Quotessence
Home / Topics / Getting Older Quotes

Getting Older Quotes

Browse 451 quotes about Getting Older.

Related topics

Getting Older Quotes

“I was attracted to this old woman. It wasn’t because of the flesh, even though she carried with her the remnants of a stunning lady. I was drawn to her personhood. She was sort of a funny thing, that Margo. And in addition to a chosen sweetness, she had a rare humility that shines and caresses you at the same time. It leaves you asking: how’d she get there—to that place? When she looked at you, they were not with any ordinary pair of eyes. They were with eyes that read Ibsen, eyes that competed in tennis matches, that watched loved ones disappear into the ground, that undressed a lifetime of men, that saw the world and now looks at you.”

“The only thing you have to show for a wasted or spent time is that you just realize that you are getting older.”

“Make tea. As the water boils, you think about the “her’s” like a love list. Valerie in the 4th grade, Naomi in the 6th, Linda in high school, Sammie in college, Camille from work, and the latest one to have signed your heart and left: Sophia. You think through each girl, wondering what she’s eating for breakfast. You miss them, not because you want a relationship, but because love only works in permanent marker.”

“Becoming older didn’t sadden me. The realization that time actually moves made me sad. Years go by and moments become older. Distance becomes longer. Moments which were yesterday suddenly span decades. I don’t miss myself as a child. I miss the moments in my childhood which founded the person I am today. Curiosity, conversations, touch, and hurt - those are things I miss. Those are things which made me who I am.”

“The best lover you could ever have will sit on this very bench 270 years from now. You two will never meet. And will never know you’ll never meet. They are, however, currently sitting with you because if you two did meet, you’d spend your time sitting as you are now. Because returning to that bench every afternoon, happily single, was like spending a day with every soul who wants to sit there too.”

“I always ask what’s the meaning of life, but when I say the meaning of life I don’t mean, “Why is there an earth?” but I mean, “What am I supposed to do in it?” In this bum ass house in the suburbs of nowhere and a handful of decades. Maybe beer. Paychecks. Crazy girlfriends. Then fixing shit—like there will always be something wrong with our car, or internet that we have to fix, or we have to take care of some family member who’s got some disease. Then we get kids before we could find out the answer.”

“When you reach a certain age, you see that time is all we have. By which I mean, moments like those springing deer this morning, and watching your mother be born, and sitting at the dining room table here waiting for the phone to ring and announce that a certain baby (you) had been born, or that day when all of us hiked out at Point Lobos. That extremely loud seal, your sister's scarf drifting down, down to that black, briny boulder, the replacement you so generously bought her in Monterey, how pleased you made her with your kindness. Those things were real. That is what (that is all) one gets. All this other stuff is real only to the extent that it interferes with those moments.”

“Europe, the land of easy mathematics where he who works adds up and he who retires subtracts. The land where the economy gets to stagger all over the continent.”

“We discard the elderly, but the elderly used to discard the elderly. Those old people we tease are just listening to our insults and not deciding to speak. They’re not stupid. They just understand. Old people are young people who’ve had a few more heartbreaks, thousands of more workdays, and who’ve prepared a dozen more eulogies.”

“But when they got to the room...he thought how stupid it was not to realize what it would be like: the sprung, creaky bed, sheets that hadn't been changed from the time before, and the woman herself as she undressed and the clothes came away like the store wrapping on an uncooked chicken, a large piece of meat sitting down on the bed and nothing to do with him.”

“You’ll learn, as you get older, that rules are made to be broken. Be bold enough to live life on your terms, and never, ever apologize for it. Go against the grain, refuse to conform, take the road less traveled instead of the well-beaten path. Laugh in the face of adversity, and leap before you look. Dance as though EVERYBODY is watching. March to the beat of your own drummer. And stubbornly refuse to fit in.”

“If your parents are getting old and you don't know how to bring up the topic of what to do with all the stuff, I would suggest you pay them a visit, sit down, and ask some of the following questions in a gentle way: "You have many nice things, have you thought about what you want to do with it all later on?" "Do you enjoy having all this stuff?" "Could life be easier and less tiring if we got rid of some of this stuff that you have collected over the years?" "Is there anything we can do together in a slow way so that there won't be too many things to handle later?”

“Age has given me what I was looking for my entire life - it has given me me . It has provided time and experience and failures and triumphs and time-tested friends who have helped me step into the shape that was waiting for me. I fit into me now. I have an organic life, finally, not necessarily the one people imagined for me, or tried to get me to have. I have the life I longed for. I have become the woman I hardly dared imagine I would be.”