OLD AGE QUOTES IV
quotations about old age
Old men, what are they? Fast fading the leaf,
Three-footed they walk, yet frail as a child,
As a dream set afloat in the daylight.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
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 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
Few know how to be old.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
And now the end is near
And so I face the final curtain,
I'll state my case of which I'm certain.
I've lived a life that's full, I traveled each and ev'ry highway,
And more, much more than this. I did it my way.
FRANK SINATRA
My Way
It cuts one sadly to see the grief of old people; they've no way o' working it off; and the new spring brings no new shoots out on the withered tree.
GEORGE ELIOT
Adam Bede
We can't bust heads like we used to. But we have our ways. One trick is to tell stories that don't go anywhere. Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m'shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Gimme five bees for a quarter," you'd say. Now where were we... oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have any white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones ...
GRAMPA SIMPSON
"Last Exit to Springfield", The Simpsons
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
When you're my age, you have the feeling sometimes that you're seeing the show come round again.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
interview, The Paris Review, summer 1997
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
No man loves life like him that's growing old.
SOPHOCLES
fragment, Acrisius
Until thirty we live through curiosity, after that out of sheer spite and bravado.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
Old age ought to be, and essentially is a manifestation of what is hidden in the depths of man's nature. It might be, it should be, not an exhibition of crackling impotence and gloomy decay, but the very crown and ripening of life--the symbol of maturity, not of dissolution.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Age is information failure. The body loses fluency.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Stone Gods
I used to think I preferred getting old to the alternative, but now I'm not sure. Sometimes the monotony of bingo and sing-alongs and ancient dusty people parked in the hallway in wheelchairs makes me long for death. Particularly when I remember that I'm one of the ancient dusty people, filed away like some worthless tchotchke.
SARA GRUEN
Water for Elephants
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
The real affliction of old age is remorse.
CESARE PAVESE
The Moon and the Bonfire
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
Age is never so old as youth would measure it.
JACK LONDON
"The Wit of Porportuk"
As life runs on, the road grows strange
With faces new, and near the end
The milestones into headstones change,
'Neath every one a friend.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Sixty-eighth Birthday