“Today is my grandfather's birthday.""How old is he?""Sixty-three. It's hard to believe he was once a human being.”

“If ever I was going to listen to a string of swearwords sitting next to a ninety-four-year-old, I'm glad that ninety-four-year-old was my grandfather. Not that he swears a lot. It's just that he can take it. And, he is currently laughing so hard that his eyes are watery.”

“All through my sixties I felt I was still within hailing distance of middle age, not safe on its shores, perhaps, but navigating its coastal waters. My seventieth birthday failed to change this because I managed scarcely to notice it, but my seventy-first did change it. Being 'over seventy' is being old: suddenly I was aground on that fact and saw that the time had come to size it up.”

“I mean, what is an un-birthday present?"A present given when it isn't your birthday, of course."Alice considered a little. "I like birthday presents best," she said at last.You don't know what you're talking about!" cried Humpty Dumpty. "How many days are there in a year?"Three hundred and sixty-five," said Alice.And how many birthdays have you?"One.”

“The question, then, was how long could a human being stay awake? Keith Richards could party for three days straight, but I wasn't sure if he counted as a human being.”

“How could the Buddha have believed that being incarnated as a human being was fortunate? Had he ever been to Georgia?”