Old Age Quotes

“My work is to live before I die.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, A Matter of Death and Life

“See that old person taking forever in line? That is the future you. Have patience.”
― Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier

“Do not complain about growing old. It is a privilege denied to many.”
― Mark Twain

“There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one's head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people's pain. You ought to have some apprehension that the man you see before you was once even younger than you are now and arrived at his present wretchedness by imperceptible degrees.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“If one wanted beauty, one had only to rest one's eyes on her, so fine and old and lovely, like an ivory carving; flowing down like water into her chair, so slight and supple were her limbs, the firelight casting a flush of rose over her features and snowy hair. Youth had no beauty like the beauty of an old face; the face of youth was an unwritten page. Youth could never sit as still as that, in absolute repose, as though all haste, all movement, were over and done with, and nothing left but waiting and acquiescence.”
― Vita Sackville-West, All Passion Spent

“One could not withdraw the days of one's youth in retirement and throw them on the fire to warm old bones.”
― Andrew Sean Greer, Less Is Lost

“Joe shuddered. "Old people are horrible."
"No," Mrs Jinks corrected him. "There's nothing wrong with being old. Don't forget - you'll be old one day. Nobody can avoid it."
"Well, I won't be like Granny," Joe said.
"Of course you won't," Mrs Jinks agreed. "If you're kind and cheerful when you're young, you'll be kind and cheerful when you're old ... only more so. Old age is like a magnifying glass. It takes the best and the worst of you and magnifies them. Granny was selfish and cruel all her life. But you can't blame her for being old.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Granny

“That was what tortured him, that was what came over him when he saw Clarissa so calm, so cold, so intent on her dress or whatever it was; realising what she might have spared him, what she had reduced him to - a whimpering, snivelling old ass.”
― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

“The child wonders at the Christmas Tree:
Let him continue in the spirit of wonder
At the Feast as an event not accepted as a pretext;
[...]
So that before the end, the eightieth Christmas
(By “eightieth” meaning whichever is last)
The accumulated memories of annual emotion
May be concentrated into a great joy
Which shall be also a great fear, as on the occasion
When fear came upon every soul:
Because the beginning shall remind us of the end
And the first coming of the second coming.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Cultivation of Christmas Trees

“I'm cracking up in my auld age.”
― James Kelman, How Late It Was, How Late: A Novel

“el envejecer juntos es una forma de no envejecer”
― Josefina Vicens, El libro vacío

“Sweepers in orange suits, sentenced to a life of mopping cigarette butts, pale leaves and dust off Tehran’s asphalt highlands waltz from side to side. The odd rebellious senior citizen turtles their way to the bakery. Yet every morning, the inhabitants of Tehran are hoping that maybe, just maybe, today will be better than the previous day.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Outside Bulgaria's borders people age more beautifully and more slowly, old age is more merciful elsewhere.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“Look, the old lady’s going to allow you in her house, hmmm? You think she’ll remember if a few groceries she bought are missing the next day? Hell, she probably won’t even remember buying them by the time she returns home.”
― Finn Eccleston, The Community: A Funny and Disturbing Conspiracy Mystery Novel

“That was old age, when people knew everything so well that they could no longer afford to express it save in symbols.”
― Vita Sackville-West, All Passion Spent

“The amount of pity you generate in others diminishes with every birthday.”
― Gabino Iglesias, Coyote Songs

“Vigilance fled in old age and man was like the other animals then, who science said could not see themselves. Here man was fully animal again, but he was still tender... you never lost what you were, never lost it fully. There was always the suspicion of a past life that faded and returned.”
― Lydia Millet, How the Dead Dream

“His hands stopped shaking once she placed them on the piano keys. His fingers moved, finding the right places, starting the melody. The tears stopped and the senseless mumble was replaced by a low, droning hum. His eyes focused on something right above the piano — a focus they did not have a moment before. She watched him as he found the music again.”
― Marcel M. du Plessis, The Curse of Balar

“When you reach our age, everyone wants to keep you alive with granola.  Consider this breakfast an act of liberation.  I got greasy egg sandwiches, bacon, and hash browns.”
― Circa24, Thomas Hardy was an Optimist: A Collection of Short Stories From the Plague Years.

“THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT A LOVE THAT'S NOT NEW BUT NEVER GET'S OLD”
― Qwana M. "BabyGirl" Reynolds-Frasier

“Old age is the squeeze of life.”
― Ehsan Sehgal

“I stop worrying about anything
I give up activities
I'm full of my life

I no longer
go to the temple
evening and morning

If they ask me
"What are you doing
in your old age?"

I smile and tell them
"I'm letting my white hair
fall free"

- Old Man in Retirement”
― Musō Soseki, Sun At Midnight: Poems and Letters

“Adulthood Illnesses"
If only adulthood illnesses
were like those in childhood:
they are cured with
a kiss from mom,
a hot bowl of soup,
a warm cup of milk,
and one tablespoon of honey,
even if adulterated...

[Original poem published in Arabic on November 14, 2023 at ahewar.org]”
― Louis Yako

“To live long enough is to find that one’s future, when it arrives, is as foreign a country as the past.”
― Jon Zobenica

“Настовбурчені брови, на лобі кривуля,
хмуровоке барило, і ніс як багруля.

Щось обрезкле і тмасте, —
Якої ж я масти?

Сивий, голубе, сивий…”
― Ліна Костенко, Берестечко

“Age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress;
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars invisible by day.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Old age makeup makes young actors look like turtles.”
― Gene Siskel

“Grey is a colour that always seems on the eve of changing to some other colour; of brightening into blue or blanching into white or bursting into green and gold. So we may be perpetually reminded of the indefinite hope that is in doubt itself; and when there is grey weather in our hills or grey hairs in our heads, perhaps they may still remind us of the morning.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Selected Essays

“I have never been lucky in love and now at sixty-two years old, everything is falling apart. “Where am I going to find Mr Savoir-faire? Knowing my luck, I will end up finding a man that we will end in a sad affair, instead of a man who has, Savoir-faire,”
― Kenan Hudaverdi, Emotional Rhapsody

“Il n'y a que le timbre des voix familières, les visages amis que ma mémoire recompose pour préserver une continuité à ma longue vie.”
― Marceline Loridan-Ivens, L'Amour après