. But for the 18th birthday, you got to party. And then 21 is going to be even bigger.

The Governors Ball is like a big birthday party, and all these stars are like excited kids running around – ‘Oooo, look at my pretty new dress!’ And what’s the best, most fun surprise at a birthday party? When the cake comes out!

If you are an actress in L.A., on your 40th birthday they should just hand you the keys to the lunatic asylum.

When I was a teenager, the actors I was really into were Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn. I saw ‘Rumble Fish’ on my 16th birthday, and around the same time, it was ‘Falcon and the Snowman’ and ‘Bad Boys’ from Sean Penn.

I can put my legs behind my head and sing ‘Happy Birthday.’ Because that’s something that me and my friends used to do when we were in gymnastics class as kids, and I can still do it. I was doing it since I was 8 and 9. They used to call me Gumby. Very bendy.

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.

My ace in the hole as a human being used to be my capacity for remembering birthdays. I worked at it. Whenever I made a new friend, I made a point of finding out his or her birthday early on, and I would record it in my Filofax calendar.

I was standing right behind Marilyn, completely invisible, when she sang ‘Happy birthday, Mr. President.’ And indeed, the corny thing happened: Her dress split for my benefit, and there was Marilyn, and yes, indeed, she didn’t wear any underwear.

You know you’re getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.

Bob Hope
I don’t like to party. I like to spend time with family on my birthday.

My first recognition of age setting in was exactly on my 36th birthday. I have no idea why, on this day of all days, I looked in the mirror and realized my face no longer looked young.

When Oscar Niemeyer died on December 5, 2012, ten days before his 105th birthday, he was universally regarded as the very last of the twentieth century‘s major architectural masters, an astonishing survivor whose most famous accomplishment, Brasilia, was the climactic episode of utopian High Modern urbanism.

I was very aware of Jeff Buckley. My brother actually bought me The Mamas And The Papas and Jeff Buckley for my birthday when I was in my early teens.

On my 30th birthday, all the presents I got were boxes of food. That’s what I needed.

Kay Lenz
My birthday is in November, so I think I’m a Scorpio? I’m not even sure!

Ryan Hurd
I saw a man killed in front of my eyes just before my eighth birthday.

I’ve been singing since I could talk. I started playing the piano when I was about 5 or 6. I picked up the guitar on my 20th birthday.

I got my first camera when I was 21 – my boyfriend gave it to me for my birthday – but at that point politics was my life, and I viewed the camera as a tool for expressing my political beliefs rather than as an art medium.

Carrie Mae Weems
Plays have a celebratory nature that no other form has. Theater always meant celebration, a birthday, a reward for good grades. I felt at home in a theater. I loved being part of an audience. All the rules – the audience has to see the play on a certain date at a certain time in a certain place in a certain seat.

I’m a summer baby, so I usually have my birthday as a good summer memory.

Every year on your birthday, you get a chance to start new.

By the time I was seven, I did a sonnet at Shakespeare‘s Globe theatre for Shakespeare’s birthday because my dad had been at the first season of the Globe and was friends with the artistic director. Somehow, that lead to me doing a sonnet!

Alfred Enoch
I was a dress-up Spider-Man for kids’ birthday parties for a while.

In Bollywood, birthday celebrations are usual and very carefree.

Robert Duvall saw me playing at a restaurant in Louisiana and invited me to be an extra in his movie ‘The Apostle.’ He gave me a guitar for my sixth birthday, and I thought that was the coolest thing in the world.

My father took me and my about-to-be-traumatized friends to Stanley Kubrick‘s ‘2001’ for my 10th birthday party.

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.

Interventions are really emotionally exhausting and I would never ever want to have one. In the same way, I would never want to have a surprise birthday party. That would be horrible.

My parents were dishonest people. If it was my birthday, I knew my mother took me to the K-Mart and she stole my toy. She’d put it in the shopping cart and we’d walk out. I was raised with that.

My 21st birthday was probably the worst day of my life.

I remember for my 18th birthday, I was going to get a tattoo, and I made the mistake of thinking I was a man and telling my father, and he was like, ‘Oh yeah? You better tattoo a new address on your arm, because you’re not living here!’ And that was the end of that discussion.

By the time of my ninth birthday, I had become a bit of a socialist, as I am said by conservative colleagues to be to this day. I went on within the next few years to volunteer as an envelope stuffer for the American Labor Party, and my political thinking has not shifted measurably since that time.

I’m a very keen baker; I pride myself on my cakes. I go along the classic sponge line, but I like to jazz it up: I’ve made some psychedelic birthday cakes.

I was at a birthday party and a truck backed up and the wheels ran over my chest. I lost part of my lung and my liver.

As a child, I always chose a false nose and some face paint and a wig for my birthday.

What makes ‘Maybach Music V’ so special was, of course, I put the album out celebrating my daughter’s birthday as well, and DeJ Loaf is her favorite artist. So ‘Maybach Music V,’ I wanted a real airy type of feel. Just a real slow vibe to it that’s also going to surprise my daughter. So that’s real special.

Aged six, I sailed from South Africa to England by steam ship with my family. It was a three-week journey. I remember crying on my birthday when I didn’t get the enormous teddy bear that was for sale in the ship’s shop but, aside from that, I had a wonderful time.

Did you know you’re supposed to soap and scrub for as long as it takes to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice?

I never missed a birthday. I never missed a school play. We carpooled. And the greatest compliment I can ever get is not about my career or performance or anything; it’s when people say, ‘You know, your girls are great.’ That’s the real thing for me.

Having a Mary Poppins-themed birthday party when I was 5 – all my friends went in dresses, and I went as a chimney sweep. I was a real tomboy.

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.

I’m an avid shoe fan. I got my first pair of Louboutins as a birthday gift from Jami Gertz.

Toks Olagundoye
I promised myself: Before your 18th birthday, you’re going to be at Jean Paul Gaultier. And it worked. I was hired.

Nicolas Ghesquiere
Somewhere it was written that October 18th is my birthday, and some people flew to Georgia to wish me! They came to my college, spoke to my professor, found out where I lived, and they were at my doorstep! I was shocked!

The summer before my third year of law school, I worked at a law firm in Washington, D.C. I turned 25 that July, and on my birthday, my father happened to be playing in a local jazz club called Pigfoot and invited me to join him. I hadn’t spent a birthday with him since I was 3, but I agreed.

I have heard of ‘Green Street’-dedicated birthday parties, a website dedicated only to the clothing. It has no end. If you hashtag #greenstreet or #greenstreethooligans, you cannot go a day without people saying it’s their favourite movie. It’s frustrating because it’s a massive hit, but nobody gives it credit.

At her birthday, my seven-year-old daughter will say that she wants these big cakes and certain expensive toys as presents, and I can’t say no to her. It would just break my heart. But when I was little, for birthdays we just played outside and we were happy if we got any cake.

Goran Ivanisevic
I get asked, on a sort of daily basis, ‘It’s my wife’s 30th birthday, can you set her a task?’

I don’t really drink, but the one thing I really hanker after is Zubrowka vodka. If it’s someone’s birthday, I’ll pretend I like red wine for about three sips.

My mom had me at 16 and took me every place she went. I remember going on peace marches. She tried to take me to Woodstock – it was pouring rain. It was on my birthday, and I was crying so much in the car they turned the car around and dumped me at my grandmother‘s house… I had a little attitude.

Your children need your presence more than your presents.

It’s kind of ironic that the only Super Bowl I’ve been to as a fan was when the Rams played the Titans. I was at that game. My grandpa, when he was still involved in the NFL, he got me tickets for my birthday.

If I could go back and tell 13-year-old self that I would be on screen with Lisa Kudrow, spending my birthday on a ghost train in Blackpool with her, I would have been beside myself.

When I was little I thought, isn’t it nice that everybody celebrates on my birthday? Because it’s July 4th.

Gloria Stuart
I’ve been asking my partner for a dog for a while and she kept saying no. She was obviously keeping it for a birthday surprise, and when I came home from Rotherham, Hugo was sat on the sofa waiting for me. It was a really nice surprise.

If you catch me lying, it’s probably because I’m about to surprise someone for their birthday, or hide away the specific details about a company getaway to a strange but amazing place.

The first time I went on a serious run was when I was 21 years old at Stanford University. From 21 to 30, I continued the tradition and ran 10 miles every year on my birthday.

On its self-titled debut, Happy Birthday flirts with several flavors of love, and ‘Girls FM’ is where taste gets confusing.

I like birthday cake. It’s so symbolic. It’s a tempting symbol to load with something more complicated than just ‘Happy birthday!’ because it’s this emblem of childhood and a happy day.

If I could be doing anything, I’d be laying on the floor in my birthday suit eating junk food and watching something dumb on TV.

Mattresses! Beautiful! Let’s go buy a couple of mattresses. Give ’em to people for their birthday.

Lawrence Tierney
I have an ambivalent relationship with Margaret Thatcher. She came to power in May 1979 – a month before my 11th birthday. I was far too young to have developed a great deal of political awareness. I remember it, though – my mother excited at the dinner table because Britain had its first female prime minister.

There is one person who sends me three cards every year. One on New Year’s, one for my birthday and the third that marks the anniversary of my flight into space.

During the summer of 2000, in the run-up to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday, I asked the Duke of Edinburgh if he was hoping to reach 100. ‘Good God, no,’ he spluttered, ‘I can’t imagine anything worse. What a ghastly idea.’

Ask any teenage girl to describe her perfect bedroom, and you’ll get answers like ‘a room with a private phone line, a place to hang out with friends, and for it to be way-cool and funky.’ Ask parents the same question, and ‘a locked door that opens on their 21st birthday’ might top the list!

A family friend was staying with us once and had brought over a ukulele. I just loved the way she played it. I saved up the money from my 11th birthday and went out and bought one for myself.

Facebook lets me be lazy the way a man in a stereotypical 1950s office can be lazy. Facebook is the digital equivalent of my secretary, or perhaps my wife, yelling at me not to forget to wish someone a happy birthday or to inform me I have a social engagement this evening.

I can’t make eye contact when people sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me.

When I was young and it was someone’s birthday, I didn’t have the money to buy nice presents so I would take my mom’s camera and make a movie parody for whoever‘s birthday it was. When I’d show it them, they’d die laughing. That reaction was a high for me, and I loved that feeling.

David Henrie
An army environment is very protected, a walled city kind of environment, where everybody has the same income, you have the same birthday parties, you are given return gifts – everything is the same. Everybody is moving up at the same pace.

I remember, for my fifth birthday, Chet Baker sat me on the upright piano, and he played just for me for a few minutes. I can still remember the pressure of the air on my chest. It was my first physical contact with sound.

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.

If we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday at a time of presidential inaugurals, this is thanks to Ronald Reagan who created the holiday, and not to the Democratic Congress of the Carter years, which rejected it.

David Horowitz
I can still remember the afternoon, on my 15th birthday, when I opened up ‘The Virgin and the Gypsy,’ D.H. Lawrence‘s novella, in my tiny cell in boarding school, and whole worlds of possibility opened out that I had never guessed existed. The language was on fire and sang of liberation.

I have a very good relation with rain. When I was born in Orissa, there were severe floods. Even now it rains on my birthday.

Varun Sandesh
Presents don’t really mean much to me. I don’t want to sound mawkish, but – it was the realization that I have a great many people in my life who really love me, and who I really love.

For my 50th birthday, my cousin Helmut gave me the most profound, beautiful, and striking present. He made books out of my dad’s slide photographs, which were stored and forgotten. Looking at those books made me cry.

I love photography. My boyfriend’s got a great camera, which I bought for his birthday.

I started with Katie, a doll I got on eBay on my 10th birthday. I don’t use her anymore. I’ve got a new Katie now, a real ventriloquist‘s puppet.

Cakes are special. Every birthday, every celebration ends with something sweet, a cake, and people remember. It’s all about the memories.

Buddy Valastro
Jesus’ birthday is commercialized, so of course, Black History Month is commercialized.

Success happened little by little for me. I tasted the flavor of fame in small doses: I started at 10 years old when I won a music contest; I was performing at birthday parties, company meetings.

There was an old acoustic in the house that my mother had given me for my fifth birthday. I took it off the wall and started jamming. I was seven years old at the time.

It was shortly before my 18th birthday when I came out and admitted that I was gay.

I’ve got more than 600 pairs of Ray-Ban sunglasses, from 1950s originals to newer models. I have them on the wall like opticians do so I can pick out a pair that goes with my outfit. I had around 30 pairs, then my husband Rainer started getting them for me as birthday and Christmas gifts.

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.

I don’t know if there are many misconceptions. One is that my birthday is on Valentine’s Day. It’s on 7 June.

Every birthday is a gift. Every day is a gift.

My mom and pop took me to the Apollo Theater on my thirteenth birthday to see Heavy D and Keith Sweat. It was late at night, up on 125th Street, and it was crazy!

Everybody should plant a tree on any happy occasion or birthday and celebrate.

Sayaji Shinde
About 50 percent of the songs on the radio are like, ‘Live like tomorrow doesn’t exist. Like it’s my birthday. Like it’s the last day of my life’… Such a large percentage of pop music is really about party time.

Yes, I grew up with guns. For my 16th birthday, in fact, I received a .357 instead of a car. But there was nothing playful about them; they were tools. My parents went through a back-to-the-land phase. Most of our vegetables and fruits came from our own garden.

Benjamin Percy
I was put on a pony as a kid at some birthday party when you’re all led around.

There are probably about 50 comedians who would come to my 50th birthday party but I’m not sure how many of them would come to my funeral.

Nicole will come up in conversations where it’s in a part of the conversation. Or we may be somewhere and I would tell some story about their mother and I. You know, we always honor her birthday.

O J Simpson
I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.

The way I see it, you should live everyday like its your birthday.

I find the best birthday plans are the unplanned ones.

I crashed my boyfriend’s birthday when I was 12 years old. He didn’t invite me and so I showed up.

I decided that every year on my birthday, I’m going to release a new clown mask.

My second play, The Birthday Party, I wrote in 1958 – or 1957. It was totally destroyed by the critics of the day, who called it an absolute load of rubbish.

When I see the kind of passion Sir Alex shows, it is hard to believe he is about to celebrate his 71st birthday.

If you’re going to do a job, do it right. If you’re going to throw a birthday party, make it amazing. If you’re going to do anything, do it awesome.

I spent my 40th birthday on the stage of the Palladium in ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.’

I’m not big on dark chocolate, but I do have a sweet tooth, so it gets me in trouble. I love warm chocolate chip cookies with ice cream. Then there’s this chocolate pie my mom makes for me every year for my birthday. She’s been making it since I was younger, and there’s nothing like it. It’s really so, so good!

When I did ‘Happy Birthday,’ I wrote the treatment for the video before I wrote the record. And once I wrote the video, I had a clear understanding of what I wanted; I created the soundtrack to that video.

Joyner Lucas
I’ve looked after my money. As I started working around my third birthday, my first check went straight to the bank.

The reason I met my husband was because I remembered a friend’s birthday. The moral of the story is: Remember people’s birthdays.

I definitely break out karaoke when my friends have birthday parties.

I worked at an ice cream parlor called Chadwicks. We wore old-timey outfits and had to bang a drum, play a kazoo, and sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to people while giving them free birthday sundaes. Lots of ice cream scooping and $1 tips.

My son had his eighth birthday recently and we had a chance to borrow the film and show it to all of his friends that was at his birthday party and they loved it. I was a little nervous. I said they might not even like it, and say his daddy‘s movie is wack, but they loved it.

On my 7th birthday, in 1970, I left India and came to America: to this land of incredible opportunity.

I binge when I’m happy. When everything is going really well, every day is like I’m at a birthday party.

Every night, I was read to. Every Friday, we were taken to the library. I always received at least one book for my birthday. I have a few of them yet. Early on, I had my own collection of books. I loved to read. Still do.

Avi
Martin Luther King can have his own self-titled birthday recognized as a national holiday, but not our country’s first president?

I met Leonardo DiCaprio and Busta Rhymes the same night, on my birthday in New York.

For my fifth birthday, I got a small tennis racket. That’s how I started.

All my favorite stars, my family and my friends are here. I’m having the happiest birthday that an 18-year-old girl could ever have.

My fourth birthday, I was given a violin, and my fifth birthday, a guitar. I didn’t start to play until I saw Hendrix on TV. They showed him setting his guitar on fire and burning it for the Monterey Pop Festival.

All I watch is the Food Network. I took a cheesemaking class a few weeks ago, and I told my family and friends to only get me kitchen stuff on my birthday. I’m into every kind of cookbook and anything by Anthony Bourdain. I’d love to own a restaurant if I could find the right chef.

I think there’s something about the homemade birthday cake, because my wife, on my daughter’s first birthday, started the tradition where she takes a full cake and cuts the number birthday out of it.

In the winter of 2012, as my fiftieth birthday approached, I began to write what turned into my autobiography, a look at my own life through the lens of food.

The first posh meal out I had was on my 10th birthday.

On my 14th birthday, my grandfather and my grandmother gave me the best birthday present ever: a drafting table that I have worked on ever since.

Jarrett J Krosoczka
There are times I have to diet 16 weeks at a go, and I had to miss out on stuff I love, like burgers and birthday parties.

The first guitar I ever got was for my 13th birthday.

I wanted Cathy and Irving to actually say ‘I do’ and be pronounced husband and wife on Feb. 5, which is my mom’s birthday.

My father was one of the fortunate wartime servicemen: he made a full recovery from his injuries, was promoted to captain, survived the war, had a satisfying career as a colonial officer and, eventually, died in February 2002, a month before his 85th birthday.

To my surprise, my 70s are nicer than my 60s and my 60s than my 50s, and I wouldn’t wish my teens and 20s on my enemies.

When I was 13 or 14, my mother used to gift me books that I was dying to read. Those are my most memorable birthday gifts.

My father was a shaman. He told me that time doesn’t exist. He didn’t use a clock. He didn’t know when my birthday was.

I have got a vintage Omega 1949 watch I love… It was a present that I got for my birthday.

I was forced to live far beyond my years when just a child, now I have reversed the order and I intend to remain young indefinitely.

Mary Pickford
That’s the great thing about New Year’s, you get to be a year older. For me, that wasn’t such a joke, because my birthday was always around this time. When I was a kid, my father used to tell me that everybody was celebrating my birthday. That’s what the trees are all about.

My mom and my father’s birthday are on the same day.

It’s in my stars to invent; I was born on Madame Curie’s birthday. I have this need for originals, for innovation. That’s why I like Charlie Parker.

I have friends who hide in their bedroom for three days every time they have another birthday. That’s what brings the wrinkles! I didn’t care when I turned 30 or 40 or 50.

Maria Conchita Alonso
I had arranged a birthday party for him and my children, who are all Aquarians. Instead, we got married. I ran out of excuses. It was just us and my children.

On a royal birthday every house must fly a flag, or the owner would be dragged to a police station and be fined twenty-five rubles.

Mary Antin
Since graduation, I have measured time in 4-by-5-inch pieces of paper, four days on the left and three on the right. Every social engagement, interview, reading, flight, doctor‘s appointment, birthday and dry-cleaning reminder has been handwritten between metal loops.

I love the big fresh starts, the clean slates like birthdays and new years, but I also really like the idea that we can get up every morning and start over.

I want a chainsaw very badly, because I think cutting down a tree would be unbelievably satisfying. I have asked for a chainsaw for my birthday, but I think I’ll probably be given jewelry instead.

I never got a chocolate birthday cake; I got a carob one. And when I went to other kidshouses, I was very covetous of things like Cheez Whiz that I’d find in their refrigerators.

Amanda Marshall
My two sons are more excited about my father’s birthday than him. Baba is a quiet person by nature and feels shy at any kind of celebration.

Soham Chakraborty
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
We didn’t have a whole lot of money when I was growing up either. I would always ask for magic books or magic tricks for my birthday or for Christmas and the rest of the year I either had to mow lawns or find part time jobs to help supplement the cost of doing magic.

Lance Burton
I used to go to musicals every birthday – that was my birthday present. We’d go to London, me and my two brothers and mum and dad. I think I saw ‘Mamma Mia’ about five times.

Lesley Gore‘s part-time field was pop singer, and in her brief but urgent prime, she was the Queen of Teen Angst. She endured heartbreak as a birthday girl betrayed by her beau in ‘It’s My Party,’ savored revenge in the sequelJudy‘s Turn to Cry’ and belted the proto-feminist anthem ‘You Don’t Own Me.’

As far as those kinds of things, I also played at the concert to call for the release of Nelson Mandela when he was a political prisoner in South Africa. We were celebrating his 70th birthday and calling for his release.

The sexiest thing my girlfriend has ever done for me is when she planned three full days of events, meals, and surprises for my birthday. It was like one continuous gift.

How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?

Satchel Paige
When someone asks if you’d like cake or pie, why not say you want cake and pie?

I threw my son, Brandon, a rave for his birthday and I fully set it up like a crazy rave with lights and sound, me and my partner DJ’d – I got Mix Master Mike from the Beastie Boys to come DJ for a bit.

The highs of having a big family were that there was always someone to play with and you get loads of birthday presents. The lows were sharing the bathroom.

Since the day I got married, I never got to plan my birthday.

Let them eat cake.

I’m not a big birthday guy; I never have been.

I guess I could say I’m an actor, which I am, but that sounds like I’m putting down being a movie star, which, let’s face it, is what I’ve become to many people. For myself, I’m a guy who was very insecure from about age 14 until the day I hit my 30th birthday.

My mother still sends a cake to the office for my birthday.

David Ulevitch
For my 11th birthday, I asked to be adopted.

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.

Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!

On my fourth or fifth birthday, a guitar was given to me, and I made a new friend. A very loud friend.

Working on good music is what brings happiness to my heart and I cannot think of a better way to spend my birthday.

May it be long before the people of the United States shall cease to take a deep and pervading interest in the Fourth of July, as the birthday of our national life, or the event which then occurred shall be subordinated to any other of our national history.

I remember when the candle shop burned down. Everyone stood around singing ‘Happy Birthday.’

During our childhood, my sister and I had no birthday parties. We would take a packet of sweets to school and distribute it to our class-mates. That was it. We were not allowed to go to parties, either.

I believe that at least 70 percent of parenting goes to the mother. In our house, I’m the one who knows about all the school stuff, helps with the homework, organizes the play dates, and remembers the birthday parties.

When I was younger, I was a rave kid trapped inside a singer/songwriter‘s body. But I kind of figured my way out because I started making these really terrible beats on this Yamaha keyboard that my parents got me for my 10th birthday.

You always get a special kick on opening day, no matter how many you go through. You look forward to it like a birthday party when you’re a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen.

Joe DiMaggio
I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character in half, on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he’s made of sugar.

I don’t go to celebrity parties a lot. I don’t really enjoy them because I really like going for it in parties. And sometimes at celebrity parties, there is no dancing on tables because people… it can be a little judgmental at times. So I tend not to go unless it is Taylor Swift‘s birthday party; then it’s amazing.

I don’t set up screenings. I can barely plan my kid’s birthday party.

I had Hallowe’en parties every year, as it was my birthday five days before. My parents would actually put prosthetic noses on, and my dad would wear a top-hat and tails, put on a fake curly moustache, and hold a pipe.

Nicole Richie invited me to her birthday party, and it was at Michael Jackson‘s Neverland!

I had a ‘Cats‘ phase, where I did lots of overturned furniture and trash cans. I asked for a fog machine for my birthday.

Ben Platt
Growing up, my birthday was always Confederate Memorial Day. It helped to create this profound sense of awareness about the Civil War and the 100 years between the Civil War and the civil rights movement and my parents’ then-illegal and interracial marriage.

With my daughter, we do arts and crafts, we read a lot, we listen to music, and we cut the strings off balloons and bounce them around after birthday parties.

To me – old age is always ten years older than I am.

I did a cake for the 60th birthday of Elton John, for Britney Spears’ 27th birthday and for the ‘Circus’ album she put out – the cake had circus themes. I prepared a cake for a surprise 82nd birthday event for the architect Frank Gehry; the cake was comprised of mini-replicas of his buildings.

Katherine Johnson is a shining example of what you can truly do with hard work and persistence. Under what had to be the most difficult of circumstances she persevered and stuck to her values. She is a real West Virginia and American hero. To honor her legacy every August 26th, on her birthday, is the least we can do.

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.

It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm.’

Sam Levenson
I decided if you’re lucky enough to be alive, you should use each birthday to celebrate what your life is about.

A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.

From the age of 17 through my 20s, I was living on my own, so sometimes I wouldn’t even tell anybody it was my birthday. It was not a big thing for me.

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman‘s birthday but never remembers her age.

Til the day I didn’t play under-19 World Cup, nobody ever celebrated my birthday. And the moment I played for Indian team, my family got excited and ordered and cut a cake for me in front of 40-50 family members.

I used to be good with kids, but as I get older, I’m grumpy and terrible with them. As for doing a gig at a 6-year old’s birthday party, you couldn’t pay me enough.

I believe that if writers want their readers to care about a character, they have to care themselves. I have to root for a detective who screws up as much as Thorne does, who shares my birthday, my North London stomping ground, and my love of country music, both alt and cheesy.

When I was eight we went to Las Vegas for my brother Michael’s 21st birthday, and my bedtime was pushed back quite late. I was always waking up as everyone was rolling in from their night out. It was an eye-opener!

If every year is a marble, how many marbles do you have left? How many sunrises, how many opportunities to rise to the full stature of your being?

Joy Page
I share a birthday with Max Beesley and James Nesbitt.

For me, normal means freedom to live life as we choose, from cramming into packed planes to go on holiday to crowding into pubs for birthday parties.

I love getting scared. I find myself putting myself in situations like haunted houses or going to a haunted hospital for my birthday. Yes, I’ve actually done that.

I am very shy by nature and I won’t even have told people about my birthday, had I not been an actor.

The more Mommy blogs going nuclear over playground etiquette I read and birthday parties of glazed adults munching cupcakes like demoralized zombies I attend, I realize this is what my friends who conceived before me meant by, ‘You just won’t care.’

My mother always bought our birthday gifts.

My younger sister, Clover arrived three days before my seventh birthday and I wanted to sell her. I’d had my mother, stepfather, and nanny Maureen, all to myself, and suddenly there was this bonny baby with green grass eyes that everyone adored.

When you’re an expert in a subject, you can retain new factoids on your favorite topic easily. This only works for the subjects you’re truly passionate about, though. Baseball fans can reel off stats for their favorite players, then space out on their own birthday.

We’ve all seen those spoiled little brats that end up being given everything and on their 17th birthday get a Ferrari. That whole thing I just can’t bear it.

Anybody can have a birthday. It requires nothing. Murderers have birthdays. It’s the opposite of anything that I believe in. And I don’t like at work where you stop everything to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to someone. I feel like that’s for children.

I’ve raced on all seven continents at least twice. I’ve probably run thousands of races. But the single race that I’m most proud is a 10K. Yes, a 10K. I ran it with my daughter on her 10th birthday.

I was born in Korea and left before my first birthday.

I once attended a birthday party where Danny Kaye dropped in to entertain the birthday boy and his guests; I was sometimes taken for lunch on Saturdays by my father to The Brown Derby; and my favorite meal is still the Cobb salad in the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

I find the violence in PG13 movies unbearable. This kid will never run home, never have another birthday. His death is slow, nightmarish. And you have to explore the consequences – the people who live on with this death.

I’ve never looked forward to a birthday like I’m looking forward to my new daughter’s birthday, because two days after that is when I can apply for reinstatement.

If someone close to me forgets my birthday, I am heartbroken.

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

When I retired from the NFL, my son was born on my birthday two weeks later, which is Valentine’s Day. Imagine having a son born on your birthday.

You know you’re getting old when you get that one candle on the cake. It’s like, ‘See if you can blow this out.’

New Year’s Day is every man‘s birthday.

Towards the tail end of primary school, I was pulled aside by my headteacher and told I was joining a scheme for ‘gifted and talented‘ children, that would run from my 10th birthday until I was 16.

I am the guy dressing up in, you know, the caveman outfit for the kids’ birthday parties.

I avoid oily food and in fact my friends get mad at me as I don’t have cake even on my own birthday. I do have a sweet tooth though for chocolates.

I know that might sound silly coming from someone my age, but I remember on my 14th birthday having a crisis like my mom should be having. I kept thinking that I was getting older, and I haven‘t really accomplished anything. I remember thinking that I better accomplish something real soon.

We Kapoors are very family-minded people. For us only family is important and we make it a point to attend each other’s birthday parties and special occasions.

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.

First I wanted number seven since my roll number in school was seven. But, someone was already wearing jersey number seven. Then a BCCI manager said I should take 18 since my birthday is on 18 July. At that time, I didn’t know that Virat Kohli also wears number 18.

One of the shocks of a 50th birthday is realizing the fundamental fact that your youth is irrevocably over.

I kept a diary right after I was born. Day 1: Tired from the move. Day 2: Everyone thinks I’m an idiot.

I was a fortnight away from my 16th birthday when the fabled 2005 Ashes series ended. My hero-worship throughout it belonged to Ian Bell – though I don’t think I’ve ever made that abundantly clear to him.

I started running around my 30th birthday. I wanted to lose weight; I didn’t anticipate the serenity. Being in motion, suddenly my body was busy and so my head could work out some issues I had swept under a carpet of wine and cheese. Good therapy, that’s a good run.

I actually visit the temple every day but I genuinely don’t understand the importance that people give to their birthdays or any special day, be it a festival or a birthday.

Citizens, thank you for all your birthday wishes. I am 88 years old today and still lucky to live in the greatest city in the world.

I hate my birthday. I don’t like to celebrate it much. But, if someone wants to throw me a surprise party, that normally works better.

Sophie
I’m not really big on gifts. I like giving back on my birthday.

The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.

My first paying job might have been doing a play, actually. My mom paid me to dress up as a flounder at my sister’s ‘Little Mermaid‘ – themed birthday party when I was little.

It was my 16th birthday – my mom and dad gave me my Goya classical guitar that day. I sat down, wrote this song, and I just knew that that was the only thing I could ever really do – write songs and sing them to people.

I played rugby for years, and I had a rugby jacket that I lost when I was 14. Somehow, my brother found it in storage 15 years later, and he gave it back to me for my 30th birthday. That was amazing and probably one of the best gifts I’ve ever received.

The 20th anniversary of my dad David’s death coincided with my 50th Test cap and for it to be my mum Janet’s birthday, too, made it an emotional few days. It was not an easy week, being the Pink Test and my mum having had breast cancer twice.

The first comic book I ever read was an issue of ‘Legion of Super-Heroes‘ where the earth was surrounded by all of these chains. I remember the cover; I got it at a birthday party.

Jonathan Hickman
In 1993 my birthday present was a star on Hollywood‘s Walk of Fame.

Even when I was an engineer, I was a comic on my job. At birthday and holiday parties, I was the one scheduling and emceeing. If you work on your gift, and you’re good, it will shine through.

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.

My son told me to stop singing ‘Happy Birthday’ when he was 4.

A friend never defends a husband who gets his wife an electric skillet for her birthday.

Early on, when my wife and I were dating, we went to the grocery store, and I told her that sometimes I just buy birthday cakes, and I eat them. And she said: ‘Really? I do, too.’

Facebook has gone from a nice-and-boring social network to becoming an identity layer of the web. It is where nearly a billion people are depositing the artifacts of civilization in the 21st century – photos, videos, and birthday wishes.

For my 50th birthday, I got ahold of a new print of ‘Saturday Night Fever.’ I see it much more as a tough coming-of-age movie than as a disco story.

Gene Siskel