Queens Birthday Quotes

Not one day in anyone’s life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy, or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s-syndrome child. Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example. Each smallest act of kindness—even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile—reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will. All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined—those dead, those living, those generations yet to come—that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands. Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength—to the very survival of the human tapestry. Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in this momentous day.

Wish him a happy birthday for me. And assure him it will be his last. But yours is coming, isn’t it? I don’t doubt we’ll spend it together. Until we meet again, Maven

Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword. A pebble could be a diamond. A tree was a castle. Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a house across the field from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was the Queen and he was the King. In the autumn light, her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls. When the sky grew dark, they parted with leaves in their hair. Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering. When they were ten he asked her to marry him. When they were eleven he kissed her for the first time. When they were thirteen they got into a fight and for three weeks they didn't talk. When they were fifteen she showed him the scar on her left breast. Their love was a secret they told no one. He promised her he would never love another girl as long as he lived. "What if I die?" she asked. "Even then," he said. For her sixteenth birthday, he gave her an English dictionary and together they learned the words. "What's this?" he'd ask, tracing his index finger around her ankle and she'd look it up. "And this?" he'd ask, kissing her elbow. "Elbow! What kind of word is that?" and then he'd lick it, making her giggle. "What about this," he asked, touching the soft skin behind her ear. "I don't know," she said, turning off the flashlight and rolling over, with a sigh, onto her back. When they were seventeen they made love for the first time, on a bed of straw in a shed. Later-when things happened that they could never have imagined-she wrote him a letter that said: When will you learn that there isn't a word for everything?

Birthdays were wretched, delicious things when you lived in Beau Rivage. The clock stuck midnight, and presents gave way to magic. Curses bloomed. Girls bit into sharp apples instead of birthday cake, chocked on the ruby-and-white slivers, and collapsed into enchanted sleep. Unconscious beneath cobweb canopies, frozen in coffins of glass, they waited for their princes to come. Or they tricked ogres, traded their voices for love, danced until their glass slippers cracked. A prince would awaken, roused by the promise of true love, and find he had a witch to destroy. A heart to steal. To tear from the rib cage, where it was cushioned by bloody velvet, and deliver it to the queen who demanded the princess's death. Girls became victims and heroines. Boys became lovers and murderers. And sometimes... they became both.

But Jules will not give up. Not even if it is the queens' sixteenth birthday, and Beltane is in four months' time, falling like a shadow.

Cimil’s eyes lit. “The Niccolo DiConti? What an honor!” Niccolo stood a little taller then. “Yes, I seek your assistance.” Cimil rolled her eyes. “Well, no duh. You didn’t abandon your queen’s side, risking her wrath, to see me in my fabulous birthday suit.

A noble maiden must convey dignity and chastity without appearing to think about either one. Let common-born girls tussle in the hay with their loutish swains. The future of your family's bloodline and your future lord's bloodline should be your greatest concern. Let no man but one of your family embrace you. Let no man but your betrothed kiss any more than your fingertips; let your betrothed kiss you only on fingers, cheek, or forehead, lest he think you unchaste. And never allow yourself to be alone with a man, to safeguard the precious jewel of you reputation. No well-born maiden ever suffered from keeping her suitors at arm's length. Your chastity will make you a prize to you future husband's house and an honor to your own." - form Advice to a Young Noblewoman, by Lady Fronia of Whitehall (in Maren) given to Ally on her twelfth birthday by her godmother, Queen Thayet

If the Republican Party had been in charge in 1776, we’d all still be celebrating the queen’s birthday.

He looked up as Tristan reached him. No doubt he had tears mixed with the rain sliding down his face. “It’s my birthday,” he whispered. “That’s when he gave me the queen. He said it’s because I was the strongest person he knew.

Attempts to locate oneself within history are as natural, and as absurd, as attempts to locate oneself within astronomy. On the day that I was born, 13 April 1949, nineteen senior Nazi officials were convicted at Nuremberg, including Hitler's former envoy to the Vatican, Baron Ernst von Weizsacker, who was found guilty of planning aggression against Czechoslovakia and committing atrocities against the Jewish people. On the same day, the State of Israel celebrated its first Passover seder and the United Nations, still meeting in those days at Flushing Meadow in Queens, voted to consider the Jewish state's application for membership. In Damascus, eleven newspapers were closed by the regime of General Hosni Zayim. In America, the National Committee on Alcoholism announced an upcoming 'A-Day' under the non-uplifting slogan: 'You can drink—help the alcoholic who can't.' ('Can't'?) The International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled in favor of Britain in the Corfu Channel dispute with Albania. At the UN, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko denounced the newly formed NATO alliance as a tool for aggression against the USSR. The rising Chinese Communists, under a man then known to Western readership as Mao Tze-Tung, announced a limited willingness to bargain with the still-existing Chinese government in a city then known to the outside world as 'Peiping.' All this was unknown to me as I nuzzled my mother's breast for the first time, and would certainly have happened in just the same way if I had not been born at all, or even conceived. One of the newspaper astrologists for that day addressed those whose birthday it was: There are powerful rays from the planet Mars, the war god, in your horoscope for your coming year, and this always means a chance to battle if you want to take it up. Try to avoid such disturbances where women relatives or friends are concerned, because the outlook for victory upon your part in such circumstances is rather dark. If you must fight, pick a man! Sage counsel no doubt, which I wish I had imbibed with that same maternal lactation, but impartially offered also to the many people born on that day who were also destined to die on it.

But— “Don’t you have a birthday party to be at?

What do you most want for your birthday picnic, Admiral?” Taken by surprise, he answered honestly: “No casualties.

I can hang on for five more minutes, right? And if I do, then maybe I’ll treat myself to Dairy Queen on the way home for keeping my mouth shut for once.

In the restaurant kitchen, August meant lobsters, blackberries, silver queen corn, and tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. In honor of the last year of the restaurant, Fiona was creating a different tomato special for each day of the month. The first of August (two hundred and fifty covers on the book, eleven reservation wait list) was a roasted yellow tomato soup. The second of August (two hundred and fifty covers, seven reservation wait list) was tomato pie with a Gruyère crust. On the third of August, Ernie Otemeyer came in with his wife to celebrate his birthday and since Ernie liked food that went with his Bud Light, Fiona made a Sicilian pizza- a thick, doughy crust, a layer of fresh buffalo mozzarella, topped with a voluptuous tomato-basil sauce. One morning when she was working the phone, Adrienne stepped into the kitchen hoping to get a few minutes with Mario, and she found Fiona taking a bite out of red ripe tomato like it was an apple. Fiona held the tomato out. "I'd put this on the menu," she said. "But few would understand.

His birthday comes in thirty-three days,' Ke'heops said. 'The viziers have already announced their gift; they will present him with the severed head of the blasphemous Queen Ginevra of Darome.' … 'Who is he?' … 'God.

If you’ve a story, make sure it’s a whole one, with details close to hand. It’s the difference between a successful lie and getting caught. —From A Workbook for a Young Spy, written and illustrated by Aly’s father and given to her on her sixth birthday

Well, take e-mail for example. People don’t write to each other anymore, do they? Once my generation’s gone, the written letter will be consigned to social history. Tell me, Jefferson. When did you last write a letter?’ Tayte had to think about it. When the occasion came to him, he smiled, wide and cheesy. ‘It was to you,’ he said. ‘I wrote you on your sixtieth birthday.’ ‘That was five years ago.’ ‘I still wrote you.’ Marcus looked sympathetic. ‘It was an e-mail.’ ‘Was it?’ Marcus nodded. ‘You see my point? Letters are key to genealogical research, and they’re becoming obsolete. Photographs are going the same way.’ He looked genuinely saddened by the thought. ‘How many connections have you made going through boxes of old letters and faded sepia photographs? How many assignments would have fallen flat without them?’ ‘Too many,’ Tayte agreed. ‘I can’t see genealogists of the future fervently poring over their clients’ old e-mails, can you? Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the excitement and the scent of time that so often accompanies the discovery?’ He had Tayte there, too. Tayte’s methods were straight out of the ‘Marcus Brown School of Family History.’ Tripping back into the past through an old letter and a few photographs represented everything he loved about his work. It wouldn’t be the same without the sensory triggers he currently took for granted.

Not that I’ll be in school much longer. My eighteenth birthday is coming, and with it, conscription. I’m not apprenticed, I don’t have a job, so I’m going to be sent to the war like all the other idle ones. It’s no wonder there’s no work left, what with every man, woman, and child trying to stay out of the army.

He smiled at me, and it was a thing of dark malevolence. “It means,” he said, “that we can double date. Just the four of us. Doesn’t that sound like fun?” And I thought there was a distinct possibility that I would rather be waterboarded. With bleach. On my birthday. In Kentucky. “Great,” I said. “Super great. Like, the greatest idea you’ve ever had.

Twelve men. A virgin queen. One arranged marriage. The first time I met the boys of the Zodiac Brotherhood, I was forced to my knees for the introduction. Still grieving the death of my parents, I was a child queen, a pawn in my uncle’s agenda for wealth and gain. As my guardian, he had the authority to arrange a marriage upon my eighteenth birthday. That meeting took place six years ago. Now those boys are powerful men.

Once Mamaw's eased her body onto the seat, pinning me in so tightly that a seat belt would just be redundant, we head out of the parking lot and onto the open road. Mamaw and Papaw have agreed to take me shopping for Mackenzie's birthday present, and we're heading out to The Square at the breakneck speed of thirty-four miles per hour. "Slow down, Frank," my mamaw commands, patting my knee. "We've got precious cargo." He eases up on the gas and I throw my head back and close my eyes, anxious and frustrated.

Now, Grandma's sixtieth birthday! Long life to her, with three times three!" That was given with a will, as you may well believe, and the cheering once begun, it was hard to stop it. Everybody's health was proposed, from Mr. Laurence, who was considered their special patron, to the astonished guinea pig, who had strayed from its proper sphere in search of its young master. Demi, as the oldest grandchild, then presented the queen of the day with various gifts, so numerous that they were transported to the festive scene in a wheelbarrow. Funny presents, some of them, but what would have been defects to other eyes

To Their Most Royal Majesties, the King and Queen of Ravka: It is with a sad heart that I must proffer my regrets and inform you that I will be unable to attend the festivities celebrating the birth of Prince Nikolai Lantsov, Grand Duke of Udova. Unfortunate circumstances have arisen, namely that my best friend can’t seem to stand the sight of me, and your son didn’t kiss me, and I wish he had. Or I wish he hadn’t. Or I’m still not sure what I wish, but there’s a very good chance that if I’m forced to sit through his stupid birthday dinner, I’ll end up sobbing into my cake. With best wishes on this most happy of occasions, Alina Starkov, Idiot

For some crazy reason, he believed in her, and that was extraordinary. No one had ever believed in her before. Not her mother, who used to call her worthless every time she tried to help around the house and worse than worthless if she didn’t try to help. Not her father, who had informed her on her sixth birthday that she shouldn’t have been born, before he walked out the door never to come back. Not her sisters, who stole her clothes whenever she didn’t hide them. Not her older brother, who used to hit her but only in places it wouldn’t show. Not her teacher, who’d called her a liar when she’d tried to say she felt spirits. Oh, how she’d loved the day he had been proved wrong! She’d loved the moment when it was her turn to walk out that door!

Such is their mutual antipathy that friends have observed that Diana finds her husband’s very presence upsetting and disturbing. He in turn views his wife with indifference tinged with dislike. When a Sunday newspaper reported how the Prince had pointedly ignored her at a concert at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Queen Mother’s 90th birthday, she remarked to friends that she found their surprise rather odd. “He ignores me everywhere and has done for a long time. He just dismisses me.” She would, for example, never contemplate making any input into any of his special interests such as architecture, the environment or agriculture. Painful experience tells her that any suggestions would be treated with ill-disguised contempt. “He makes her feel intellectually insecure and inferior and constantly reinforces that message,” notes a close friend. When Charles took his wife to see A Woman of No Importance when he celebrated his 43rd birthday, the irony was not lost on her friends.

Meeting the Prince of Wales I’ve known her [the Queen] since I was tiny so it was no big deal. No interest in Andrew and Edward--never thought about Andrew. I kept thinking, ‘Look at the life they have, how awful’ so I remember him coming to Althorp to stay, my husband, and the first impact was ‘God, what a sad man.’ He came with his Labrador. My sister was all over him like a bad rash and I thought, ‘God, he must really hate that.’ I kept out of the way. I remember being a fat, podgy, no make-up, unsmart lady but I made a lot of noise and he liked that and he came up to me after dinner and we had a big dance and he said: ‘Will you show me the gallery?’ and I was just about to show him the gallery and my sister Sarah comes up and tells me to push off and I said ‘At least, let me tell you where the switches are to the gallery because you won’t know where they are,’ and I disappeared. And he was charm himself and when I stood next to him the next day, a 16-year old, for someone like that to show you any attention--I was just so sort of amazed. ‘Why would anyone like him be interested in me?’ and it was interest. That was it for about two years. Saw him off and on with Sarah and Sarah got frightfully excited about the whole thing, then she saw something different happening which I hadn’t twigged on to, i.e. when he had his 30th birthday dance I was asked too. ‘Why is Diana coming as well?’ [my] sister asked. I said: ‘Well, I don’t know but I’d like to come.’ ‘Oh, all right then,’ that sort of thing. Had a very nice time at the dance--fascinating. I wasn’t at all intimidated by the surroundings [Buckingham Palace]. I thought, amazing place. Then I was asked to stay at the de Passes in July 1980 by Philip de Pass who is the son. ‘Would you like to come and stay for a couple of nights down at Petworth because we’ve got the Prince of Wales staying. You’re a young blood, you might amuse him.’ So I said ‘OK.’ So I sat next to him and Charles came in. He was all over me again and it was very strange. I thought ‘Well, this isn’t very cool.’ I thought men were supposed not to be so obvious, I thought this was very odd. The first night we sat down on a bale at the barbecue at this house and he’d just finished with Anna Wallace. I said: ‘You looked so sad when you walked up the aisle at Lord Mountbatten’s funeral.’ I said: ‘It was the most tragic thing I’ve ever seen. My heart bled for you when I watched. I thought, “It’s wrong, you’re lonely--you should be with somebody to look after you.

What if—” I stopped, swallowing hard. Nope. I couldn’t even say it aloud. We’d figure something else out because we had to. Time for a subject change before I lost it. “What did your mom say?” “Mostly that she thinks my hair is getting too long and I should cut it.” “That’s not helpful.” “That’s my mom for you.” He was trying for humor but his voice caught, and I wondered if he was thinking about how if she left and he didn’t, he’d never ever see her again. “So,” I said, sitting on the floor against the wall as close to the kitchen doorway as I could get without Lend dropping like a rock, “do you want your Christmas present?” “You got me something?” He sounded surprised. “I’ve been working on it for a while.” “I, uh, didn’t find you anything yet. I was actually setting up for your party, not Christmas shopping like I said.” “Being kidnapped by the Dark Queen and then cursed gets you off the hook for a lot. Besides, my birthday party totally counted.” “This isn’t how I wanted our first Christmas to go. We were going to go all out, pick out a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, decorate it, watch cheesy holiday movies, drink hot chocolate, let my dad make his eggnog and then complain about how disgusting it was, then I was going to deck out my entire room in mistletoe . . .” “Wait, you mean you didn’t plan for us to be stuck in different rooms for the holidays?” “Well, that part’s kind of nice.” I heard his head bang against the wall where he was sitting right on the other side of it from me. “I mean, who wants to actually be able to touch their super hot girlfriend? Overrated.” “I know, right?” I tried to laugh, but it came out choked. I swallowed, forcing my one to come out light. “And I totally dig watching people sleep. It’s so sexy.

The birds had multiplied. She'd installed rows upon rows of floating melamine shelves above shoulder height to accommodate the expression of her once humble collection. Though she'd had bird figurines all over the apartment, the bulk of her prized collection was confined to her bedroom because it had given her joy to wake up to them every morning. Before I'd left, I had a tradition of gifting her with bird figurines. It began with a storm petrel, a Wakamba carving of ebony wood from Kenya I had picked up at the museum gift shop from a sixth-grade school field trip. She'd adored the unexpected birthday present, and I had hunted for them since. Clusters of ceramic birds were perched on every shelf. Her obsession had brought her happiness, so I'd fed it. The tiki bird from French Polynesia nested beside a delft bluebird from the Netherlands. One of my favorites was a glass rainbow macaw from an Argentinian artist that mimicked the vibrant barrios of Buenos Aires. Since the sixth grade, I'd given her one every year until I'd left: eight birds in total. As I lifted each member of her extensive bird collection, I imagined Ma-ma was with me, telling a story about each one. There were no signs of dust anywhere; cleanliness had been her religion. I counted eighty-eight birds in total. Ma-ma had been busy collecting while I was gone. I couldn't deny that every time I saw a beautiful feathered creature in figurine form, I thought of my mother. If only I'd sent her one, even a single bird, from my travels, it could have been the precursor to establishing communication once more. Ma-ma had spoken to her birds often, especially when she cleaned them every Saturday morning. I had imagined she was some fairy-tale princess in the Black Forest holding court over an avian kingdom. I was tempted to speak to them now, but I didn't want to be the one to convey the loss of their queen. Suddenly, however, Ma-ma's collection stirred. It began as a single chirp, a mournful cry swelling into a chorus. The figurines burst into song, tiny beaks opening, chests puffed, to release a somber tribute to their departed beloved. The tune was unfamiliar, yet its melancholy was palpable, rising, surging until the final trill when every bird bowed their heads toward the empty bed, frozen as if they hadn't sung seconds before. I thanked them for the happiness they'd bestowed on Ma-ma.

The most poignant lesson, which proved to be the last, was held a few days before the wedding. Diana’s thoughts were on the profound changes ahead. Miss Snipp noted: “Lady Diana rather tired--too many late nights. I delivered silver salt-cellars--present from West Heath school--very beautiful and much admired. Lady Diana counting how many days of freedom are left to her. Rather sad. Masses of people outside of Palace. We hope to resume lessons in October. Lady Diana said: “In 12 days time I shall no longer be me.’” Even as she spoke those words Diana must have known that she had left behind her bachelor persona as soon as she had entered the Palace portals. In the weeks following the engagement she had grown in confidence and self-assurance, her sense of humour frequently bubbling to the surface. Lucinda Craig Harvey saw her former cleaning lady on several occasions during her engagement, once at the 30th birthday party of her brother-in-law, Neil McCorquodale. “She had a distance to her and everyone was in awe of her,” she recalls. It was a quality also noticed by James Gilbey. “She has always been seen as a typical Sloane Ranger. That’s not true. She was always removed, always had a determination about her and was very matter-of-fact, almost dogmatic. That quality has now developed into a tremendous presence.” While she was in awe of Prince Charles, deferring to his every decision, she didn’t appear to be overcome by her surroundings. Inwardly she may have been nervous, outwardly she appeared calm, relaxed and ready to have fun. At Prince Andrew’s 21st birthday party which was held at Windsor Castle she was at her ease among friends. When her future brother-in-law asked where he could find the Duchess of Westminster, the wife of Britain’s richest aristocrat, she joked: “Oh Andrew, do stop name dropping.” Her ready repartee, cutting but not vicious, was reminiscent of her eldest sister Sarah when she was the queen bee of the Society circuit. “Don’t look so serious it’s not working,” joked Diana as she introduced Adam Russell to the Queen, Prince Charles and other members of the royal family in the receiving line at the ball held at Buckingham Palace two days before her wedding. Once again she seemed good humoured and relaxed in her grand surroundings. There wasn’t the slightest sign that a few hours earlier she had collapsed in paroxysms of tears and seriously considered calling the whole thing off.

Look at that ship. That clipper cost me a queen’s ransom, even with the Kestrel thrown in the bargain. But it was the fastest ship to be had.” He took her hands in his. “Forget money. Forget society. Forget expectations. We’ve no talent for following rules, remember? We have to follow our hearts. You taught me that.” He gathered her to him, drawing her hands to his chest. “God, sweet, don’t you know? You’ve had my heart in your pocket since the day we met. Following my heart means following you. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth if I have to.” He shot an amused glance at the captain. “Though I’d expect your good captain would prefer I didn’t. In fact, I think he’d gladly marry us today, just to be rid of me.” “Today? But we couldn’t.” His eyebrows lifted. “Oh, but we could.” He pulled her to the other side of the ship, slightly away from the gaping crowd. Wrapping his arms around her, he leaned close to whisper in her ear, “Happy birthday, love.” Sophia melted in his embrace. It was her birthday, wasn’t it? The day she’d been anticipating for months, and here she’d forgotten it completely. Until Gray had appeared on the horizon, she hadn’t been looking forward to anything. But now she did. She looked forward to marriage, and children, and love and grand adventure. Real life and true passion. All of it with this man. “Oh, Gray.” “Please say yes,” he whispered. “Sophia.” The name was a caress against her ear. “I love you.” He kissed her cheek and pulled away. “I’ve been remiss in not telling you. You can’t know how I’ve regretted it. But I love you, Sophia Jane Hathaway. I love you as no man ever loved a woman. I love you so much, I fear I’ll burst with it. In fact, I think I shall burst if I go another minute without kissing you, so if you’ve any mind to say yes, I’d thank you to-“ Sophia flung her arms around his neck and kissed him. Hard at first, to quiet the fool man; then gently, to savor him. oh, how she loved the taste of him, like freshly baked bread and rum. Warm and wholesome and comforting, with just a hint of spice and danger. “Yes,” she sighed against his lips. She pulled back and looked into his eyes. “Yes, I will marry you.” His arms tightened about her waist. “Today?” “Today. But you must let me change my gown first.” Smiling, she stroked his smooth cheek. “You even shaved.” “Every day since we left Tortola.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I’ve a few new scars to show for it.” “Good.” She kissed him. “I’m glad. And I don’t care if society casts us out for the pirates we are, just as long as I’m with you.” “Oh, I don’t know that we’ll be cast out, exactly. We’re definitely not pirates. After your stirring testimony”-he chucked her under the chin-“Fitzhugh decided to make the best of an untenable situation. Or an unhangable pirate, as it were. If he couldn’t advance on his career by convicting me, he figured he’d advance it by commending me. Awarded me the Kestrel as salvage and recommended me to the governor for a special citation of valor. There’s talk of knighthood.” He grinned. “Can you believe it? Me, a hero.” “Of course I believe it.” She laced her fingers at the back of his neck. “I’ve always known it, although I should curse that judge and his ‘citation of valor.’ As if you needed a fresh supply of arrogance. Just remember, whatever they deem you-gentleman or scoundrel, hero or pirate-you are mine.” “So I am.” He kissed her soundly, passionately. “And which would you prefer tonight?” At the seductive grown in his voice, shivers of arousal swept down to her toes. “Your gentleman? Your scoundrel? Your hero or your pirate?” She laughed. “I imagine I’ll enjoy all four on occasion. But tonight, I believe I shall find tremendous joy in simply calling you my husband.” He rested his forehead against hers. “My love.” “That, too.

If a fairy makes a wish to leave the fairy cave, she must return to the cave every year and always on her birthday to live as a tiny fairy on that day. If she fails to obey the Fairy Queen’s Rules, she’ll turn to fairy dust, forever.

As a further insult by the white invaders, an act of goodwill in the form of an annual distribution of blankets to the Aboriginal people occurred on Queen Victoria's birthday. The Illustrated Melbourne Post of 20 August 1861, page 9, described this event as, ‘a sorry return for millions of acres of fertile land of which we have deprived them. But they are grateful for small things and the scanty supply of food and raiment doled out to this miserable remnant of a once numerous people, is received by them with the most lively gratitude’.

Activity pouch on airplanes Buttons and pins Crayons and coloring place mats from restaurants Disposable sample cup from the grocery store Erasers and pencils with eraser tops Fireman hat from a visit to the fire station Goodie bags from county fairs and festivals Hair comb from picture day at school Infant goods from the maternity ward Junior ranger badge from the ranger station and Smokey the Bear Kids’ meal toys Lollipops and candy from various locations, such as the bank Medals and trophies for simply participating in (versus winning) a sporting activity Noisemakers to celebrate New Year’s Eve OTC samples from the doctor’s office Party favors and balloons from birthday parties Queen’s Jubilee freebies (for overseas travelers) Reusable plastic “souvenir” cup and straw from a diner Stickers from the doctor’s office Toothbrushes and floss from the dentist’s office United States flags on national holidays Viewing glasses for a 3-D movie (why not keep one pair and reuse them instead?) Water bottles at sporting events XYZ, etc.: The big foam hand at a football or baseball game or Band-Aids after a vaccination or various newspapers, prospectuses, and booklets from school, museums, national parks . . .

DRAMA QUEEN.

My bedroom looked very different the morning of my eighteenth birthday. It looked lonely. I opened my eyes just as the sun started creeping through the window, and I stared at the white chest of drawers that had greeted me every morning since I could remember. Maybe it’s stupid to think that a piece of furniture had feelings, but then again, I’m the same girl who kept my tattered old baby doll dressed in a sweater and knitted cap so she wouldn’t get cold sitting on the top shelf of my closet. And this morning that chest of drawers was looking sad. All the photographs and trophies and silly knickknacks that had blanketed the top and told my life story better than any words ever could were gone, packed in brown cardboard boxes and neatly stacked in the cellar. Even my pretty pink walls were bare. Mama picked that color after I was born, and I’ve never wanted to change it. Ruthis Morgan used to try to convince me that my walls should be painted some other color. ‘Pink’s just not your color, Catherine Grace. You know as well as I do that there’s not a speck of pink on the football field.’ There was nothing she could say that was going to change my mind of the color on my walls. If I had I would have lost another piece of my mama. And I wasn’t letting go of any piece of her, pink or not. Daddy insisted on replacing my tired, worn curtains a while back, but I threw such a fit that he spent a good seven weeks looking for the very same fabric, little bitsy pink flowers on a white -and-pink-checkered background. He finally found a few yards in some textile mill down in South Carolina. I told him there were a few things in life that should never be allowed to change, and my curtains were one of them. So many other things were never going to stay the same, and this morning was one of them. I’d been praying for this day for as long as I could remember, and now that it was here, all I wanted to do was crawl under my covers and pretend it was any other day. . . . I know that this would be the last morning I would wake up in this bed as a Sunday-school-going, dishwashing, tomato-watering member of this family. I knew this would be the last morning I would wake up in the same bed where I had calculated God only knows how many algebra problems, the same bed I had hid under playing hide-and-seek with Martha Ann, and the same bed I had lain on and cried myself to sleep too many nights after Mama died. I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it through the day considering I was having such a hard time just saying good-bye to my bed.

Here is the first trivia quiz question on the Book of Common Prayer (BCP): who was the only layperson not of royal blood ever prayed for by name in the Prayer Book? Answer: Sir James Croft, Lord Deputy of Ireland, in the Dublin edition of 1551, and the fact that Sir James died in his bed three decades later, despite a risky career of double-dealing and his son’s execution for witchcraft, suggests that the prayers of the Irish faithful did him a bit of good. Second trivia question: who is St Enurchus? Answer: no one, because he is a misprint, and his original, the massively obscure St Evurtius, Bishop of Orleans, crept into the Prayer Book’s Calendar obliquely and entirely without authorization in 1604, almost certainly because his feast of 7 September happened to be the birthday of the lately deceased Queen Elizabeth I – it was some learned printer’s joke, and perhaps a little cock of the snook at the newly arrived King James I.

The December 25th birthday of the sun god is a common motif globally, dating back at least 12,000 years as reflected in winter solstices artfully recorded in caves. "Nearly all nations," says Doane, commemorated the birth of the god Sol to the "Queen of Heaven" and "Celestial Virgin." The winter solstice was celebrated in countless places, from China to the Americas. The winter solstice festival in Egypt has already been mentioned several times, with the babe in a manger brought out of the sanctuary.

The Day Tara the Great Destroyed the Zombie Queen and Then Ate a Grilled Cheese Sandwich would be

people of Wales gave Princess Elizabeth a child-sized, two-storey thatched cottage for her sixth birthday. Called ‘Y Bwthyn Bach’, this was no mere Wendy house, but a work of art as remarkable as Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House.IV With electricity and plumbing, it included a working wireless, the complete works of Beatrix Potter in miniature, an oil painting of the Duchess, personalized bed linen, a ship with Elizabeth’s crest on the vellum sail and a Lilliputian deed of gift from the Lord Mayor of Cardiff to ‘HRH Princess Elizabeth of York, hereinafter called the donee…’31

When a Sunday newspaper reported how the Prince had pointedly ignored her at a concert at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Queen Mother’s 90th birthday, she remarked to friends that she found their surprise rather odd. ‘He ignores me everywhere and has done for a long time. He just dismisses me.

to live with a beast. I tried to bring him home, but he just doesn’t want to practice his reading. Happy birthday, Mom!

I wasn’t ready to be done. Emma’s birthday was the next week. I was going to sit her on my knee and tell her about the time I went to Italy with Julia, long before we had kids. Long before we got married, for that matter. I saw a painting that looked just like Emma; the girl in the painting was a beautiful, regal queen. I wanted Emma to know she was a queen.” If ghosts could cry, Mr. Grumpy would be crying. He looked at Richard. “Do you think she knows she is a queen?

Or consider how we citizens of rich countries obtain our oil and minerals. Teodoro Obiang, the dictator of tiny Equatorial Guinea, sells most of his country’s oil to American corporations, among them Exxon Mobil, Marathon, and Hess. Although his official salary is a modest $60,000, this ruler of a country of 550,000 people is richer than Queen Elizabeth II. He owns six private jets and a $35 million house in Malibu, as well as other houses in Maryland and Cape Town and a fleet of Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and Bentleys. Most of the people over whom he rules live in extreme poverty, with a life expectancy of forty-nine and an infant mortality of eighty-seven per one thousand (this means that more than one child in twelve dies before its first birthday).

A moving story of shattered dreams in which Barbara March achieved international stardom adored for her dramatic soprano voice of unique beauty and passion. At the peak of her considerable powers adverse circumstances closed that chapter in her life and living with this regret haunted her deeply and emotionally throughout her life As her thoughts centred on the tragic death of her husband Edward feeling somewhat saddened as she approached her sixtieth birthday. Still glamourous and beautiful she decides to go on a cruise and another phase in her life was beginning and what that might hold for her she could only imagine and that was where she befriends Lord Marcus Logan the laird of Glen Haven Castle on the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth 2nd and in the weeks to come on-board ship the emotional attraction was established and strong. Her life was not over a new chapter had begun, a year later they were married. It soon becomes apparent to Marcus that in the shadows of Barbara's life going back into the past and having to recall the loss of her career had hurt her deeply and emotionally, that chapter was one subject on which she found it painful to cope with and she avoided it whenever she could. Glen Haven will take you on an enchanting journey with dear friends with heart-warming thoughts of all times and a great deal of nostalgia, you will never want to lose the stories spell or bid farewell to its wonderful characters. All that I could say of the story to any purpose I have endeavoured to say it.

Life. It’s your birthday present. Open it up and play with it. Act like you like it. (The One who gave it to you is watching, after all. Don’t wanna hurt His feelings.) And if you don’t like your life, CHANGE IT. It is all yours.

Sir Richard Branson Sir Richard Branson is the founder and chairman of the Virgin Group of companies. An immensely successful entrepreneur, philanthropist, and television star, Sir Richard was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999. In 2002, Sir Richard was voted one of the “100 Greatest Britons” in a poll sponsored by the BBC. Eighteen years later, my daughter Holly was enjoying Prince William’s twenty-first birthday party at “Grandma’s house.” A giant elephant had been constructed out of ice, and “shots” were being poured down its trunk and young ladies were drinking from it. Holly found herself kneeling with her mouth around it, glancing upward to see the Queen looking down at her disapprovingly. If Diana had still been alive, she would have laughed until she cried.

From the First World War to his death eighteen years later, George V spent just eight weeks abroad. George VI travelled widely as Duke of York but for much of his reign his capacity for travel was curtailed by war and ill health. The Queen, who had never left the country until shortly before her twenty-first birthday, has visited 135 separate nations, some of them several times. And yet she had to wait until she was eighty-five to visit the nearest of the lot – the Republic of Ireland – in May 2011.

I’m alone,” she wrote, “and I want to share something with somebody.”4 Loneliness. It’s a cry. A moan, a wail. It’s a gasp whose origin is the recesses of our souls. Can you hear it? The abandoned child. The divorcée. The quiet home. The empty mailbox. The long days. The longer nights. A one-night stand. A forgotten birthday. A silent phone. Cries of loneliness. Listen again. Tune out the traffic and turn down the TV. The cry is there. Our cities are full of Judy Bucknells. You can hear their cries. You can hear them in the convalescent home among the sighs and the shuffling feet. You can hear them in the prisons among the moans of shame and the calls for mercy. You can hear them if you walk the manicured streets of suburban America, among the aborted ambitions and aging homecoming queens. Listen for it in the halls of our high schools where peer pressure weeds out the “have-nots” from the “haves.” This moan in a minor key knows all spectrums of society. From the top to the bottom. From the failures to the famous. From the poor to the rich. From the married to the single. Judy Bucknell was not alone.

1973 was the year when the United Kingdom entered the European Economic Union, the year when Watergate helped us with a name for all future scandals, Carly Simon began the year at number one with ‘You’re So Vain’, John Tavener premiered his Variations on ‘Three Blind Mice’ for orchestra, the year when The Godfather won Best Picture Oscar, when the Bond film was Live and Let Die, when Perry Henzell’s film The Harder They Come, starring Jimmy Cliff, opened, when Sofia Gubaidulina’s Roses for piano and soprano premiered in Moscow, when David Bowie was Aladdin Sane, Lou Reed walked on the wild side and made up a ‘Berlin’, Slade were feeling the noize, Dobie Gray was drifting away, Bruce Springsteen was ‘Blinded by the Light’, Tom Waits was calling ‘Closing Time’, Bob Dylan was ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’, Sly and the Family Stone were ‘Fresh’, Queen recorded their first radio session for John Peel, when Marvin Gaye sang ‘What’s Going On’ and Ann Peebles’s ‘I Can’t Stand the Rain’, when Morton Feldman’s Voices and Instruments II for three female voices, flute, two cellos and bass, Alfred Schnittke’s Suite in the Old Style for violin and piano and Iannis Xenakis’s Eridanos for brass and strings premiered, when Ian Carr’s Nucleus released two albums refining their tangy English survey of the current jazz-rock mind of Miles Davis, when Ornette Coleman started recording again after a five-year pause, making a field recording in Morocco with the Master Musicians of Joujouka, when Stevie Wonder reached No. 1 with ‘Superstition’ and ‘You Are the Sunshine of My Life’, when Free, Family and the Byrds played their last show, 10cc played their first, the Everly Brothers split up, Gram Parsons died, and DJ Kool Herc DJed his first block party for his sister’s birthday in the Bronx, New York, where he mixed instrumental sections of two copies of the same record using two turntables.

Tom Argent had once loved fairy tales. When he was very young, he had loved to read about princes, and kings, and queens, and fairies, and goblins, and magic. He even liked to pretend that he was the son of a fairy queen, or a pirate king, who had been adopted by humans, and one day would claim his kingdom. His parents had grown concerned at this. They had never hidden the fact that Tom was adopted, and they knew that all children liked to pretend. But Tom's imagination was especially vivid. He loved his parents very much, but they were afraid that this daydreaming might lead him to reject them one day. And so, they had both gone out of their way to discourage his love of fairy tales. Whenever they saw him with his books, they would tell him: 'Stories aren't real. Magic is just an illusion. Fairies don't exist, Tom. Only trust what you can see.' Then, on his seventh birthday, they had given Tom a camera, and the books of fairy tales had vanished swiftly and silently overnight, to be replaced by magazines devoted to different types of lens, in which the young Tom Argent had found another kind of magic. But looking at these images of the mysterious girl, he felt as if he had returned to the world of those long-ago storybooks, and it felt both exciting and wonderful, and deeply, darkly dangerous.

Most people found Tosi’s dishes to be charming and clever. I thought they were among the most subversive creations in the history of American dining. Tosi grew up in a suburban household in Virginia, feeding her limitless energy with horrendous amounts of Dairy Queen and junk food. While so many pastry chefs devote themselves to mastering the European standards, Tosi did not shun what had shaped her. It helped her stand out. She developed her fluency in Americana into a cheery rebellion at Milk Bar, which started out as a bakery in the back room of Ssäm Bar selling confections like birthday cake truffles and “Compost Cookies.” There were no canelés, macarons, or mille-feuilles on the premises. The point of Milk Bar was to challenge the notion that a great pastry chef had to be a French-trained dude. People caught onto Tosi’s brilliance quickly.

It’s my birthday,” he whispered. “That’s when he gave me the queen. He said it’s because I was the strongest person he knew.

A face moved into view. Not the Starved One I usually saw. It was a woman, face pale and haggard. “My son.” I gasped at the words. Never had I heard words before. “If they find out what you really are, they will end you.” A male voice answered, distorted and grief-stricken. “I have no magic without you. Please. Don’t leave me.” “My death will give you enough for five years. But you must find the mist-staff by your thirtieth birthday.” “No! No, mother, you can’t!” The woman’s face faded from view and then eyes shone out of the patchy gloom left behind.

Gabriel. Her other uncle is so rarely here, but whenever he visits, the rooms seem brighter, warmer, as though the house itself recognizes the return of its wayward inhabitant. He never comes empty-handed, either, bringing gifts that are as magical as they are beautiful. Clockwork statues of princes and knights, fairies and queens, with intricate workings and gossamer wings stretched taut along thin wire. Or, for her sixth birthday, a set of nesting dolls that never revealed the same object in its innermost hold. On his last visit, he gave her a dim light to read by, which never went out and yet never seemed to need batteries, either.

David might have hoped that his parents would adopt a less authoritarian attitude towards him, now that he was at University. But such a thought evidently did not occur to them, for they even removed from their son the small pleasure of finding his own Christmas presents for them. That year the King had set his heart on a gold soup bowl, and to avoid any disappointment, ordered it on David's behalf. It cost £150. ‘I only that you won't mind,’ wrote Queen Mary, who that spring had bought a couple of charming old Chinese cloisonné cups (price £12) for her son to give her as a birthday present.

> *where Anne Boleyn had been executed.* > > …*The stones beneath the altar were prised up. Jane Boleyn and Catherine Howard were buried quickly next to the mouldering remains of Lady Salisbury, Thomas More, Jane’s husband, and another queen of England…. The few attendees walked out of the little church into the courtyard, where the scaffold still stood. The body of Catherine Howard was left to a vast silence. In all probability, she had not yet reached her twenty-first birthday.

007: Be an angle, Penny, and ring down to Mary and tell her she's got to get out of whatever she's doing tonight. I'm taking her out to dinner. Scotts. Tell her we'll have our first roast grouse of the year and pink champagne. Celebration. Moneypenny: What of? 007: Oh, I dunno. The Queen's birthday or something. Right?

Eve taught me to look at the overall picture, to read the cards as art and intuition as much as a science. Women were more in touch with that innate sense than men. Women resonated with the cards. Rather than read the cards in order, I let the entire pattern seep in. I understood the 8 of Clubs and the Ace of Spades. The Queen of Diamonds, I sensed, would be a real person to provide the essentials of life. Then my heart sank when I saw the two Jacks, the Pretenders, the Liars who would upset my balance on the one hand, and try to exert power over me on the other. They framed the 2 of hearts. The Jacks would jeopardize my love life. I’d have to be wary in that domain. It had been quite a while since I had taken a lover. With this news, I would wait. I’d return to New York City, and meet two people who would be my Ace and my Queen. I took the calendar from the wall near the telephone, and sat down on Nestor’s chair. I stared at it, unbelieving; it had been six months since Nestor’s passing. I had spent half a year sorting through Nestor’s things, working, making no new friends, and taking no lovers. I had performed my duties, including marking the calendar mechanically. I operated in a daze. Several people had asked me if they could help. I didn’t understand, but now I knew. I had lost all sense of time and of myself, and I needed to rejoin life. My nineteenth birthday was just six months away. I would stay in Key West until then. In the interim, I would decide what I wanted to keep from Nestor’s legacy and, as he wished, place the rest.

They both laughed, and then Maude surprised herself by saying, "You've been a good friend, Brien, for longer than I can remember. You helped me get through the worst time of my life, and I never thanked you . . . not until now." She did not need to elaborate; he understood. Their memories were suddenly functioning as one, taking them back more than thirteen years. She had been twenty-five, and no longer able to resist her father's will, agreeing at last to wed Geoffrey of Anjou. On her betrothal journey from England to Normandy, the old king had entrusted her to the custody of his eldest son, Robert, and his foster son, Brien. They had carried out the king's charge, escorted Maude to Rouen for the plight troth, and the following year she and Geoffrey had been wed at Le Mans. "Why should you thank me? I did as the king bade, turned you over to Geoffrey of Anjou, when I ought to have hidden you away where he never could have found you." Maude was started. "You did what you could, Brien, you made me feel--without a word being said-- that you understood, that you were on my side. That may not sound like much, but it was." "If I had it to do over again . . ." His smile held no humor, just a disarming flash of self-mockery. "I suppose I'd do the same, however much I'd like to think I would not. But my regrets would be so much greater, knowing as I do now how miserable he'd make you. I never forgave your father for that, for forcing you to wed a man so unworthy of you--" He stopped abruptly, and a tense, strained silence followed, which neither of them seemed able to break. Maude was staring at Brien, a man she'd known all her life, and seeing a stranger. Had she lost her wits altogether? How could she have confided him him like this ? She'd long ago learned to keep her fears private, her pain secret, all others at a safe distance, yet here in a barren winter garden, she'd lowered her defenses, allowing Brien to get a glimpse into her very soul. Even worse, she'd seen into his soul, too, discovered what she ought never to have known. She felt suddenly as flustered as a raw, green girl, she who was a widow, wife, and a mother, a woman just a month shy of her thirty-ninth birthday, a woman who could be queen.

I know she means well, but whenever she gets riled up, she turns into a major DRAMA QUEEN.

HETTA’S BIRTHDAY. In accordance with my custom, I went to All Souls Church to give thanks for the daughter they told me would never come. I say I am giving thanks. But deep down, I wonder. Am I praising God or serving a penance? For each time I step into the church there is a nagging guilt at the core of me. When I pray, there are two voices inside my head, gabbling over one another. One cries thank you; the other forgive me. Today I felt, more powerful than ever, the weight of God’s disapproval pressing down on me as I slipped into the deserted church and took a pew. A force loving but sad, intolerably heavy. Saints gazed upon me from the old stained-glass windows left from Queen Mary’s reign. They seemed to shake their heads. I clasped my hands tighter. And as I closed my eyes, the words came to me in a torrent: How dare you? My eyelids snapped open. I felt suddenly very small. But even as I dropped to my knees, the voice came again. How dare you? My gaze flew to the front of the church, to the cross, soaring up before the altar. Who are you to create a life where I have refused it? I knew then that it was an answer to my prayers, to the nights I have spent on my knees asking why our family has suffered such humiliation: it was my fault. And I see it now. God has a plan for each and every one of us He creates. His plan for Josiah was a brilliant one, set at the centre of court. But that plan did not account for one factor: Hetta. Hetta befriended the gypsy and I, weak again, gave in to her demands. My sin looms so large that it has changed the path of my life. This idea haunted me all the way home. As I walked through the swirling leaves, as I tasted the musk of late October on the air, I kept asking myself why I had done it. I had three boys. Three! My mother would have given her right arm for only one. But I had wanted a girl. Another Mary to sit with me and walk with me, a mirror of my own childhood springing up at my feet. And wrong as it may be, I want her still.

For some crazy reason, he believed in her, and that was extraordinary. No one had ever believed in her before. Not her mother, who used to call her worthless every time she tried to help around the house and worse than worthless if she didn’t try to help. Not her father, who had informed her on her sixth birthday that she shouldn’t have been born, before he walked out the door never to come back. Not her sisters, who stole her clothes whenever she didn’t hide them. Not her older brother, who used to hit her but only in places it wouldn’t show. Not her teacher, who’d called her a liar when she’d tried to say she felt spirits. Oh, how she’d loved the day he had been proved wrong! She’d loved the moment when it was her turn to walk out that door!

The tension between Patriot and Loyalist New Yorkers, the Tea Water Pump, the taking of lead from houses, the pulling down of King George’s statue, the chaos surrounding the British invasion of the city, the fire, prisoners of war, the Queen’s Birthday Ball: all of these are historical facts. I wove the fictional characters of Isabel and Curzon into the history to give readers a sense of what life might have been like in those days.

Who was I? I played so many roles: daughter, friend, babysitter, runner, girlfriend. I'd been proud when I was elected team captain, but now I wondered who my teammates had thought they'd voted for. And who my classmates had thought they'd elected Homecoming Queen. Sam had said that I was someone who smiled at people in the hallways. In my birthday card just a month ago, Vee had thanked me for always being there to listen. My junior yearbook had been full of notes using words like nice and sweet. But if that was who I was, how had people turned on me so quickly? Take away the people around me and who was I? Just another smiling face? There had to be more.

Was that my fault?’ ‘He left. Not me.’ There are rumbles in the court as the Queen raises her voice. ‘You weren’t easy, but I never gave up. He can’t get to leave and then play the hero with a birthday card.