quotations about age
Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Faust
MARILYN MONROE: What about the difference in our ages?
JACK: Oh, it's not that big a difference. You're twenty-five and I'm thirty-nine.
MARILYN MONROE: I know, Jack. But what about twenty-five years from now when I'm fifty and you're thirty-nine?
JACK: Gee, I never thought of that.
JACK BENNY
The Jack Benny Program
One sad thing about being my age is that there are no older women.
HOWARD JACOBSON
interview, "Howard Jacobson: The later you get married the better. Sixty is the ideal age", The Guardian, February 13, 2016
Age is a tyrant who forbids at the penalty of life all the pleasures of youth.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
You know, at the time -- you think 30, you think you're old. We thought we were old at 30. And then you look back, and of course that's funny.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
interview, Backstreets, December 10, 2015
One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.
OSCAR WILDE
A Woman of No Importance
I used to think that age would bring wisdom. It doesn't, it just brings confusion. But I find that this confusion is artistically useful. It's a kind of progression, a negative progression. It's moving into areas that you didn't know were there. It becomes more dreamlike all the time.
JOHN BANVILLE
"Oblique dreamer", The Guardian, September 17, 2000
It is a mistake to regard age as a downhill grade toward dissolution. The reverse is true. As one grows older, one climbs with surprising strides.
GEORGE SAND
attributed, Reading Our Lives: The Poetics of Growing Old
As we get older, our risk grows for all kinds of different diseases. To prevent multiple diseases simultaneously, ageing itself has to be the target. Otherwise, it's a game of whack-a-mole.
DAN BELSKY
"Age is just a number -- you could be getting older three times faster than your birthday suggests", BT, July 7, 2015
Age, that acquaints us with infirmities in ourselves, should make us tender in our reprehension of weakness elsewhere.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
The flip side of the other joke about aging -- "Beats the alternative" -- is that it will. Happen. To. You. Unless you opt for the alternative, which, from what I hear, lacks flavor.
MARK HUGHES COBB
"Acting your age is all the rage"
Do not cast yourself aside as you grow old!
JURIETTA MCCALL & CLIFF DEMPSTER
Living Well as You Age: Turning Challenges into Opportunities
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"
The first forty years of life furnish the text, while the remaining thirty supply the commentary.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
Counsels and Maxims
I am past thirty, and three parts iced over.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
letter to Arthur Hugh Clough, Feb. 12, 1853
What we think of as old has changed over time, and it will need to continue changing in the future as people live longer, healthier lives.
YAGANA SHAH
"60, Not 50, Is The New Middle Age, Study Says", Huffington Post, April 16, 2015