OLD AGE QUOTES III
quotations about old age
Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Moby Dick
Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth.
J. K. ROWLING
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Once a happy old man
One can never change the core of things, and light burns you the harder for it.
JOHN ASHBERY
"A Last World"
The real affliction of old age is remorse.
CESARE PAVESE
The Moon and the Bonfire
I'm like a good cheese. I'm just getting mouldy enough to be interesting.
PAUL NEWMAN
The Guardian, April 10, 2005
Old age is particularly difficult to assume because we have always regarded it as something alien, a foreign species.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
The Coming of Age
This week, a 95-year-old woman married a 98-year-old man to become the world's oldest newlyweds. They're registered at Bed, Sponge Bath and Beyond.
JIMMY FALLON
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, March 2, 2012
Softly comes Old Age, the thief,
Steals the rapture, leaves the throes.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"Scherzo"
What Youth deemed crystal,
Age finds out was dew.
ROBERT BROWNING
"Jochanan Hakkadosh"
As we grow older, we must discipline ourselves to continue expanding, broadening, learning, keeping out minds active and open.
CLINT EASTWOOD
attributed, Sad Sayings
Getting older was definitely preferable to an up close and personal meeting with the Grim Reaper.
JOANN ROSS
No Safe Place
The art of growing old is the art of being regarded by the oncoming generations as a support and not as a stumbling-block.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
An Art of Living
Old men's prayers for death are lying prayers, in which they abuse old age and long extent of life. But when death draws near, not one is willing to die, and age no longer is a burden to them.
EURIPIDES
Alcestis
Old age is gentle as an autumn morn;
The harvest over, you will put the plough
Into another, stronger hand, and watch
The sowing you were wont to do.
CARMEN SYLVA
"A Friend"
I always liked people who are older. Of course, every year it gets harder to find them.
FRAN LEBOWITZ
The Paris Review, summer 1993
Old age is perplexing to imagine in part because the definition of it is notoriously unstable. As people age, they tend to move the goalposts that mark out major life stages.
CERIDWEN DOVEY
"What Old Age Is Really Like", The New Yorker, October 1, 2015
I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
T. S. ELIOT
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
When you're five, you know your age down to the month. Even in your twenties you know how hold you are. I'm twenty-three, you say, or maybe twenty-seven. But then in your thirties something strange starts to happen. It's a mere hiccup at first, an instant of hesitation. How old are you? Oh, I'm--you start confidently, but then you stop. You were going to say thirty-three, but you're not. You're thirty-five. And then you're bothered, because you wonder if this is the beginning of the end. It is, of course, but it's decades before you admit it.
SARA GRUEN
Water for Elephants
How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand, there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep ... that have taken hold.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
The Return of the King
Mostly getting old is boring. I hate the stiffness in the bones. I was physically arrogant for years. I don't like it now that I have difficulty getting around. But a certain equanimity sets in, a certain detachment. Things seem less desperately important than they once did, and that's a pleasure.
DORIS LESSING
interview, The Progressive, June 1999