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.'

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.

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.

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 like to go to anybody else's birthday, and if I'm invited I'm a good guest. But I never celebrate my birthdays. I really don't care.

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.

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.

Given the importance of Washington, outsiders probably have an unrealistic perspective on how large the city is. The fact is, Washington D.C. is a small town, and most everyone knows most everyone else. That person of the other party who you despise will someday be at your daughter's birthday party.

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.

I wore a $30 vintage wedding dress for my 8th birthday in an underground jazz club in Seattle. This was what I wanted.

I'm not a birthday person. Maybe because I don't like to build expectations around that one day. You never know how it'll turn out to be.

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.

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

I love having my birthday at Australia Zoo.

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

My biggest hero, Gregory Peck, was my birthday present on April 14, 1973. I just sat and stared at him.

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.

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.

I celebrated my 18th birthday in Japan, which was quite memorable; I was quite fascinated by the different traditions and the culture; it was so completely different to Australian culture.

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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'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 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.

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

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

We kind of look at music as something very natural in people's lives. I mean, most of us can relate to music in some sort of shape and form, and if you think about it, most of us remember the first time we kissed someone, what kind of music was playing or the song that was playing on our friend's birthday.

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.

I think the best thing about my job is that I have my life documented, which not many people get to have. They have a photo here and there and maybe some video footage from a birthday. My kids will be able to see me growing up.

Having a birthday around the holidays was never easy and, with every successive year, it felt more and more as if celebrating my birthday got thrown into the December holiday mix as an afterthought.

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 had been offered a Hollywood contract before my 18th birthday. It gave me the spark I needed.

My mom FedExes a red velvet cake she makes from scratch to me every birthday.

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

This is a wonderful way to celebrate an 80th birthday... I wanted to be 65 again, but they wouldn't let me - Homeland Security.

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

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

My great-grandmother lived to be 100 years old, so I got to know her. She always sent us birthday cards that had $2 bills inside - we kept them for good luck.

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.

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

Less than two weeks before my 34th birthday, I bought pots. Most people were amazed that I did not previously own pots, but that was before I explained that I had never used my oven, and used my stovetop for my dishrack.

In 1993 my birthday present was a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

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

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.

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

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.