“At times it seems to me that I am living my life backwards, and that at the approach of old age my real youth will begin. My soul was born covered with wrinkles—wrinkles my ancestors and parents most assiduously put there and that I had the greatest trouble removing.”

“I am not old, — I cannot be old,
Though tottering, wrinkled, and gray;
Though my eyes are dim, and my marrow is cold,
Call me not old to-day.”

“Women are not forgiven for aging. Robert Redford's lines of distinction are my old-age wrinkles.”

“Of course I am downcast and tremble
with pity for my state
when old age and wrinkles cover me,


when Eros flies about
and I pursue the glorious young.
Pick up your lyre


and sing to us of her who wears
violets on her breasts. Sing especially
of her who is wandering.”

“I dread no more the first white in my hair,
Or even age itself, the easy shoe,
The cane, the wrinkled hands, the special chair:
Time, doing this to me, may alter too
My anguish, into something I can bear”

“These wrinkles are nothing
These gray hairs are nothing,
This stomach which sags
with old food, these bruised
and swollen ankles,
my darkening brain,
they are nothing.
I am the same boy
my mother used to kiss.”

“Your hair shines like gold, says my child.
You are pretty old, says my child.
And I think to myself how I used to be.
There's another wrinkle that I see.
Then he takes my hand and smiles at me.”

“I started this book to forgive my parents and ended it by becoming a parent. Understanding backward liberated me to live forward.”

“I don't think my parents liked me. They put a live teddy bear in my crib.”

“My ancestors were Brahmins. They spent their lives in search of god. I am spending my life in search of man.”