Quotes About Aging

Is this the madness at the heart of it? Do I believe that if I am good to him, if I act selflessly and make sacrifices for him, do I believe that if I love Apollo - beautiful, aging, melancholy Apollo - I will wake one morning to find him gone and you in his place, back from the land of the dead?

If there had been mile markers on the side of the road, they would have clicked off the years instead of the miles: 1994...1982...1974.

There you are. The sight of the changing world is miraculous and heartbreaking, both at the same time. --But so it is for me too. The heartbreaking side of growing old is not in the things around one but in oneself.

Vous êtes tellement jeune! a-t-elle ajouté. On me dit ça souvent, et me sens flattée. Soudain, le mot m'a agacée. C'est un compliment ambigu qui annonce de pénibles lendemains. Garder de la vitalité, de la gaieté, de la présence d'esprit, c'est rester jeune. Donc, le lot de la vieillesse c'est de la routine, la morosité, le gâtisme. Je ne suis pas jeune, je suis bien conservée. C'est different.

The heartbreaking side of growing old is not in the things around one but in oneself.

There are photographs of both of us, taken at about the same time: I am eighteen, she is nearly forty. Today I could almost be her mother and the grandmother of that sad-eyed girl. I am so sorry for them – for me because I am so young and I understand nothing; for her because her future is closed and she has never understood anything.

Time vanishes behind those who leave this world, and the older I get the more my past years draw together.

What is an adult? A child puffed with age.

It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life's parody, whereas death transforms life into a destiny: in a way it preserves it by giving it the absolute dimension. Death does away with time.

No se muere de haber nacido, ni de haber vivido, ni de vejez. Se muere de algo».

Para mí, mi madre siempre había existido y nunca había pensado seriamente que la vería desaparecer un día cercano. Su fin se situaba, como su nacimiento, en un tiempo mítico. Cuando yo me decía: tiene edad de morir, eran palabras vacías, como tantas otras. Por primera vez percibía en mi madre un cadáver en cierne.

Cependant c'est là le premier mensonge, la première trahison de la femme: c'est celle de la vie même qui, fût-elle revêtue des formes les plus attrayantes, est toujours habitée par les ferments de la vieillesse et de la mort.

From the hour you're born you begin to die. But between birth and death there's life.

Pour moi, ma mère avait toujours existé et je n'avais jamais sérieusement pensé que je la verrais disparaître un jour, bientôt. Sa fin se situait, comme sa naissance, dans un temps mystique. Quand je me disais : elle a l'âge de mourir, c'étaient des mots vides, comme tant de mots. Pour la première fois, j'apercevais en elle un cadavre en sursis.

The way was long, the wind was cold, The Minstrel was infirm and old; His withered cheek, and tresses grey, Seemed to have known a better day; The harp, his sole remaining joy, Was carried by an orphan boy. The last of all the Bards was he, Who sung of Border chivalry; For, well-a-day! their date was fled, His tuneful brethren all were dead; And he, neglected and oppressed, Wished to be with them, and at rest.

There were days when I struggled with the feeling that I had wasted my life, remaining way too long in a marriage that wasn't working, and worried that it was now too late, or that I was too old, to ever have the kind of deep, comforting love and companionship I so yearned for and honestly felt I'd never fully had.

I thought marriage was for ever. I really did. I thought Luke and I would grow old and grey together. Or at least, old. (I'm not intending to go grey, ever...)

I guess that's what happens when you have no Botox, makeup, or fake tan. You have expressions instead.

But isn't that what every young couple thinks, and then suddenly, boom, they're old and bitter and not looking at each other properly?

Never to have been born is best. Everyone knows that, and a close second, once you have appeared in this life, is a quick return, as soon as you can, to where you came from. In our light-headed youth we carry blithe ideas, not knowing what blows await, what hardships are bearing down, closer and closer. Murder, hatred, strife, resentment, and envy are lurking, and then, behind them, bitter old age, powerless, friendless, with evils our only neighbors.

In his autumn before the winter comes mans last mad surge of youth.

What is it that goes on four feet, three feet and two feet . . . and is most feeble when it walks on four?" His answer was "man—on all fours as a baby, on two feet at maturity, on three as an old man with a stick.

A light tip of the scales can put old bones to rest.

Destaca-se a prudência sobremodo como a primeira condição para a felicidade. Não se deve ofender os deuses em nada. A desmedida empáfia nas palavras reverte em desmedidos golpes contra os soberbos que, já na velhice, aprendem afinal prudência.