Why, on my mother's birthday, am I thinking about 'Father Knows Best?' At our house, mother knew best at least as often as father did, but then the title of the old sitcom, a homogenized portrait of American family life, was meant to be slightly sardonic.

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 really thought to myself, 'If I'm going to do anything in this world, I am going to be the best I can be.' I have a tennis coach that has taken me as far as my body can go. I hired a private skiing coach during my birthday week. I have a private yoga instructor. I just don't understand why you wouldn't give yourself every advantage.

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 get uncomfortable when people give me presents and watch me open them. I don't have birthday parties, because the idea of a group of people singing and looking at me while I'm blowing out candles gives me hives.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I don't like my birthday. I don't like things that are directed towards me. It took me a long time to get over people asking me to write my name in the book.

I must have been yearning for some Jewish content beyond my genetic makeup because soon after my 21st birthday, I noticed I was no longer dating WASPs.

On my birthday, I was in Milan for the collections.

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

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

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.

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 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.

They decided as part of my 75th birthday celebrations that I would be entitled to fly first class. I'll be honest, I'm not good at flying anymore. To my credit, I can stretch out on two coach seats.

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.

Prince Charles was once obsessed with a particular beauty, Anna Wallace, and couldn't understand why she walked out on him after he spent the evening dancing with Camilla at the Queen Mother's 80th birthday party.

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 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.

One I built when I was a kid, and it was a real miniature of Disneyland. I fell in love with the park when I went there with my parents on my 12th birthday.

I went to a rare live Van Dyke show and met him there. And then he came to a show of mine and we spoke back stage. The third time was at Brian Wilson's birthday party.

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

I'm trying to get the record that I made at my birthday party last year, trying to get that out, and the lawyers are diddling around with it and it probably won't be out until next year. I don't know.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There weren't any astronauts until I was about 10. Yuri Gagarin went into space right around my 10th birthday.

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

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 still sends a cake to the office for my birthday.

I lost twins at 14 weeks, and I had to have an D and C on my birthday.

Even when I was a kid, I had a good thing with kids. To this day, if I go to a birthday party with one of my kids, I swear to you, I am so much happier hanging out with my kids and their friends than talking to the grown-ups.

If you've been running a business for 38 years, you're approaching your 66th birthday, you've never owed a man a penny or done anyone any grievance in your life, and you feel hard done-by and try to protect yourself and your family, but go to prison, well if that's the society we're living in, I'm happy to accept that.

The only show my mother could afford to take me to when I was growing up was 'Cats', for my birthday.

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

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.

I've died so many times. I'm 65. On my 40th birthday, my girlfriend gave me a reel with ways I had died, whether it was by knife, or electrocution or drowning or being thrown off a building or whatever it might have been. I've died a lot of times!