“When I turned 60, it didn't bother me at all.”

“If you look over the years, the styles have changed - the clothes, the hair, the production, the approach to the songs. The icing to the cake has changed flavors. But if you really look at the cake itself, it's really the same.”

“I tried to bake a cake for my mother's birthday - it took me four hours. It was terrible, and I cried for three days.”

“Well, I started conducting kind of by accident. I wanted to give myself a special birthday present for my fortieth birthday, and I was living in San Francisco at the time and I started attending some of the concerts and then simply dropping hints.”

“Presents don't really mean much to me. I don't want to sound mawkish, but - it was the realization that I have a great many people in my life who really love me, and who I really love.”

“I wanted to buy a candle holder, but the store didn't have one. So I got a cake.”

“About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.”

“You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.”

“The best way to remember your wife's birthday is to remember it once.”