Quotes about growing-old

Phoef Sutton - Fifteen Minutes to Live

And we were in our thirties. Well into the Age of Boredom, when nothing is new. Now, I’m not being self-pitying; it’s simply true. Newness, or whatever you want to call it, becomes a very scarce commodity after thirty. I think that’s unfair. If I were in charge of the human life span, I’d make sure to budget newness much more selectively, to ration it out. As it is now, it’s almost used up in the first three years of life. By then you’ve seen for the first time, tasted for the first time, held s

Crystal Woods - Write like no one is reading

I'd prefer to die in Texas when I'm old. They say most good things end the same way they started, and that's where I entered the world, so that's how I'll leave it. 

Nikolai Gogol - The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol

He was already beginning, as always happens at a respectable age, to take a firm stand for Raphael and the old masters––not because he was fully convinced of their lofty merit, but so as to shove them in the faces of young artists.

Alfred Hayes - In Love

We go from disappointment to disappointment, from hope to denial, from expectation to surrender, as we grow older, thinking or coming to think that what was wrong was the wanting, so intense it hurt us, and believing or coming to believe that hope was our mistake and expectation our error, and that everything the more we want it the more difficult the having it seems to be.

Adelaide Crapsey - Verse by Adelaide Crapsey

But me They cannot touch, Old age and death. The strange And ignominious end of old Dead folk!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -

One who has passed the thirtieth yearalready is as good as dead--it would be best to kill you off by then.

Alex Morritt - Impromptu Scribe

Wrinkles ? Why all the fuss ? Think of them as lines of distinction marks of maturity.

Anonymous - The Dhammapada

A person of little knowledge Grows old as a plough-ox grows old.His fleshes increases His wisdom does not increase.

Haruki Murakami - A Wild Sheep Chase

As if a great creature had grown old without being able to express its feelings. Not that it didn't know how to express them, but rather it didn't know what to express.

Lailah Gifty Akita -

We live to work.Man was made to move.Without work we shall grow old quickly.

H. Rider Haggard - She

It is a well-known fact that very often, putting the period of boyhood out of the argument, the older we grow the more cynical and hardened we become; indeed, many of us are only saved by timely death from moral petrification, if not from moral corruption.

Sue Grafton - B is for Burglar

Personally, I'd rather grow old alone than in the company of anyone I've met so far. I don't experience myself as lonely, incomplete, or unfulfilled, but I don't talk about that much. It seems to piss people off--especially men. (Kinsey Millhone)

Richelle E. Goodrich - Slaying Dragons

I wear my wrinkles like battle scars, having earned every last one slaying life’s dragons. They boast of my victories and some defeats while their beauty is a wealth of wisdom gained.

Sanober Khan -

Look, moonI turned silver for you.

Roman Payne - The Wanderess

It is only in the peach innocence of youth that life is at its crest on top of the wheel. And there being only life, the young cling to it, they fear death... And they should! ...For they are in life.

Amanda Craig - In a Dark Wood

All age is a kind of tiredness, I think. When you’re young, the lines never show. Every morning you wake unmarked, wiped clear by sleep. One day, though, you see lines that itch, as though some crumb of existence has been creased into your skin. They can never be smoothed away, and after a while you forget that this heavy, irritable feeling wasn’t always there.

James Crumley - The Last Good Kiss

Youth endures all things, kings and poetry and love. Everything but time.

Amy Neftzger - The War of Words

I love the optimism on the shores of youth, where time hasn't yet eroded faith.

Catherynne M. Valente - The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home

The tales lovers tell each other about how they met are hushed and secret things. They change year by year, for we all meet many times as we grow up and become different and new and exciting people--and this never stops, even for a minute, even when we are ninety.

Neil Gaiman - The Graveyard Book

If you, as a parent, raise your children well, they won't need you anymore. If you did it properly, they go away.

Marty Rubin -

The day you lose your sense of wonder is the day you grow old.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox - Poems of Cheer

UselessnessLet mine not be the saddest fate of all, To live beyond my greater self; to see My faculties decaying, as the tree Stands stark and helpless while its green leaves fall Let me hear rather the imperious call, Which all men dread, in my glad morning time, And follow death ere I have reached my prime, Or drunk the strengthening cordial of life's gall. The lightning's stroke or the fierce tempest blast Which fells the green tree to the earth to-day Is kinder than the calm that lets i

William Cowper -

My fugitive years are all hasting away,And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,With a turf on my breast, and a stone at my head,Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.'Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can,To muse on the perishing pleasures of man;Though his life be a dream, his enjoyments I see,Have a being less durable even than he.

John Hively -

It's easy to grow old if you haven't grown up

Mattie Stepanek -

I think I may have to grow up without growing old. I think we're going to have to define differently what I'm going to be. We're going to have to define my growing up differently.

Ann Benjamin - Life After Joe

Isn't it weird how people grow up when you're not looking?

James Russell Lowell - Volume 1: Colonial through Romantic

As life runs on, the road grows strange With faces new, and near the end The milestones into headstones change, ’Neath every one a friend.

Emily Dickinson -

The Babies we were are buried, and their shadows are plodding on.

Kim Dong Hwa -

You can hide things from the world, but you can never hide things from time.

Bernard Kelvin Clive -

Don’t grow old to give up and don’t give up growing up

Ashton Applewhite - This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism

The sooner growing older is stripped of reflexive dread, the better equipped we are to benefit from the countless ways in which it can enrich us.

Toni Morrison - Jazz

We women, me and you. Tell me something real. Don’t just say I’m grown and ought to know. I don’t. I’m fifty and I don’t know nothing. What about it? Do I stay with him? I want to, I think. I want… well, I didn’t always… now I want. I want some fat in this life.”“Wake up. Fat or lean, you got just one. This is it.”“You don’t know either, do you?”“I know enough to know how to behave.”“Is that it? Is that all it is?”“Is that all what is?”“Oh shoot! Where the grown people? Is it us?”“Oh, Mama.” Ali

Ron Brackin -

One of the difficult things about growing older is that you start losing so many friends. On the other hand, the older you get, the less time you have to wait until you see them again.

John Godfrey Saxe -

I'm growing fonder of my staff; I'm growing dimmer in my eyes; I'm growing fainter in my laugh; I'm growing deeper in my sighs; I'm growing careless of my dress; I'm growing frugal of my gold; I'm growing wise; I'm growing--yes,-- I'm growing old.

Eric Powell -

When you're a young man like yourself, life is full of wonders. Everything new. Everything an adventure. But as the years roll on, things become ordinary. Colors lose their vibrance. Stars lose their glitter. You become less in awe of the world. It loses its magic.I don't see this as a painful thing. I think it's a mercy. I believe it's all just so it makes it easier to let the whole thing go when it's our time to pass on. But when you've lived as long as I have, the weight of the years and the

Donna Lynn Hope -

I'm not opposed to aging - even though society is kinder on men than women when it comes to getting old. How can I look at aging as the enemy? It happens whether I like it or not and no one is set apart from growing old; it comes to us all. Youth passes from everyone, so why deny it? I'm proud of my age. I'm proud that I've survived this planet for as long as I have, and should I end up withered, wrinkled and with a lifetime of great wisdom, I'll trade the few years of youth for the sophisticati

Marilynne Robinson - Gilead

People talk about how wonderful the world must seem to children, and that's true enough. But children think they will grow into it and understand it, and I know very well that I will not, and would not if I had a dozen lives. That's clearer to me every day. Each morning I am like Adam waking up in Eden, amazed at the cleverness of my hands and at the brilliance pouring into my mind through my eyes.

Willa Cather - Death Comes for the Archbishop

Beautiful surroundings, the society of learned men, the charm of noble women, the graces of art, could not make up for the loss of those light-hearted mornings of the desert, for that wind that made one a boy again. He had noticed that this peculiar quality in the air of new countries vanished after they were tamed by man and made to bear harvests. Parts of Texas and Kansas that he had first known as open range had since been made into rich farming districts, and the air had quite lost that ligh

Eva Figes - Ghosts

Nothing comes back. The eye sees for a moment, the ear hears, but look, now it is gone.

Donna Lynn Hope -

Youth. I don't seek it through another because I have it within; it's a state of mind, a spirit that is free, and a mind that is playful. The shell of my being is altered by the effects of time, but nothing will tarnish a soul that will never forget what its like to experience creation with endless wonder and appreciation. Each time I see the first snowfall of the season I feel it's the first time I've seen it at all.

Donna Lynn Hope -

The more candles on my cake means I get a little more exercise in blowing them out.

Ashley Jade - Blame It on the Pain

I want to grow old with you,” he whispers. “I want to let you win at bingo, I want you to help me find my dentures, and I want to spend the evening watching the sunset with you every night from our two rocking chairs.” -Jackson 'Blame It on the Pain

Bernd Heinrich - The Homing Instinct: Meaning and Mystery in Animal Migration

There is a period near the beginning of every man's life when he has little to cling to except his unmanageable dreams, little to support him except good health, and nowhere to go but all over the place by E. B. White

Marilynne Robinson - Home

Glory went to look in on her father. He lay on his right side, his face composed, intent on sleep. His hair had been brushed into a soft white cloud, like harmless aspiration, like a mist given off by the endless work of dreaming.

Michael Zadoorian - The Leisure Seeker

I haven’t been out driving at this time of night in many years, much less in an unfamiliar area. These are the things that scare you as you get older. You understand night all too well, all its attendant meanings. You try to avoid it, work around it, keep it from entering your house. Your weary, ornery body tells you to stay up late, sleep less, keep the lights on, don’t go into the bedroom—if you have to sleep, sleep in your chair, at the table. Everything is about avoiding the night. Because o

Munia Khan -

Aging is not our fault, but we certainly are guilty of feeling it.

Marilynne Robinson - Gilead

Adulthood is a wonderful thing and brief. You must be sure to enjoy it while it lasts. I believe the soul in Paradise must enjoy something nearer to a perpetual vigorous adulthood than to any other state we know.

Roman Payne - Hope and Despair

The youthful body untouched decays the fastest, for no living hands record its splendor; and here youth and time are wasted.

Roman Payne - Hope and Despair

I just wish moments weren’t so fleeting!' Isaac called to the man on the roof, 'They pass so quickly!' 'Fleeting?!' responded the tilling man, 'Moments? They pass quickly?! . . . Why, once a man is finished growing, he still has twenty years of youth. After that, he has twenty years of middle age. Then, unless misfortune strikes, nature gives him twenty thoughtful years of old age. Why do you call that quickly?' And with that, the tilling man wiped his sweaty brow and continued tilling; and the

Moryah DeMott - Timeless

My heart is torn in tiny pieces scattered throughout the years. I exist in several places because you carry those pieces with you, wherever you go, whoever you choose to be, I’ll be beside you in one form or another.

Matshona Dhliwayo -

Time stops when you are in love, even as you age.

Mansi Laus Deo -

We are just too blinded by the phrase, "grow old together" and learning its meaning from hopeless movies and novels that glorify undying love and unbelievable understanding. Don't you think? Reality is... Love dies. People change. And we grow old together in present. Today, tomorrow, and every day after that.It's not about eternity. It's not till death do us part.It's about today. This day. And I believe only in today.So, come! Let's grow old together today!

Lorde - Lorde - Pure Heroine Songbook

You're the only friend I need Sharing beds like little kids And laughing 'til our ribs get tough But that will never be enough You're the only friend I need Sharing beds like little kids And laughing 'til our ribs get tough But that will never be enough

Pat Conroy - A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life

Among the worst things about growing old is the loss of those irreplaceable friends who added richness and depth to your life.

Dan Groat - An Enigmatic Escape: A Trilogy

The bones of the oak tree that had stood by the spring branch during my youth were scattered about the ground, pieces of the skeleton of a majestic life that had passed while I was off growing up and old.

Donna Lynn Hope -

We start our sometimes tedious, sometimes exciting, often times sad and stressful march to the grave the moment we're born, so it might as well be a march worth remembering.

Núria Añó -

The land of easy mathematics where he who works adds up and he who retires subtracts.

Carew Papritz - his Final Gift

If you don’t know how to grow old, don’t start learning how to grow old.

Munia Khan - Beyond The Vernal Mind

Growing older is a blurred birth certificate that only can take us to this world’s perplexed journey, but it cannot smear the letters of the epitaph

Roman Payne - The Wanderess

When I was younger, I would cling to life because life was at the top of the turning wheel. But like the song of my gypsy-girl, the great wheel turns over and lands on a minor key. It is then that you come of age and life means nothing to you. To live, to die, to overdose, to fall in a coma in the street... it is all the same. It is only in the peach innocence of youth that life is at its crest on top of the wheel. And there being only life, the young cling to it, they fear death... And they sho

Dianna Hardy - Summer's End

...we're not eighteen anymore. We've lived. We've created things that last – things of joy, and things of burden.

Muse - Enigmatic Evolution

Butterfly KissesAged imperfectionsstitched upon my faceyears and years of wisdomearned by His holy grace.Quiet solitude in a humble homeall the family scattered nowlike nomads do they roam.Then a giftsent from abovea memorypure and tangiblewrapped in innocence andunquestioning love.A butterfly kisslands gently upon my cheekfrom an unseen childa kiss most sweet.Heaven grants graceand tears followas youth revisitsthis empty hollow.

Muse - Enigmatic Evolution

PartingOne is strong, a child now grownThe other weak, a parent aged-The strong once feebleThe weak once mighty-Time, the infinityhas marked them...

Debasish Mridha -

Life is so magnificent! How can I grow old?

Mary Ann Shaffer -

She is one of those ladies who is more beautiful at sixty than she could possibly have been at twenty. (how I hope someone says that about me someday)!

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