aging quotes

Well, I’m in my 60s now. I finally look it, I think. People until I was 60 would always say they thought I looked younger, which I think, without flattering myself, I did, but I think I certainly have, as George Orwell says people do after a certain age, the face they deserve.

Growing old has been the greatest surprise of my life.

As I approached my 95th birthday, I was burdened to write a book that addressed the epidemic of ‚easy believism.‘ There is a mindset today that if people believe in God and do good works, they are going to Heaven.

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

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

When a man fell into his anecdotage it was a sign for him to retire from the world.

Don’t get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that – if you dare. But get older because it’s fun!

I think that as you grow up, as you get older, we can’t get bitter, we can’t get jaded.

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.

It was easy being healthy when I was young. I was full of energy, so sports and physical challenges were fun. But as I got older and the spring left my step, exercise became harder, and eating, drinking and watching TV became easier. By the time I was 50, I’d put on 50 pounds.

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.

I just don’t have time to get old!

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

I have quite a decent constitution in spite of all my abuse of it and my advanced years. I’m still quite robust.

As I got older, I guess I became more mellow and more forgiving and more loving.

Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age.

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.

When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I’ll be like: ‚Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.‘

I wear make-up, and it gets a little bit thicker every year.

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

The older I get, the more important the eternal becomes to me personally.

My personal telephone book is a book of the dead now. I’m so old. Almost all of my friends have died, and I don’t have the guts to take their names out of the book.

We grow older, but we do not change. We become more sophisticated, but at bottom we continue to resemble our young selves, eager to listen to the next story and the next, and the next.

All diseases run into one, old age.

It seems sensible to me that we should look to the medical profession, that over the centuries has helped us to live longer and healthier lives, to help us die peacefully among our loved ones in our own home without a long stay in God’s waiting room.

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

I have discovered that just because we grow weaker physically as we age, it doesn’t mean that we must grow weaker spiritually.

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

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

The person who doesn’t scatter the morning dew will not comb gray hairs.

As long as possible, I would really like to complete one marathon per year. Though my time has been slowing down as I get older, it has become a very important part of my life.

I was always very curious as a young man about why older writers who I met seemed so indifferent to what was going on, whereas I, in my 20s, was reading everything. Everything seemed important. But they were only interested in the writers they admired when they were young, and I didn’t understand it then, but now, now I understand it.

Wrinkles will only go where the smiles have been.

I have the problems of, I must confess, old age.

For most of us, wisdom is acquired in the thicket of experience and usually meets us somewhere along the way if we live long enough. But sooner is better than later.

Don’t get old, if you can avoid it.

When I was young, I could not imagine being old. My mother said, and the doctor confirmed, that I had an unusual amount of energy; and it followed me into young adulthood.

Some people spend their lives building ultimate dream homes so they can enjoy their twilight years… Others spend their last days in nursing homes.

My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.

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

By the time you’ve reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.

I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me – they’re cramming for their final exam.

How do I confront aging? With a wonder and a terror. Yeah, I’ll say that. Wonder and terror.

He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.

I don’t know if I could do this with the same energy, and in the same way – all the costume changes and glitter and hair and makeup – all the time. When I’m in my 50s, I kind of think I’ll want to be in a garden.

My grandmother is over eighty and still doesn’t need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle.

The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.

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.

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

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

When I reached 80, my world turned upside down physically. I’ve had a lot of physical problems.

The older one grows, the more one likes indecency.

The older you get, the better you get.

Mortality is very different when you’re 20 to when you’re 50.

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

I could imagine at a certain age, when I have no vocal cords left, that I would find a young man who could sing my parts for me. But I don’t see why I would stop.

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

I’m saving that rocker for the day when I feel as old as I really am.

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.