Quotes About Aging

When I was young, I was attracted to sorrow. It seemed interesting. It seemed an energy that would take me somewhere. Now I am older . . . and I hate sorrow. I see that it has no energy of its own, but uses mine, furtively. I see that it is leaden, without breath, and repetitious, and unsolvable. And now I see that I am sorrowful about only a few things, but over and over.

As I grew older the things I cared about grew fewer, but were more important.

Here is an amazement -- once I was twenty years old and in every motion of my body there was a delicious ease, and in every motion of the green earth there was a hint of paradise, and now I am sixty years old, and it is the same.

This is why you don't just stick bodies in the refrigerator before an open-casket funeral. Mack is telling me about a ninety-seven-year-old woman who looked sixty after her embalming. "We had to paint in wrinkles, or the family wouldn't recognize her.

With charm comes charm's sidekick, dilapidation.

On human decay and what can be done about it

Something else that makes me angry is that I got too old to prostitute myself. I wasn't going to anyway but it was there, it was my Z plan.

Sometimes I fancy age advancing upon me. One grey hair I have found. Fool! do I lament? Yes, the fear of age and death often creeps coldly into my heart; and the more I live, the more I dread death, even while I abhor life.

Indeed, their bodies are designed with planned obsolescence called ageing that causes them to decay after they reach breeding age – or, in the case of squid or Pacific salmon, to die at once. None of this makes any sense unless you view the body as a vehicle for the genes, as a tool used by genes in their competition to perpetuate themselves. The body's survival is secondary to the goal of

If a car can represent something, this one represents contradiction. For most of his life, my dad has been able to have any woman he wants. In response, he's gone through as many as possible, betraying each for someone younger and more absurd. Conversely, for most of his life he's been able to have any car he wants, too. In response, he's remained married to this, a 1982 Porsche with a tricky clutch.

Why would some decent guy our age wanna talk to me? He can go on his phone and find a hundred versions of me the way I looked fifteen years ago.

Women have become so obsessed with not withering, they've forgotten that there are infinite ways to be beautiful.

Our patents' old age shocks us in the same manner that our children's growth to maturity does , but without the joy.

The thing about getting old, Bar," Toot had told me, "is that you're the same person inside." I remember her eyes studying me through her thick bifocals, as if to make sure I was paying attention. "You're trapped in this doggone contraption that starts falling apart. But it's still you. You understand?" I did now.

Some of it was just a function of my getting older, I suppose, for if you are paying attention, each successive year will make you more intimately acquainted with all of your flaws – the blind spots, the recurring habits of thought that may be genetic or may be environmental, but that will almost certainly worsen with time, as surely as the hitch in your walk turns to pain in your hip.

in the state capital. But the years had also taken their toll. Some of it was just a function of my getting older, I suppose, for if you are paying attention

The thing about getting old, Bar," Toot had told me, "is that you're the same person inside." I remember her eyes studying me through her thick bifocals, as if to make sure I was paying attention. "You're trapped in this doggone contraption that starts falling apart. But it's still you. You understand?

The thing about getting old Bare, is that you're the same person inside... you're trapped inside this doggone contraption but it's the same you.

Lo malo de envejecer, Bar —me dijo Toot—, es que sigues siendo la misma persona en el interior. —Recuerdo sus ojos estudiándome tras las gruesas lentes bifocales, como si quisiera asegurarse de que la estaba oyendo—. Estás atrapada en este maldito cacharro que empieza a desplomarse, pero sigues siendo tú. ¿Entiendes?»

The thing about getting old, Bar," Toot had told me, "is that you're the same person inside.

It went without saying that trying to convince an aging, embattled despot to ride off into the sunset, even if it was in his own interests, would be a delicate operation

In fact, if you're not prepared to die when you're almost sixty, then I would say you've been falling down on your philosophical responsibilities as a grown-up human being.

Once I realized I was old enough to die, I decided that I was also old enough not to incur any more suffering, annoyance, or boredom in the pursuit of a longer life.

The truly sinister possibility is that for many of us, all the little measures we take to remain fit—all the deprivations and exertions—will only lead to a longer chance to live with crippling and humiliating disabilities.