Old Age Quotes - Page 23

• On the day I swore to uphold the Hippocratic oath, the small hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I waited for lightning to strike. Who was I, vowing calmly among all these necktied young men to steal life out of nature's jaws, every old time we got half a chance and a paycheck?... I could not accept the contract: that every child born human upon this earth comes with a guarantee of perfect health and old age clutched in its small fist.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Children, Men, Hair

  Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.436, Faber & Faber

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• The immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a plump active little woman with a neatly-turned foot and ankle into something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon. She had accepted this submergence as philosohpically as all her other trials, and now, in extreme old age, was rewarded by presenting to her mirror an almost unwrinkled expanse of firm pink and white flesh, in the centre of which the traces of a small face survived as if awaiting excavation.

  Edith Wharton

  Mirrors, August, Cities

  Edith Wharton (2014). “Edith Wharton The Dover Reader”, p.271, Courier Corporation

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• It was rumored she held grudges till they died of old age, then had them stuffed and mounted.

  David Weber

  Age, Grudge, Died

  David Weber (2002). “Field of Dishonor”, p.27, Baen Books

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• The thing is to become a master and in your old age to acquire the courage to do what children did when they knew nothing.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Inspiring, Children, Creativity

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• Heads in the Women's Ward On pillow after pillow lies The wild white hair and staring eyes; Jaws stand open; necks are stretched With every tendon sharply sketched; A bearded mouth talks silently To someone no one else can see. Sixty years ago they smiled At lover, husband, first-born child. Smiles are for youth. For old age come Death's terror and delirium.

  Philip Larkin

  Children, Husband, Lying

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• Sometimes grown ups don't act their right old age

  Barbara Park

  Age, Sometimes

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• Thus Carol hit upon the tragedy of old age, which is not that it is less vigorous than youth, but that it is not needed by youth.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Tragedy, Youth, Carols

  Sinclair Lewis (1995). “Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott”, p.402, Penguin

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• We recived our colouring from the Norsemen,hairy savages who hacked their gods to pieces and hung the flesh from trees.We are the ones who sacked Rome.Fear only feeble old age and death in bed.Don't forget who you are.

  Janet Fitch

  Rome, Tree, Age

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• A man must have vices, expensive ones if possible. Otherwise when he reaches old age he will have nothing to be redeemed from.

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon

  Men, Age, Vices

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• I used to feel for years and years and years that I was very remiss not to have written a novel and I would question people who wrote novels and try to find out how they did it and how they had got past page 30. Then, with the approach of old age, I began to just think: “Well, lucky I can do anything at all.

  Alice Munro

  Past, Thinking, Years

  FaceBook post by Alice Munro from Sep 16, 2010

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• When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

  John Keats

  Men, Age, This Generation

  "Ode on a Grecian Urn" l. 46 (1820)

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• Writing about the indignities of old age: the daunting stairway to the restaurant restroom, the benefits of a wheelchair in airports and its disadvantages at cocktail parties, giving the user what he described as a child's-eye view of the party and a crotch-level view of the guests. Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.

  John Mortimer

  Running, Children, Party

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• We are born one time only, we can never start a new life equipped with the experience we've gained from the previous one. We leave childhood without knowing what youth is, we marry without knowing what it is to be married, and even when we enter old age, we don't know what it is we're heading for: the old are innocent children innocent of thier old age. In that sense, man's world is the planet of inexperience.

  Milan Kundera

  Children, Men, Knowing

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• Love is the very essence of life. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet it is more than the end of the rainbow. Love is the security for which children weep, the yearning of youth, the adhesive that binds marriage, and the lubricant that prevents devastating friction in the home; it is the peace of old age, the sunlight of hope shinning through death.

  Gordon B. Hinckley

  Children, Home, Love Is

  Gordon B. Hinckley (2009). “Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes”, p.3, Harmony

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• Relish love in your old age! Aged love is like aged wine; it becomes more satisfying, more refreshing, more valuable, more appreciated and more intoxicating!

  Leo Buscaglia

  Love, Cute, Wine

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• The truth was that I could not manage my soul, and I was becoming aware of old age because of my weakness in the face of love.

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  Soul, Age, Weakness

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• He had never looked forward to the wisdom and other vaunted benefits of old age. Would he be able to die young—and if possible free of all pain? A graceful death—as a richly patterned kimono, thrown carelessly across a polished table, slides unobtrusively down into the darkness of the floor beneath. A death marked by elegance.

  Yukio Mishima

  Pain, Darkness, Age

  Yukio Mishima (1990). “Spring Snow”, Vintage

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• I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream.

  Black Elk

  Beautiful, Dream, Children

  "Black Elk Speaks". Book by John Gneisenau Neihardt, 1932.

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• I have three best friends in this world. What's surprising is that they also happen to be your (audience) three best friends. They are Bachpan (childhood), Jawani (Youth) and Budhapa (old age).

  Kishore Kumar

  Childhood, Age, Three

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• Constant travel brings old age upon a man; a horse becomes old by being constantly tied up; lack of sexual contact with her husband brings old age upon a woman; and garments become old through being left in the sun.

  Chanakya

  Horse, Husband, Men

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• So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.

  Ray Bradbury

  Art, War, Envy

  Ray Bradbury (2015). “Zen in the Art of Writing”, p.8, HarperCollins UK

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• Wearing glasses for reading meant surrendering to old age without the least bit of a fight.

  Andrea Camilleri

  Reading, Fighting, Glasses

  Andrea Camilleri (2010). “The Track of Sand”, p.35, Penguin

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• I cannot, in my old age, live off pieces of my youth.

  Peter Biskind

  Age, Pieces, Youth

  Peter Biskind (2013). “My Lunches with Orson: Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles”, p.211, Macmillan

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• Travel is a caprice in childhood, a passion in youth, a necessity in manhood, and an elegy in old age.

  Jose Rizal

  Passion, Childhood, Age

  "'Los Viajes' ('Travels')". Essay by José Rizal, La Solidaridad, May 15, 1889.

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• People do not realize that Alzheimer's is not old age. It is a progressive and fatal disease, and staggering amounts of people develop Alzheimer's every day.

  Melina Kanakaredes

  Alzheimer's, People, Age

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