“The summer has ended. The garden withers. The mornings become chill. I am thirty, I am thirty-four -the years turn dry as leaves.”

“Waking up, at forty years old, had become somewhat difficult, not only that morning, but since he was thirty.”

José Baroja book Un hijo de perra y otros cuentos

“[Same-sex marriage] is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, thirty years. I am not understating that.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

“It took Ireland thirty years to become an overnight success.”

Bertie Ahern (1951) Irish politician, 10th Taoiseach of Ireland

“It is a real chill out,
The genuine thing.
I am not deceived, I do not think it is still summer
Because sun stays and birds continue to sing.”

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) American writer

“I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was.”

Julia Child (1921–2004) American chef

“After thirty years of looking at new work in galleries and even newer work in studios, I am very familiar with the experience of being completely at a loss when confronting a new idea or image.”

Nicholas Serota (1946) British curator

“The Group was the best thing professionally that ever happened to me. I met two wonderful men. Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman, both of whom were around thirty years old. They were magnetic, fearless leaders. During the summer I was an apprentice, they were entertaining in a Jewish summer camp… At the end of the summer they said to me: "You may have talent for something, but it's certainly not acting.”

Elia Kazan (1909–2003) Greek-American film and theatre director, film and theatrical producer, screenwriter, novelist

“A gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years.”

Mark Twain book A Tramp Abroad

“It's too late. Seventeen-year-olds don't need fathers.
Oh god. I'm thirty-four years old and I need a father. I can't even begin to think what my daughter needs.”

Melina Marchetta book Looking for Alibrandi