Quotes About Aging

When she comes to retrieve me [in the nursing home], after the tan-colored pudding with edible oil topping has sat for a while and been removed...

Sometimes when you get older—and I'm not talking about you, I'm talking generally, because everyone ages differently—things you think on and wish on start to seem real. And then you believe them, and before you know it they're a part of your history, and if someone challenges you on them and says they're not true—why, then you get offended.

La edad es una ladrona implacable. Justo cuando empiezas a tomar el pulso a la vida te arranca la fuerza de las piernas y te encorva la espalda.Produce dolores y enturbia la cabeza y silenciosamente infesta a tu mujer de cáncer.

a gaggle of old ladies is glued to the window at the end of the hall like children or jailbirds. They're spidery and frail, their hair as fine as mist. Most of them are a good decade younger than me, and this astounds me. Even as your body betrays you, your mind denies it.---- There are five of them now, white headed old things huddled together and pointing crooked fingers at the glass.

90/93-year-old Jacob wonders as he gazes at his aged reflection, 'When did I stop being me?

Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back.

Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse

But what else do I have to offer? Nothing happens to me anymore. That's the reality of getting old, and I guess that's really the crux of the matter. I'm not ready to be old yet. But I shouldn't complain, this being circus day and all.

But then in your thirties something strange starts to happen. It's a mere hiccup at first, an instant of hesitation. How old are you? Oh, I'm—you start confidently, but then you stop. You were going to say thirty-three, but you're not. You're thirty-five. And then you're bothered, because you wonder if this is the beginning of the end. It is, of course, but it's decades before you admit it.

Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse. Metastatic

But then this Isabelle turned and laughed and in that instant I saw my wife. This made me weepy and these people whom I didn't recognize exchanged furtive glances and shortly thereafter announced that it was time to leave because Grandpa needed his rest. They patted my hand and they tucked my blanket in around my knees, and they left. They went out into the world, and they left me here. And to this day I have no idea who they were. I

Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently

There's a lot that is awful. That's the struggle of getting old. To make sure you don't let what's hard...obscure the beauty.

Why do people...we...why do we drag around like life is so awful?' Why did they forget that there was so much to love? He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. 'I guess...because there's a lot that is awful. That's the struggle of getting old. To make sure you don't let what's hard or painful or whatever obscure the beauty.

Do you ever feel helpless? Helpless, useless, clueless. And old. Don't forget old.

Betsy hadn't had sex, actual; sex-sex, full sex, in two hundred and fifty-three days. She decided on her thirty-seventh birthday that she wouldn't sleep with anyone unless it was in the context of a committed relationship which had some sort of future, and she was only gradually coming to the realization of what happens when a woman her age makes a decision like that: she never has sex again.

Oh, where is it, where did my past go, when I was young, happy and intelligent, when my dreams and thoughts had some grace, and the present and future were lit up with hope? Why is it, that when we've just started to live, we grow dull, gray, uninteresting, lazy, useless, with flattened-out souls?

she had been surprised by a certain sponginess around her belly, her thighs, her hips, her upper arms. She didn't weigh much more — well, not too much — but it was as though what she did weigh had given up paying attention. Her flesh was not bothering to hold itself together anymore

The old continued to have one resurgence of foolishness after another, until the organism gave out altogether.

The good die young, but I have been spared to build myself up so that I may end my life as good as gold. The senior dead will be proud of me.... I will join the Y.M.C.A. of the immortals. Only, in this very hour, I may be missing eternity.

I quit thinking long ago that all old people came to rest from the things they were out for in their younger years.

I may be old enough for my second childhood, but at least the first is well behind me.

An old man, disappointed, of failing strength, may try to reinvigorate himself by means of anger.

mangoes in our breasts, which give us away. And it isn't only that I'm scared of all those wives, but there'll be nobody to talk to any more. I've gotten to that age where I need human voices and intelligence. That's all that's left. Kindness and love.