OLD AGE QUOTES VI
quotations about old age
If I ever get to 100, I'd want to be filled with wonder and wild, adolescent, wide-eyed interest in newness. So let's keep the flame burning. Let's stop thinking everyone over 29, or 49, has to be reinforced by concrete.
TANITH LEE
interview, Intergalactic Medicine Show
Just like those who are incurably ill, the aged know everything about their dying except exactly when.
PHILIP ROTH
The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography
The counsels of the old, like the winter sun, shine, but give no heat.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims
Maybe age is kinder to us than we think. With my bad eyes, I can't see how bad I look, and with my rotten memory, I have a good excuse for getting out of a lot of stuff.
ERMA BOMBECK
Family: The Ties that Bind ... And Gag!
You know you're old if they have discontinued your blood type.
PHYLLIS DILLER
attributed, Women Know Everything!: 3,241 Quips, Quotes & Brilliant Remarks
When we're young we have faith in what is seen, but when we're old we know that what is seen is traced in air and built on water.
MAXWELL ANDERSON
Winterset
I recently turned fifty, which is young for a tree, mid-life for an elephant, and ancient for a quarter-miler, whose son now says, "Dad I just can't run the quarter with you anymore unless I bring something to read."
BILL COSBY
Time Flies
This is old age! A slow and sure decay!
A tott'ring edifice, crusted with mould,
Failing in strength and beauty ev'rywhere!
Its vaults, and noble arches, choked with weeds!
Its casements dark, and chambers thick with dust
Its pillars bowed, or prostrate on the ground!
C. B. LANGSTON
"Old Age"
Nobody tells you that old age is going to be s****y. It's a kind of conspiracy.
MIRIAM MARGOLYES
The Guardian, January 28, 2017
Young he was not, so that one had to call him old, but the word did not suit him.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Farthest Shore
The most valuable result of many years is a nicely balanced mind instinctively heedful of various errors.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The habits of a young man are, like his coat, removable; the habits of an old man are like the drapery of a statue.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.
PHILIP ROTH
Everyman
Growing old is no more than a bad habit a busy man has no time to form.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
An Art of Living
Amidst all the wonders recorded in holy writ no instance can be produced where a young woman from real inclination has preferred an old man.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, September 30, 1779
Age overtakes us all;
Our temples first; then on o'er cheek and chin,
Slowly and surely, creep the frosts of Time.
Up and do somewhat, ere thy limbs are sere.
THEOCRITUS
"The Love of Thyonichus"
You know you're getting older when you notice that more and more history questions happened in your lifetime!
TOM WILSON
Ziggy, July 3, 1999
The smile upon the old man's lips, like the last rays of the setting sun, pierces the heart with a sweet and sad emotion. There is still a ray, there is still a smile; but they may be the last.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
People often say to themselves in life that they should avoid a variety of occupation, and, more particularly, be the less willing to enter upon new work the older they grow. But it is easy to talk, easy to give advice to oneself and others. To grow old is itself to enter upon a new business; all the circumstances change, and a man must either cease acting altogether, or willingly and consciously take over the new rôle.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
You can't be as old as I am without waking up with a surprised look on your face every morning: "Holy Christ, whaddya know -- I'm still around!"
PAUL NEWMAN
The Independent, June 17, 2006