“Old men's prayers for death are lying prayers, in which they abuse old age and long extent of life. But when death draws near, not one is willing to die, and age no longer is a burden to them.”

“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.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

“Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

“Old age is not as honorable as death, but most people seek it.”

David Gemmell (1948–2006) British author of heroic fantasy

“Everything is sad and ridiculous in old age. Even the fear of death.”

Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914–1999) Argentine novelist

“Quiet Prayer:
As long as the sun shall rise goes the old lovers vow. But we are children of a scientific age & have no time for poetry. Still, I offer a quiet prayer of thanks for the sunlight each time I see your face.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

“Anyone who claimed that old age had brought them patience was either lying or senile.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

“It was a meditation on life, love, old age, death: ideas that had often fluttered around her head like nocturnal birds but dissolved into a trickle of feathers when she tried to catch hold of them.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

“Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye
When none but God is near.”

James Montgomery (1771–1854) British editor, hymn writer, and poet

“Thirty-one.
Not old.
Not young.
But a viable die-able age.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things