On every birthday, I ask my wife, 'What would you like this year?' and her instant reply is, 'Diamonds! Diamonds! Diamonds!' I'm always living in hope that one day she'll say she just wants me!
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 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.
I hate birthdays. I hate birthday parties. I hate them. I don't know what it is, anybody's only got to come wafting near me with a piece of cake with a candle on and I break out in hives.
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.
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.
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.
I trained to be a priest - started to. I went to seminary school when I was 11. I wanted to be a priest, but when they told me I could never have sex, not even on my birthday, I changed my mind.
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.
If I go away, I take a little picture of my son. It's in a frame with a speaker, and he recorded a birthday message for me when he was nine or 10. I can't listen to it without filling up.
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.
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.
As I approach my 88th birthday, it's become apparent to me that my eyes and ears, among other appurtenances, aren't quite what they used to be. The prospect of long flights to wherever in search of whatever are not quite as appealing.
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.
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.
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.
In January 1962, when I was the author of one and a half unperformed plays, I attended a student production of 'The Birthday Party' at the Victoria Rooms in Bristol. Just before it began, I realised that Harold Pinter was sitting in front of me.
It was actually the movie 'Rushmore' that made me first realize that I could try writing, but 'Cheers' is the best show ever. The writers on that show created a relationship that writers today still fail to rip off successfully: the Sam and Diane.
Let go of yesterday. Let today be a new beginning and be the best that you can, and you'll get to where God wants you to be.
Many times, we miss out on God's best because we give up too soon. We don't realize how close we are to victory.
One reason I love the Kindle, more so than the iPad, is that on the Kindle you can't do anything else but read. It's the best, because it does the least. It doesn't even show a clock.
