The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later.

Thirty was so strange for me. I’ve really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.

When you turn thirty, a whole new thing happens: you see yourself acting like your parents.

30 is the new 20, unless you’re 20, then it’s the new 40.

Thirty – the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair.

The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.

In my thirties, I felt I had hold of one of the reins some of the time.

A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.

Men reach their sexual peak at eighteen. Women reach theirs at thirty-five. Do you get the feeling that God is playing a practical joke?

When you’re a teenager, all you want to do is buy beer. But once you hit 30 all you want to do is to get carded.

Time and tide wait for no man, but time always stands still for a woman of thirty.

After 30, a body has a mind of its own.

I think anybody over 30 plays parents because it happens in your thirties and so that’s kind of a natural progression. But I’m definitely drawn to it. It’s probably the most intense, passionate thing that happens to you as you get older.

The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed.

I’m turning thirty this year. And you know the saying, a woman over thirty is more likely to get hit by a bomb than find a man.

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

At age 30, one receives strength.

A man thirty years old, I said to myself, should have his field of life all ploughed, and his planting well done; for after that it is summer time.

To my eye, women get sexier around 35. They know a thing or two, and knowledge is always alluring.

The body is at its best between the ages of thirty and thirty-five.

Thirty five is a very attractive age; London society is full of women who have of their own free choice remained thirty-five for years.

If at age 20 you are not a Communist then you have no heart. If at age 30 you are not a Capitalist then you have no brains.

Don’t trust anyone over thirty.

There are no available men in their thirties in New York. Giuliani had them removed along with the homeless.

Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart.

It is in the thirties that we want friends. In the forties we know they won’t save us any more than love did.

My time has been passed viciously and agreeably; at thirty-one so few years, months, days, hours, or minutes remain that Carpe Diem ‘is not enough. I have been obliged to crop even the seconds-for who can trust to tomorrow?

Life is islands of ecstasy in an ocean of ennui, and after the age of thirty land is seldom seen.

No one over thirty-five is worth meeting who has not something to teach us – something more than we could learn by ourselves, from a book.

There are very few things I've done just twice in my life, 40 years apart, and one is to backpack on the Pacific Crest Trail across the California/Oregon border.

A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.

The South is the home of 'an eye for an eye.' 'Turning the other cheek'? The South can't see that.

I've been so blessed to be part of a family that has dedicated its life to public service.

You can collect all the plastic bottle caps you want as long as you give me the money so we can get off this death trap, find somewhere else and have tremendous fun screwing that up as well.

You can't second-guess baseball. You can't second-guess yourself.

There is a neurologist, a woman over at Harvard who wanted me to come talk to them, and in France I have a lot of readers in the sciences. I can't tell you why.

In all the world, rich people are very unpopular.

Some Sundays, I read it quickly - other Sundays, I savor it. I generally spend most of my time in 'The New York Times Book Review,' 'Sunday Business,' 'Sunday Review,' and 'The New York Times Magazine.' I turn all the other pages, only stopping when I find a headline that interests me.

To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.

Palin, Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and others have made an art form of convincing far too many Americans to suspend their disbelief, and they have severely damaged the ability of our country to have serious discussions about serious challenges.

As a novelist, you deepen your characters as you go, adding layers. As a reporter, you try to peel layers away: observing subjects enough to get beneath the surface, re-questioning a source to find the facts. But these processes aren't so different.

China has not established the rule of law and if there is a power above the law there is no social justice. Everybody can be subjected to harm. I'm just a citizen: my life is equal in value to any other. But I'm thankful that when I lost my freedom so many people shared feelings and put such touching effort into helping me.

Fundamentally, what you're trying to do when you're directing is get a group of people who most likely have never met, unify them, and make sure that we're all clear on what we're marching towards.

Once upon a time, I thought that politics was the name we gave to our higher instincts. That was before Margaret Thatcher, who came to power when I was 11 years old.

They couldn't wait to get me out. My dad found my place, my mom helped me pack, and my brother was making architectural plans for my bedroom. It was just what you do at 18.

In German science, we have a special problem. We lose talented women at the time they get pregnant. Some of it occurs because they are encouraged - by their husbands, bosses and the government - to take long maternity leaves.

I think I just want to garden - or kill some plants, in my case.

My only self-confidence and satisfaction comes from the people that I do meet; I have fondness for people. I mean, I like to hug. And I also like to be hugged.

When you're a performer, you have to please a large audience. And when you're in politics, you have to please a large audience, too.