Old Age Quotes - Page 15

• certain very old people reach an age where every funeral becomes some sort of insane confirmation of strength, rather than of vulnerability, as it is when we are in our thirties or forties and our friends die.

  Erica Jong

  People, Funeral, Insane

  Erica Jong (2013). “Shylock's Daughter: A Novel of Love in Venice”, p.136, Open Road Media

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• Sometimes [the expression] old age has a kind of harrowing beauty. But elderly - ugh!

  Dodie Smith

  Elderly, Expression, Age

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• Old age appears hideous to us until we have to choose between it and death.

  Diane de Poitiers

  Age, Hideous

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• In bringing up a child, think of its old age.

  Joseph Joubert

  Children, Thinking, Age

  Joseph Joubert (1867). “Some of the "Thoughts" of Joseph Joubert”, p.123

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• Old age takes from the man of intellect no qualities save those that are useless to wisdom.

  Joseph Joubert

  Men, Age, Quality

  Joseph Joubert (1896). “Pensées of Joubert”

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• if you don't want to get old, don't mellow.

  Linda Ellerbee

  Age, Want, Mellow

  Linda Ellerbee (1993). “Move On”

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• Sign of old age: distress at all leave-takings, all separations. And the sadness of memories, because I'm aware they're condemned to death.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Memories, Sadness, Age

  Simone de Beauvoir (1977). “Force of Circumstance: Hard times”

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• My age I will not once lament, / But sing, my time so near is spent.

  Anne Bradstreet

  Age, My Time, Lament

  Anne Bradstreet (2012). “To My Husband and Other Poems”, p.15, Courier Corporation

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• Most old people ... are disheartened to be living in the ailing house of their bodies, to be limited physically and economically, to feel an encumbrance to others - guests who didn't have the good manners to leave when the party was over.

  Barbara Walters

  Party, People, House

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• About the only good thing you can say about old age is, it's better than being dead!

  Stephen Leacock

  Age, Aging, Good Things

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• Getting old in America ... best to do it somewhere else.

  Nicole Hollander

  America, Somewhere Else, Age

  Nicole Hollander (2007). “Tales of Graceful Aging from the Planet Denial”

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• the country of the aged is a land few people think very hard and seriously about before the time of life when they sense that they're arriving there. Somehow, throughout much of life, being old seems to be something that happens to other people.

  Maggie Scarf

  Country, Thinking, Land

  Maggie Scarf (1980). “Unfinished business: pressure points in the lives of women”, Doubleday Books

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• Oh, I never meant, in my old age, to become subject to the thrall of a love like this; it is almost dreadful, so absorbing, so stirring down to the deeps. For the tiny creature is so old and wise and sweet, and so fascinating in his sturdy common sense and clear intelligence; and his affection for me is a wonderful, exquisite thing, the sweetest flower that has bloomed for me in all my life through.

  Celia Thaxter

  Wise, Sweet, Flower

  Celia Thaxter (1896). “Letters of Celia Thaxter”

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• nobody ever intends to be old.

  Marie Corelli

  Age

  Marie Corelli (19??). “Jane: A Social Incident”, p.27, Health Research Books

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• Why the increasing emphasis by professional age experts and the media on - and public acceptance of - the nursing home as the locus of age when, in fact, more than ninety percent of those over sixty-five continue to live in the community?

  Betty Friedan

  Home, Nursing, Acceptance

  Betty Friedan (2006). “Fountain of Age”, p.68, Simon and Schuster

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• What fortune teller would ever have had the nerve to predict that the best years of my life would turn out to be my old age?

  Helene Hanff

  Years, Age, Nerves

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• Another secret we carry is that though drab outside - wreckage to the eye, mirrors a mortification - inside we flame with a wild life that is almost incommunicable.

  Florida Scott-Maxwell

  Eye, Mirrors, Flames

  Florida Scott-Maxwell (2013). “Measure of My Days”, p.21, Knopf

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• The search of the Holy Grail or the voyage towards a new continent never enlisted so much energy and so much faith as does this pursuit of youth by old age. It is a race not of the fleet but of the most credulous.

  Elisabeth Marbury

  Race, Holy Grail, Age

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• However constant the visitations of sickness and bereavement, the fall of the year is most thickly strewn with the fall of human life. Everywhere the spirit of some sad power seems to direct the time; it hides from us the blue heavens, it makes the green wave turbid; it walks through the fields, and lays the damp ungathered harvest low; it cries out in the night wind and the shrill hail; it steals the summer bloom from the infant cheek; it makes old age shiver to the heart; it goes to the churchyard, and chooses many a grave.

  James Martineau

  Summer, Fall, Heart

  James Martineau (1858). “Endeavors after the Christian life: discourses”, p.227

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• Then there's that 'You're only as old as you feel' business, which is true to a point, but you can't be Shirley Temple on the Good Ship Lollipop forever. Sooner or later, dammit, you're old.

  Joan Crawford

  Forever, Age, Lollipop

  Roy Newquist, Joan Crawford (1980). “Conversations with Joan Crawford”

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• Old age is somewhat like dieting. Every day there is less of us to be observed.

  Doris Grumbach

  Age, Dieting

  Doris Grumbach (2014). “Fifty Days of Solitude: A Memoir”, p.9, Open Road Media

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• Old age is an island surrounded by death.

  Juan Montalvo

  Islands, Age

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• One thing they don't tell you about growing old - you don't feel old, you just feel like yourself. And it's true. I don't feel eighty-nine years old. I simply am eighty-nine years old.

  Betty White

  Years, Age, Growing

  Betty White (2011). “If You Ask Me: (And of Course You Won't)”, p.143, Penguin

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• All who live to a good old age have a genius for sleep.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Sleep, Age, Genius

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ann Dexter Gordon (2006). “The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: When clowns make laws for queens, 1880-1887”, p.114, Rutgers University Press

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• Old age was growing inside me. It kept catching my eye from the depths of the mirror. I was paralyzed sometimes as I saw it making its way toward me so steadily when nothing inside me was ready for it.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Eye, Mirrors, Age

  Simone de Beauvoir (1977). “Force of circumstance”

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