Quotessence
Home / Books / Essays After Eighty

Essays After Eighty

Book by Donald Hall · 6 quotes · Aging, Death, Old Age

Filter quotes by topic

AllAgingDeathOld AgeWritingPoetrySenior CitizensSeniorsDyingPoetsAgeElderlyLifeAwardsChangeCigarettesDiminishmentExerciseHappinessLanguagePoetry Readings

Essays After Eighty Quotes

“An op-ed in the Boston Globe, remarking on near-corpses who keep on doing what they've always done, compared me to Mick Jagger. Never before had I been so honored. The columnist mentioned others: Keith Richards, Alice Munro, and William Trevor, who was born the year I was. At seventy, Jagger is a juvenile among us eighty-five-year-olds—but his face as he jumps and gyrates resembles something retrieved from a bog.”

AgingOld AgeCelebritiesSeniorsSenior CitizensKeith RichardsMick JaggerAlice MunroWilliam Trevor
Book:Essays After Eighty
Create image

“After a life of loving the old, by natural law I turned old myself. Decades followed each other--thirty was terrifying, forty I never noticed because I was drunk, fifty was best with a total change of life, sixty began to extend the bliss of fifty--and then came my cancers, Jane’s death, and over the years I traveled to another universe. However alert we are, however much we think we know what will happen, antiquity remains an unknown, unanticipated galaxy. It is alien, and old people are a separate form of life. They have green skin, with two heads that sprout antennae. They can be pleasant, they can be annoying—in the supermarket, these old ladies won’t get out of my way—but most important they are permanently other. When we turn eighty, we understand that we are extraterrestrial. If we forget for a moment that we are old, we are reminded when we try to stand up, or when we encounter someone young, who appears to observe green skin, extra heads, and protuberances.”

AgingOld AgeGrowing OldDifferenceOthersOtherOtheringSeniorsSenior Citizens
Book:Essays After Eighty
Create image

“My problem isn’t death but old age. I fret about my lack of balance, my buckling knee, my difficulty standing up and sitting down. Yesterday I fell asleep in an armchair. I never fall asleep in a chair. Indolence overcomes me every day. I sit daydreaming about what I might do next: putting on a sweater or eating a piece of pie or calling my daughter. Sometimes I break through my daydream to stand up. At Christmas or birthday, I no longer want objects, even books. I want things I can eat, cheddar or Stilton, my daughter’s chili, and replacements for worn-out khakis, T-shirts, socks, and underwear.”

ChallengesAgingOld AgeSleepingIndolenceSeniorsSenior CitizensPhysical Ailments
Book:Essays After Eighty
Create image