Quotes about age
page 8

“After a while the middle-aged person who lives in her head begins to talk to her soul, the kid.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Joe Jones

“Beirut is the Elizabeth Taylor of cities: insane, beautiful, falling apart, aging, and forever drama laden. She'll also marry any infatuated suitor who promises to make her life more comfortable, no matter how inappropriate he is.”

Rabih Alameddine book An Unnecessary Woman

Source: An Unnecessary Woman

Life, Beauty

“She was one of those Southerners who knew from an early age that the South could never be more for them than a fragrant prison, administered by a collective of loving but treacherous relatives.”

Pat Conroy book The Prince of Tides

Source: The Prince of Tides

Love

“There, in the tin factory, in the first moment of the atomic age, a human being was crushed by books.”

John Hersey book Hiroshima

Source: Hiroshima

Books

“Youth is not an age thing. It's a quality. Once you've had it, you never lose it.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

Youth

“If you've got to my age, you've probably had your heart broken many times. So it's not that difficult to unpack a bit of grief from some little corner of your heart and cry over it.”

Emma Thompson (1959) British actress and writer

Time, Heart, Cry

“A woman at a certain age who is unmarried, our society teaches her to see it as a deep personal failure. And a man, after a certain age isn’t married, we just think he hasn’t come around to making his pick.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie We Should All Be Feminists

Source: We Should All Be Feminists

Failure, Thinking, Personality

“I was tired of seeing the Graces always depicted as beautiful young things. I think wisdom comes with age and life and pain. And knowing what matters.”

Louise Penny book A Fatal Grace

Source: A Fatal Grace

Life, Wisdom, Pain, Beauty

“Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are a cheese you dingus”

Luis Buñuel (1900–1983) film director

Mon Dernier soupir (My Last Sigh, 1983)

“Rock'n'roll is a teenage sport, meant to be played by teenagers of all ages--they could be 15, 25 or 35. It all boils down to whether they've got the love in their hearts, that beautiful teenage spirit… -Calvin Johnson”

Michael Azerrad (1961) American musician and writer

Source: Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991

Love, Beauty, Sport, Heart

“I had always been led to believe that ageing was a slow and gradual process, the creep of a glacier. Now I realise that it happens in a rush, like snow falling off a roof.”

David Nicholls book Us

Source: Us

“I'm like a fine wine. I get better with age. The best is yet to come.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Wine

“They had nothing to say to each other. A five-year age gap between siblings is like a garden that needs constant attention. Even three months apart allows the weeds to grow up between you.”

Zadie Smith On Beauty

Source: On Beauty

Siblings

“China is the same age as I am, and even I have to admit that she wears it better!" He laughed, then stopped and peered at her. "Because I'm a skeleton" he explained.”

Derek Landy Skulduggery Pleasant

Source: Skulduggery Pleasant

“I refer of course to the soaring wonder of the age known as the Eiffel Tower. Never in history has a structure been more technologically advanced, materially obsolescent, and gloriously pointless all at the same time.”

Bill Bryson book At Home: A Short History of Private Life

Source: At Home: A Short History of Private Life

History, Time

“Youth calls to age across the tired years: 'What have you found,' he cries, 'what have you sought?" 'What have you found,' age answers through his tears, 'What have you sought.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

Source: The Poems of Dylan Thomas

Youth, Tear

“Sexually progressive cultures gave us mathematics, literature, philosophy, civilization and the rest, while sexually restrictive cultures gave us the Dark Ages and the Holocaust.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

"BOG VENUS VERSUS NAZI COCK-RING: Some Thoughts Concerning Pornography" in Arthur magazine, Vol. 1, No. 25 (November 2006) http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/?p=1685 Source: 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom Context: Sexually progressive cultures gave us mathematics, literature, philosophy, civilization and the rest, while sexually restrictive cultures gave us the Dark Ages and the Holocaust. Not that I’m trying to load my argument, of course.

Literature, Mathematics

“I am all the ages I've ever been.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

“Women may be the one group that grows more radical with age.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions http://books.google.com/books?id=KVHmzw43TgkC&q=%22Women+may+be+the+one+group+that+grows+more+radical+with+age%22&pg=PT377#v=onepage (1983), p. 377

Women

“I don’t think my sister is old enough to have sex.”

“V, she’s the same age you are.”

He frowned for a moment. Was she? Or had he been born first?”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Unleashed

Sex, Thinking, Sister

“The years nineteen and twenty are a crucial stage in the maturation of character, and if you allow yourself to become warped when you're that age, it will cause you pain when you're older.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Pain

“Illusion is Reality's coy lover who cheers him when he is grim. Illusion is cunning to his wisdom of ages, weet oblivion to his knowledge. A bounty to his lack. [Sabine]”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Kiss of a Demon King

Wisdom, Lovers, Knowledge, Reality

“The really frightening thing about middle age is the knowledge that you'll grow out of it.”

Doris Day (1922–2019) American actress, singer, and animal rights activist

As quoted in Doris Day : Her Own Story (1975) as told to A. E. Hotchner

Knowledge

“I must admit, I was born at an early age.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

“Is it not possible that we are still living in the Dark Ages, still mocking the suggestion of 'mystical' forces that we cannot see or comprehend.”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

Source: The Lost Symbol

“This is peculiarly an age in which each of us may, if he do but search diligently, find the literature suited to his mental powers.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Something New

Source: Something New

Search, Literature

“Was I the only woman in the world who, at my age - and after a lifetime of quite rampant independence - still did not quite feel grown up?”

Dodie Smith (1896–1990) English novelist and playwright

Source: The Town in Bloom

World, Feeling

“You are mortal. You age, you die. If that is not hell, pray tell me, what is?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Hell

“I have one brother and I live with four hundred guys. Girls under the age of fourteen are the most frightening creatures I have ever come across.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Guy, Girl

“There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.”

Agatha Christie Murder at the Vicarage

Source: Murder at the Vicarage

Time

“One might define adulthood as the age at which a person learns that he must die… and accepts his sentence undismayed.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Learning, Personality, Adulthood

“Since the age of five I had been one of those people who was an indefatigable reader, more inclined to go off by myself with a book than do any of the dozens of things that children usually do to amuse themselves. I never aged out of it.”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

Source: Imagined London: A Tour of the World's Greatest Fictional City

Children, People, Books

“No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.”

Julia Cameron book The Artist's Way

Source: The Artist's Way

Life, Dreams, Art, Selfishness

“Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!”

Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet

Stupidity, Future

“Youth hasn't got anything to do with chronological age. It's times of hope and happiness.”

Wallace Stegner book Crossing to Safety

Source: Crossing to Safety

Happiness, Youth, Hope, Time

“The thing is to become a master and in your old age to acquire the courage to do what children did when they knew nothing.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Children, Courage

“I've reached the age where bruises are formed from failures within rather than accidents without.”

Nicole Krauss book Great House

Source: Great House

Failure

“I have been a believer in the magic of language since, at a very early age, I discovered that some words got me into trouble and others got me out.”

Katherine Dunn (1945–2016) American novelist, journalist, poet

“She announced her age right away, for children consider their ages every bit as important as their names.”

Trenton Lee Stewart The Mysterious Benedict Society

Source: The Mysterious Benedict Society

Children

“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

Children, Lovers, Time, Sun

“Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three, and there discovered was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Books, World, Freedom, Learning

“There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time. Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.”

Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech author of Czech and French literature

Time, Parting

“Age is terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back”

Sara Gruen book Water for Elephants

Source: Water for Elephants

Life

“Live well, Ichigo. Live well, age well, go bald well, and die after me. And… if you can, die smiling.
(Isshin Kurosaki)”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Smile

“Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Love, Wise, Relationship, Cute

“He was a nice guy, middle-aged, a little tired, like most doctors usually seemed to be, but he just nodded and said,
"Let me take a look at him. Shane?"
"I'm not dropping my pants," Shane said. "I just thought I'd say that up front.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Ghost Town

Guy

“He looked like an evil male model, showing off what the fashionable college age villain was wearing to Harvard this year.”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

Fashion, Evil

“The secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Chapter 10 http://books.google.com/books?id=pgPWOaOctq8C&q=%22The+secret+of+a+good+old+age+is+simply+an+honorable+pact+with+solitude%22&pg=PA199#v=onepage Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)

Secret, Solitude

“By then she was dead. In fact, she may have been dead a while ago. Physically, several seconds ago, mentally, ages ago.”

Koushun Takami book Battle Royale

Source: Battle Royale

Dead

“There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning.”

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

Life

“Most people don't grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Children, People

“But unlike you," said Jace, "there is nothing of hell in us."
"You are mortal; you age; you die," the Queen said dismissively. "If that is not hell, pray tell me, what is?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Hell

“When you reach my age, you realize you couldn't have done things very much better or much worse than you did them in the first place.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Motivational

“With false names, on the right nets, they could be anybody. Old men, middle-aged women, anybody, as long as they were careful about the way they wrote. All that anyone would see were the words, their ideas. Every citizen started equal, on the nets.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Women, Men, Way, Idea

“There are books which one should not attempt before having passed the age of forty.”

Marguerite Yourcenar book Memoirs of Hadrian

Source: Memoirs of Hadrian

Books

“After a certain age, you couldn't even say where you were from. You went someplace, and lived there. And then you went someplace else.”

Daniel Handler book Adverbs

Source: Adverbs

“Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then. Why? Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your character.”

James Joyce Ulysses

Source: Ulysses

Change, Night

“No one should be alone in their old age, he thought.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

“A thirteen-year-old is a kaleidoscope of different personalities, if not in most ways a mere figment of her own imagination. At that age, what and who you are depends largely on what book you happen to be reading at the moment.”

Jessica Mitford book Hons and Rebels

Source: Hons and Rebels

Books, Way, Imagination, Reading

“Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today’s jobs with yesterday’s tools!”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Parting

“Middle school is for being like everyone else; middle age is for being like yourself. (430)”

Victoria Moran (1950) American writer

Source: Younger by the Day: 365 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Body and Revitalize Your Spirit

School

“At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Ham On Rye (1982)
Source: Ham on Rye
Context: The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole goddamned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves. I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go.

God, People, Way, Baby