“Age is a slowing down of everything except fear.”

“I meet people who tell me things like, ‘I read your book in two days’. Please don’t do that. These things take me years to write. Slow down. Everything you read, slow down. Reading is our great act of resistance in this age of speed and carelessness.”

““That your solution to everything? Cut somebody’s throat?”
“Always slows them down.””

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

“When you notice anger kick in, you must slow way down and attend to the vulnerability, the pain and the fear and the perceived powerlessness underneath it.”

“Just like those who are incurably ill, the aged know everything about their dying except exactly when.”

“Confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom.”

“And when it comes down to cases, everything written is at least in part a fantasy. Except maybe for the national budget. That's horror.”

“There is nothing to fear except fear it's self.”

“You can never teach them, except by the slow lesson of habit.”