The significance of celebrating my birthday is just to thank God that I added another year. I am alive, hale and hearty. Also, to thank Him for rewarding my career bountifully. I celebrate my birthday every year.

Every day should be a festival.

Most of us can remember a time when a birthday — especially if it was one's own — brightened the world as if a second sun had risen.

To experience and live out a harmony with the world, in a manner quite different from that of everyday life — this, we have said, is the meaning of "festival." But no more intense harmony with the world can be thought of than that of "Praise of God," the worship of the Creator of this world. Now, as I have often experienced, this statement is often received with a mixture of discomfort and various other feelings, but its truth cannot be denied. The most festive festival that can be celebrated is religious worship or "cult," and there is no festival that does not get its life from such worship or does not actually derive its origin from this. There is no worship "without the gods," whether it be mardi gras or a wedding.

Be the celebrators, celebrate! Already there is too much — the flowers have bloomed, the birds are singing, the sun is there in the sky — celebrate it! You are breathing and you are alive and you have consciousness, celebrate it!

that every day should be a fiesta seemed to me a marvelous discovery

throw entire festivals in your name. invite no one but yourself. let there be choirs, let there be lanterns, let there be games, let there be cake, let there be laughter, let there be fireworks. some people make the mistake of spending their lives waiting for other people to celebrate their victories, so they never end up celebrating them at all. don’t wait for anyone to decide that you’re enough. you’ve endured every minute up until now — isn’t that just remarkable?- isn’t it?

Reaching this birthday with my health and wits mostly intact is a privilege. Approaching it with loving family, friends and creative collaborators to share my days has filled me with a gratitude I can hardly express. This is our century, dear reader, yours and mine. Let us encourage one another with visions of a shared future. And let us bring all the grit and openheartedness and creative spirit we can muster to gather together and build that future.

You know it doesn't make much sense,
There ought to be a law against
Anyone who takes offence
At a day in your celebration,
'Cause we all know in our minds
That there ought to be a time
That we can set aside
To show just how much we love you,
And I'm sure you would agree,
What could fit more perfectly
Than to have a world party
On the day you came to be?
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday.

Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday, dear me. Happy birthday to me. (And 20 more would be nice)

"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.

Weddings are festivals between festivals

Wake up in the morning and declare what it is that you’ll celebrate today. Even better, write it down. Celebrate all of it — the good, the bad, the not yet happened; the key is that you truly rejoice in the feeling of gratitude for everything.

Each age has deemed the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer.