“When someone asks if you'd like cake or pie, why not say you want cake and pie?”
Birthdays are milestones disguised as parties. These quotes capture the joy, nostalgia, and mild existential crisis that can all show up when you add another number. Good for cards, toasts, or just sitting with the strangeness of getting older.
“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.”
“When someone asks if you'd like cake or pie, why not say you want cake and pie?”
“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.”
“The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.”
“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.”
“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.”
“A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.”
“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.”
“I remember when the candle shop burned down. Everyone stood around singing 'Happy Birthday.'”
“You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.”
“The day before my 16th birthday I got my guitar.”
“My happiest memory of childhood was my first birthday in reform school. This teacher took an interest in me. In fact, he gave me the first birthday presents I ever got: a box of Cracker Jacks and a can of ABC shoe polish.”
“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.'”
“Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words.”
“How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?”
“Thirty was so strange for me. I've really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.”