“I still forget, sometimes, that I am no longer 12 years old.”
Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright
Xiomara Castro (2021) cited in: " Xiomara Castro poised to become first female president of Honduras https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/29/xiomara-castro-declares-victory-in-honduras-presidential-election" in The Guardian, 29 November 2021.
“I still forget, sometimes, that I am no longer 12 years old.”
Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright
Samy Vellu (1936) Malaysian politician
on an abandoned housing scheme in Sungai Limau, as quoted in The Star, 21 November 2000
Malaysian Politicians Say the Darndest Things
Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States
Campaign speech, quoted in "First Lady in Waiting" by Leslie Bennetts in Vanity Fair Web exclusive (27 December 2007) http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/12/michelle_obama200712 <br class="br">2000s <br class="br">Context: I am desperate for change — now — not in 8 years or 12 years, but right now. We don’t have time to wait. We need big change — not just the shifting of power among insiders. We need to change the game, because the game is broken. When I think about the country I want to give my children, it’s not the world we have now. All I have to do is look into the faces of my children, and I realize how much work we need to do.
Gianluigi Buffon (1978) Italian association football player
Gianluigi Buffon, as quoted in Football Italia (07/07/29)
“Why are there age limits? why is it illegal to marry a 12-year old?”
Piero Scaruffi (1955) Italian writer
Context: Why are there age limits? why is it illegal to marry a 12-year old? Helen of Troy was 12. Juliet and Cleopatra were still teenagers when they became famous. Most heroines of classic novels and poems were underage by today's laws. Thomas Edison married a 16-year-old. Medical studies show that the best age for a woman to have children is between 15 and 25 (lowest chances of miscarriage, of birth defects and, last but not least, of the woman dying while giving birth); while the worst age is after the mid 30s. And the younger you are, the more likely you are to cement a real friendship with your children; the older you are, the more likely that the "generational gap" will hurt your children's psychology. Therefore it is much more natural to have a child at 16 than at 40.
Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America
2010s, 2016, August, Speech at rally in Wilmington, North Carolina (August 9, 2016)
Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
Source: As quoted in Newsweek, ‘Spiro Agnew With Brains’ http://archive.is/QsR1g, (27 November 1994)
Sandy Koufax (1935) American baseball player
Excerpts from 1966 press conference, in Baseball: 8th Inning – A Whole New Ballgame https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ouIk6RvUl8 (1994) by Ken Burns, Geoffrey C. Ward <br class="br">Context: I don’t know if cortisone is good for you or not. But to take a shot every other ball game is more than I wanted to do and to walk around with a constant upset stomach because of the pills and to be high half the time during a ball game because you’re taking painkillers … I don’t want to have to do that [... ] I don't regret one minute of the last 12 years but I think I would regret the one year that was too many.