30s Quotes

If you must know, my parents came from pretty hardscrabble backgrounds in the southern Midwest. I certainly didn't grow up poor, but I did spend my 20s and early 30s juggling temp jobs and choking on massive student-loan debt. ~ Meghan Daum

McDonalds used to be my favorite place to eat, until my metabolism changed in my late 30s. Before that, I would have no hesitation about walking into McDonalds and getting two cheeseburgers and fries and enjoying every last bite. ~ Andy Cohen

I was blessed in the sense that I got handed so much early on in life. I got a lot of the things people go through their 20s and 30s craving. ~ Sheena Easton

It really reminds me of the great movies of the 30's and 40's with huge sets and voluminous fireplaces you could walk around in. Glazed floors. I was expecting a Busby Berkley dance number. Big fanfare and all the girls coming out. I'd have joined in. It's got that scale, you know? ~ Ray Stevenson

During my 20's and 30's at some point I started to think, "I have to give it up and I have to grow up." But the truth is that I can never give it up and that's another thing that I always tell people, especially young people: don't even bother thinking that you're going to give up whatever your art or your creative thing is. It's always there for you. ~ Alice Bag

I like soap opera acting. If it's done really well, there's nothing better. It's old school. It's like what those melodramas in the '30s and '40s were like. ~ Parker Posey

I never thought about how I didn't have a cell phone or I'm in 2011. I was just so happy to be able to be a character in the 30s and there are these actresses that I really liked in the 40s, 50s and 60s in American movies that I've seen since I was a little girl. But you don't really think like that when you prepare for a role. ~ Berenice Bejo

The truth of the matter is, beauty is a specific thing, rare and fleeting. Some of us have it in our teens, 20s and 30s and then lose it; most of us have it not at all. And that's perfectly okay. But lying to yourself that you have it when you don't seems to me simple-minded at best and psychotic at worst. ~ Julie Burchill

I don't think a director should have any kids. I don't even think it's good for your physical health. Even guys in their 30s look exhausted because directors never get enough sleep. What I do is stressful enough. ~ Tom Berenger

Parts of my 20s and 30s have gone by in a flash but my childhood is with me all the time. ~ Sara Sheridan

In the 20 long, hungry years between my late teens and late 30s I bought in to virtually every new diet and/or exercise regime that hoved into view, particularly at this most vulnerable time for those of us prone to poor body image - a new year. ~ Arabella Weir

I'd love to go back to Europe in the '20s and '30s, for the beginning of the Psychoanalytic Movement, and Freud and Jung, and all that was going on with discoveries in quantum physics. The whole nature of reality was changing and being challenged. ~ Michael Sheen

For a person who grew up in the '30s and '40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, 'Here I am, read me.' Over time I have learned I am at my best around books. ~ Maya Angelou

I became an actress because my mom wanted me to become an actress. It took me until my mid-30s to realize I actually didn't. I actually wanted to write and direct and be more involved in politics and humanitarian issues. ~ Angelina Jolie

It's always good to bat at the top, where you get more opportunities, but sometimes crucial 30s and 40s can be very helpful for the team. Ultimately it is a team sport. Personal records don't matter much if your team ends up on the losing side. ~ Suresh Raina

When I was in my 20s, I used to go crazy. I used to work out two or three hours a day, like cycling; I was never anorexic, just picky. When I was in my 30s, I'd go back and forth, now that I'm 41, I'm like, 'Whatever, man!' For the most part, I just do a regular workout. ~ Justina Machado

My character Esteban is a guy who really didn't think he was gonna be there at this point in his life. He's in his early 30s. He's got a son. He's raising his son as a single father. ~ Esai Morales

Of course you do things differently in your 30s and 40s than in your 20s. ~ Michael Mina

When people get into their 30s plus "boyfriend" sounds weird ... if you really think about it. Instead, I think we should universally start using the term "manfriend" or "snookie bookie cuddles pie". ~ Michelle M. Pillow

I didn't really inhabit myself until I was in my 30s. And motherhood is an epic event. You can't help but be altered by it - and it is important to be. ~ Anne-Marie Duff

There's so many things that mattered so much in my 20s and 30s that don't matter now. ~ Candace Bushnell

I'm in my 30's, and I'm still struggling with defining myself. I'm working every day to take control of things that are out of my control, and not letting them bring me down or frustrate me, to the point of paralysis. ~ Lauren Iungerich

I think Hollywood has gone in a disastrous path. It's terrible. The years of cinema that were great were the '30s, '40s, not so much the '50s ... but then the foreign films took over and it was a great age of cinema as American directors were influenced by them and that fueled the '50s and '60s and '70s. ~ Woody Allen

For a long time, way back in the '30s and '40s, there were fabulous female roles. Bette Davis and all those people had incredible, great roles. After World War II, something happened where it was not only "get out of the factories," but "get out of the movies." That's when women's roles started to really [change]. ~ Geena Davis

I've said many times in the past that my career's not going to go on much longer; I'm not going to keep going and riding until I'm in my 30s and things like this. ~ Casey Stoner

Often when you get a really good script, and you receive the new pages, you see that the entire thing has been dumbed down. Films in the '30s and '40s, that were huge blockbusters, were very sophisticated in their language, and the ideas they brought. There were no questions about whether the audience would get it or not. ~ Connie Nielsen

By my mid-30s, I just thought, 'This is not going to happen. I am never going to become an astronaut in the U.K.' ~ David Mackay

There are so few people left alive from back then, you may as well be talking to them about the Black Death. Nobody recalls the shite in the 30s and that were fucking horrible. For Christ's sake, nobody wants to remember the shite in the 80s. It's all forgotten and swept under the rug by the newspapers and the BBC. They get nostalgic about the music, but they never want to mention the misery. It's all shite. As for the bloody Second World War, the politicians only talk about it when they need an excuse to go pissing about in one of those fucking Muslim countries. ~ Harry Leslie Smith

I just kind of had my own impressions growing up with Hoover as a heroic figure in the 40s - actually the 30s, 40s, and 50s and beyond - but this was all prior to the information age so we didn't know about Hoover except what was usually in the papers, and this was fun, because this was a chance to go into it [ during filming 'J. Edgar Hoover' ] ~ Clint Eastwood

I think the other thing that shaped me a little bit is that I really didn't have any success in music until my early to mid-30s. ~ Craig Finn

I can only guess that, for guys in their 30s and 40s who watched me play, they understood that the score never mattered and my paycheck never mattered (in relation) to how I played. I played with Little League enthusiasm and professional flair. That's what fans are really looking for. ~ Andy Van Slyke

There's a socialist bias to the consensus of the literary world: a '30s mentality that says factory workers are more worthy of our attention. ~ Jay McInerney

I don't just want my books to be about the '30s and '40s. I want them to read as if they had been written then. I think of them as '40s novels, written in the conservative narrative past. ~ Alan Furst

In the '20s and '30s, there were these musicals either set on college campuses or based on classical stories, so any of the Rodgers and Hart musicals certainly influenced me. I was definitely influenced by any of the 'Porgy' songs; I was influenced by 'American Pie.' ~ Douglas Carter Beane

Sometimes one gets the feeling that life still thinks it's living in Paris in the '30s. ~ Tom Robbins

Some people feel stronger in their 30s. I'm 34. I've noticed I do feel stronger now than when I was 24. But I'm also more sore in the mornings. If I have a bump or a bruise from practice, it takes me a little bit more than just an ice bath to get rid of it. At the end of the week, my body's ready for a day off. ~ Holly Holm

When you're suddenly pregnant and no one is standing by your side, even if you're in your 30s, it's a hard conversation. I'm a traditional girl, and I believe in marriage, and I just always thought that's the way I'd be doing this. ~ Bridget Moynahan

I was a very idealistic, very romantic kid in a very typically Midwestern Methodist repressed home. There was no show of affection of any kind, and I escaped to dreams and fantasies produced, by and large, by the music and the movies of the '30s. ~ Hugh Hefner

What I took back, because of my exposure to the Jewish music of the 30s and the 40s in my upbringing with my father, was that kind of theatrical songwriting. It was always a part of my character. This desire to make people laugh. ~ Pete Townshend

Alcohol didn't cause the high crime rates of the '20s and '30s, Prohibition did. And drugs do not cause today's alarming crime rates, but drug prohibition does. ~ James Carriger Paine

The company, Tiffany Studios, ended up in bankruptcy in 1930 - early '30s. ~ Susan Vreeland

In the '30s, every day was an event. And, as much as I love that idea, I think nowadays it's nice to have the differentiation of when you dress up and when you don't. ~ Lily Collins

I think of the friends of mine who were blissfully single in their 20s and 30s. Still single in their 40s and 50s, they seem to be contracting a bit. ~ Sandra Tsing Loh

If you're paralyzing your face in your 20s and 30s, you're not exercising the muscles that give it strength. My feeling is, laugh, cry, move your face. ~ Salma Hayek

When I was in my late 30s, I lit a figure on fire on Baker Beach in San Francisco. It was me, a friend, and maybe eight people, tops. There wasn't any premeditation to it at all. It was really just a product of San Franciscan bohemian milieu. ~ Larry Harvey

I have always regarded Mr. Bean as a timeless, ageless character, and I would rather he be remembered as a character mostly in his 30s and 40s. ~ Rowan Atkinson

I was interested about how relationships change as you get older. You are great friends in your 20s. In your 30s, you get married. Your 40s are all about your kids. In your 50s, you get divorced, and your friendships become primary again. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

The interesting roles have only come since I got into my 30s. But I didn't know that was going to happen. ~ Richard C. Armitage

I think I needed the resilience of approaching my late 30s to come to terms with the resilience I required to learn to sing. ~ Philip Selway

I got famous in my 30s. I already had a real life and kids and responsibilities, like laundry and cleaning bathrooms. It's hard not be grounded when you have that. I think, if you get super-famous and everyone tells you you're wonderful when you're 12, it's probably a lot harder. ~ Stephenie Meyer

Nothing teaches you like getting leveled. And I got leveled in my early 30s. Nothing went exactly the way I thought it would. ~ Ethan Hawke

Remember, the early '60s in London was something - which must have been like Berlin in the '30s when the arts flourished. You didn't have the differences in class, and so on. ~ Ken Adam

It was still quite late when I got married, 30s, I don't know. ~ Tom Courtenay

I'm a little older and fatter now, and I'm not exercising as much. My lifestyle these days involves a lot of beer and pasta. But there's something satisfying in letting your body go to hell. So maybe I won't get offered the same kind of role as before. So what? I'm happy to play the guy in his mid-30s who may be a little unhealthy. Fat and arrogant is what I'm bringing to the script. ~ Luke Wilson

I look at younger girls and I think, 'Doesn't she look great? Isn't she pretty?' And while I know I'll never be there again, I'm past the age of feeling jealous. Maybe in my 30s I would have been, but that part of my life has gone. ~ Trinny Woodall

Gandhi was such an important figure to the pacifists of the '30s, and he was such an extraordinary embodiment of nonviolence, that I thought it was necessary to have him in there. When he would say something about the war, it was to some extent news - and he was sure to have a response that was different from that of other world leaders. ~ Nicholson Baker

You have to be prepared to give creative work 150%. I hear a lot of young people talking about life/work balance, which I think is great when you're in your 30s. If you're in your 20s and already talking about that, I don't think you will achieve your goals. If you really want to build a powerful career, and make an impact, then you have to be prepared to put in blood, sweat, and tears. ~ Ellen Lupton

You reach a certain point in your 30s when you say things in a much safer way. ~ Sandra Bernhard

A healthy love life is not and should not be the preserve of those in their 20s and 30s. It's important at all ages. ~ Jerry Hall

All of the most popular music of the '30s and '40s were deeply informed by jazz. ~ Terry Teachout

I guess Pumas are in their 30s. Cougars in their 40s ... Jaguars are 50s, and Sabretooths go into the 60s, right? ~ Courteney Cox

The video for 'Whatever' is kind of a documentary in a way. It's showing that love can last. Not just in your early 20s or your late 30s, but in your 50s, 60s and 70s. There's an awful myth out there that when you get married, love and lovemaking fade. It's not true. ~ Jill Scott

In your mid-30s, it's time to start playing guys of compromise. And as you get older, men of bitter compromise ~ Tom Hanks

I think it was really entering my 30s that I began to embrace feminism and call myself a feminist. ~ Roxane Gay

For some reason, when people meet me and find out I'm a writer they always ask if I write children's books. Um ... please don't let your kids read my books. Well, unless your kids are in their 30s or something ... then yeah, they're old enough. LOL ~ Michelle M. Pillow

But this month is all about CITY OF JASMINE which I hope you already have in your hot little hands. My favorite review snippet? KIRKUS REVIEWS said it's "part screwball comedy".
I can't tell you how much time I spent with Carole Lombard and William Powell and Irene Dunne when I was writing it. I adore the 30s comedies for their light-hearted take on relationships and adventure - and the glamorous settings and occasional dash of intrigue only heighten the magic. (Did you know that Nicholas Brisbane from my Lady Julia series was named for THE THIN MAN's Nick Charles? And apologies to Dashiell Hammett, but I fell in love with the film long before I read the book and appreciated how much it had been lightened in the adaptation!) So when you're reading CITY OF JASMINE, give some thought to who you'd like to see playing Evie and Gabriel - I'd love to hear who you'd cast in your own production. ~ Deanna Raybourn

My first four albums covered the usual youth problems - looking for love in all the wrong places - while the next five are basically about being in your 30s. ~ Joni Mitchell

In 'Twice Born' I play my character in her 20s, 30s and 50s. For the fifty year old scenes, I had some prosthetics; it was interesting to see how I'm going to look when I'm fifty-five or so. I actually saw similarities between my grandmothers and my mother. ~ Penelope Cruz

I know that's a vague answer, but you just have to really pedal yourself around town and attempt to not get too discouraged. There is also a different kind of challenge for women, as they graduate into their 30s. It's hard. There isn't as much work. You're suddenly the aunt, or something. So, it's a process. ~ Anna Faris

I recognize very much in Hopper that it does look like the United States; it looks like the 30's and my first impressions of everything, all of which I have to deal with and which gets mixed up in my work and probably gets mixed up in everybody else's work too. ~ Donald Judd

I think obviously there's a core of who you are, and as you get older, you become more aware of what behavior is immutable. For a long time, I felt there was a deep separation between the person I was as a teenager and the person I was in my 20s and early 30s . ~ Seth

In your 20s, you feel like you're indestructible ... In your 30s, you think ... I'll be around here a little longer, so I'm going to take better care of myself. ~ John Belushi

I love when I am not typecast. I've been acting for 50 years. I was such a baby face; I was playing children until I was in my 30s, which frustrated me enormously. Now that I am 65 and getting to play women in their 50s, I am getting paid back for having to play children for so long. ~ Jacki Weaver

So many people in their 20s and 30s, on Twitter, say 'Please write something for us,' so I have to listen to them, they're my audience. ~ R.L. Stine

I was never particularly wild, just very busy and often didn't think about what I was putting into my body. Today things are very different. I stopped smoking in my late 30s; I avoid wheat and gluten as this makes me feel bloated and sluggish; exercise regularly and bounce out of bed. ~ Britt Ekland

I'm very comfortable in the U.S. and Europe, but I feel completely out of place in the rest of the world, mostly because I never spent time outside the U.S. and Europe until I was in my 30s. ~ Brad Feld

Im in my mid-30s, Ive won an Oscar, I have four children. You figure out if my deafness has adversely affected my life. ~ Marlee Matlin

I'm a really huge fan of the old romantic comedies from the '30s and '40s ... Huge fan. I love all that stuff. ~ Thomas Jane

Anyway, in the mid 80's I was spending a fortune buying old Golden Age books from the late 30's and 40's and I was making personal appearances at a lot of sci fi and comic book conventions all around the country here so that I could find books for my collection. ~ Bill Mumy

Some people burn out, and some people like Clint Eastwood, he was a wild, international movie star in his 30s, and he's doing the best work of his life now. Go figure. ~ Ethan Hawke

I think I would love a shot at remaking 'The Philadelphia Story,' as daunting as it is. I still think it's fantastic. I love the '30s comedies because they're allowed to be both comic and elegant, and the women are so complicated in them. ~ Michael Patrick King

My father died when I was 10; my sister got polio a couple of years later and was paralyzed. So there I was - my sister in a wheel chair, my father gone, and my mother a quiet little mouse. You see, it was the '30s in the South, so my mother was not prepared to cope. So I was scared to death. And being that scared, everything afterward became a struggle not to go down the drain. Struggling became a way of life for me. ~ Helen Gurley Brown

We're in crisis mode as black actresses. It's not only in the sheer number of roles that are offered and that are out there, but the quality of the roles. The quality - and therein lies the problem. We're in deprivation mode because me, Alfre and Phylicia, we're in the same category. Whereas if you take a Caucasian actress, you have the one who are the teens, in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s - they're all different. There are roles for each of them. But you only have two or three categories for black actresses. ~ Viola Davis

Nobody makes a movie about a woman in her mid-30s who wishes she could have met someone to have children with and still doesn't know where to find a date. ~ Uma Thurman

The singer-songwriter has always played music that was stylistically rooted in the '30s and the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. But the fact of the matter is that none of us remember the Depression firsthand. ~ Steve Earle

I feel really content in my 30s actually. I don't feel like the wisest person in the world but I definitely don't worry or stress like I used to. ~ Jayma Mays

In the, uh, '30s and '40s, the Brill Building was the hub of, uh, musical activity in Tin Pan Alley in New York City. I believe Irving Berlin was there, and uh, and everything just centered around there. ~ Al Kooper

You're basically the same person forever so you find the same stuff funny forever. The Muppet Show spoke to me at 5 and it speaks to me in my late 30s in the same way. ~ James Bobin

Feeling attractive didn't come until I was 29 ... What is it about a woman being in her late 30s that brings out the "Oh, my gosh, are you worried?" questions? Worried? What about? Thirty-eight, 39, 40, 50! Great! Still alive! ~ Kate Beckinsale

My family was musical on both sides. My father's family had a famous flautist and a classical pianist. My mother won a contest to be Shirley Temple's double - she was the diva of the family. At 8, I learned how to play guitar. I used to play songs from the '20s, '30s and '40s in the kitchen for my grandmother. ~ Gloria Estefan

I think polo players are at their best in their 30s. You've got the talent and the experience. You play with your head - you learn to lose and how to win. ~ Facundo Pieres

Mark Waugh, the most fluent and aesthetically pleasing batsman of his generation but also one of the most frustrating to watch. Often, when he appeared to be a class above the rest and to have the bowling at his mercy, he would play a lazy shot to what appeared, more often than not, an innocuous delivery. And just like that his innings would be over. To make matters worse, he didn't seem to care; he would nonchalantly wander off the field. No shaking of the head or staring back at the pitch to apportion blame. His fans had to learn to accept 30s and 40s instead of centuries and 150s. His concentration, some would say his interest, never seemed to be there in the Test arena. Despite playing some match-winning Test innings, Waugh was never quite able to shake the 'lackadaisical' tag. ~ Sean Ehlers

Actors don't really get into their stride until they're in their late 30s and 40s. ~ Orlando Bloom

The one thing with writing stories about the rise of fascism is that if you wait long enough, you'll almost certainly be proved right. Fascism is like a hydra - you can cut off its head in the Germany of the '30s and '40s, but it'll still turn up on your back doorstep in a slightly altered guise. ~ Alan Moore

I never considered myself an Americana artist, but I'm a huge fan of old-time music from the States, the recordings that were made in the '20s and '30s. Trying to chase down the exact stylistic trappings of that stuff always felt like a dead end. That spirit of directness and economy, but also the poetic pungency of the writing and almost ugly, or raw, performance - all that seemed like the real message. I've just tried to somehow stay true to that feeling. ~ Will Sheff

I pretty much ignored politics all through my 20's and 30's ... I had other things on my mind ... the band, finding a meaningful relationship, getting enough money to eat and pay the rent. ~ Mark Edwards

My grandfather played a mandolin, so I got my hands on that. Then on down to a banjo, and I found I couldn't play any kind of soft or mournful music with that so I took up the fiddle in my late 20s or early 30s - and that was far too late. But it keeps me off the streets. It has been a love of mine since I was 17 maybe. ~ Brendan Gleeson

I quit it because at the end of seven years in an ensemble show with one leader, I thought: 'I will be known as 'Dallas' starring Larry Hagman and the cast.' And at this point in my career - I was in my mid to late 30s - I thought, 'Now is the time when it's hottest for me to go out and establish my thing.' ~ Patrick Duffy

No, I got a GED in my 30s. My kids know that I never stop learning, and they know I love reading. I have books overflowing everywhere. I am current on today's events and I read the paper every day, and we talk about it, so they see that appetite. ~ Michael J. Fox

Beautiful machines from 1920s and '30s, when automobiles were both monstrous and sexy at the same time. ~ Neal Shusterman