‚Unforgiven‘ is probably an example of a script that I liked right away but thought, ‚This is great, but I’d like to do this when I’m older.‘ So I stuck it in the drawer for ten years and then took it out.

It’s not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it’s the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.

I couldn’t have written things like ‚Low‘ and ‚Heroes,‘ those particular albums, if it hadn’t have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.

I don’t write so much now. I’m getting on 33, pot belly and creeping dementia.

There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.

A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.

Nevertheless, whether in occurrences lasting days, hours or mere minutes at a time, I have experienced happiness often, and have had brief encounters with it in my later years, even in old age.

When people protest and are upset with a movie, it becomes a big hit. They hated Passion of The Christ, it worked out pretty well for the box office. So let’s get that going.

I have 22 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and they keep me young.

I’ve always tended to write songs prolifically.

Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

I’m working on my life story. I’m not decided if it’s going to be a musical or a movie with music in it.

That’s something I think is growing on me as I get older: happy endings.

Wrinkles will only go where the smiles have been.

My father had died, and very swiftly, too, of cancer of the esophagus. He was 79. I am 61. In whatever kind of a ‚race‘ life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist.

The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.

For me, writing a song, I sit down and the process doesn’t really involve me thinking about the demographic of people I’m trying to hit or who I want to be able to relate to the song or what genre of music it falls under.

Worry – a God, invisible but omnipotent. It steals the bloom from the cheek and lightness from the pulse; it takes away the appetite, and turns the hair gray.

When I’m making music, I can hear all the parts, all the instruments. I can hear what it should be.

The deep, personal material of the latter half of your life is your children. You can write about your parents when they’re gone, but your children are still going to be here, and you’re going to want them to come and visit you in the nursing home.

There’s no one way to be creative. Any old way will work.

Growing old has been the greatest surprise of my life.

Why do I like to write short stories? Well, I certainly didn’t intend to. I was going to write a novel. And still! I still come up with ideas for novels. And I even start novels. But something happens to them. They break up. I look at what I really want to do with the material, and it never turns out to be a novel.

Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

All diseases run into one, old age.

Aging can be fun if you lay back and enjoy it.

After all, life hasn’t much to offer except youth, and I suppose for older people, the love of youth in others.

The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you’re wrinkled.

As you get older, time speeds up but life slows down.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

I write music every day.

I’ll die a crazy old man!

Hundreds of people who’ve never written before send in ‚Dr. Who‘ scripts. They may have good ideas, but what they fail to realise is that writing for TV is incredibly complicated. They have no idea how difficult it is and what the financial commitment is.

When I’m stuck for a closing to a lyric, I will drag out my last resort: overwhelming illogic.

That’s a traditional Samoan dance. I was lucky that I was able to fly my cousins, who are professional dancers, up from Hawaii and they were able to be in the movie with me. We had a great time.

Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.

I guess maybe when you get past 70, other people start asking you how you feel.

Some old men, continually praise the time of their youth. In fact, you would almost think that there were no fools in their days, but unluckily they themselves are left as an example.

It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.

As much as I love the Western genre, I figured if I kept doing those, I’d eventually run out of steam on that, and that would’ve been the end of it.

I’m so old, I don’t buy green bananas any more.

Education is the best provision for old age.

Factoring in millions of people when I’m writing a song is not a good idea. I don’t ever do it.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

Getting older is no problem. You just have to live long enough.

I think it’s good for a woman to put on a bit of weight when she gets older – it looks better. But a man has to stay balanced.

You know you’re getting old when you get that one candle on the cake. It’s like, ‚See if you can blow this out.‘

The older you get, the better you get.

I love good film, whether it’s an independent or studio film. The independent films, I think the good ones aren’t necessarily eccentric ones but they’re the more specific ones.

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.

I just don’t have time to get old!

Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman, that she was born so long ago.

There appears to be something to do with vehicles and movement that stimulates my writing.

Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.

All my life I’ve been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old.

I never – you know also one of the things that would save me for a man my age, it was not that easy to lose that much weight and fall down and look like something draped.

Prime time for men is, say, 35 to 45. Then they level off and fall off.

‚Be Cool‘ was a defining movie for me.

Making a film is like putting out a fire with sieve. There are so many elements, and it gets so complicated.

‚Best Man Holiday‘ was a very successful film.