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AGE
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TEENAGERS

TIME

YOUTH


Age is when a girl rings and says 'Do you
remember me?' And you reply, 'No, I don't,
and hang up the receiver'.
--Franklin Pierce Adams (1881—1960)
American columnist and member of
the Algonquin Round Table.

It is easy to believe that life is long and one's gifts are
vast — easy at the beginning, that is. But as the limits
of life grow more evident; it becomes clear that great
work can be done rarely, if at all.
--Alfred Adler (1870—1937)
Austrian psychologist.
_New Yorker_ [19 February 1972]

Grow up as soon as you can. It pays. The only time you
really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are
slaves to dreams; the old, servants of regrets. Only the
middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of
their wits.
--Hervey Allen (1889—1949)
American novelist.
_Anthony Adverse_ [1933]

Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation
of age, that age appears to be best in four things, —
old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to
trust, and old authors to read.
--Francis Bacon (1561—1626)
English philosopher and essayist.

The older I get, the faster I was.
--Charles Barkley (1963— )
American professional basketball player.
Bob Costa television interview [22 January 1995]

^^

Ethel Barrymore was in her Hollywood dressing room one day
when a studio usher knocked on the door and called: 'A couple
of gals in the reception room, Miss Barrymore, who say they
went to school with you. What shall I do?'

'Wheel them in,' came the reply.

_The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_
Introduced by Edward Leeson [2005], "Age — Mostly Old"

^^

A man is not old until regrets take
the place of dreams.
--John Barrymore (John Sidney Blythe)
(1882—1942) Shakespearean actor.
In Gene Fowler _Good Night, Sweet Prince_ [1943].

I always wanted to be old, I wanted to say
'O I haven't read that for fifteen years.'
--John Berryman (1914—1972)
American poet.
"Dream Song" #254

You are not permitted to kill a woman who has
wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect
that she is growing older every minute. You are
avenged 1440 times a day.
--Ambrose Bierce (1842—1914)
American newspaperman, wit, and satirist.
_The Cynic's Word Book_ [1906]
(Retitled in 1911 as _The Devil's Dictionary_.)

No matter how hard you try to be what you once
were, you can only be what you are here and now.
Time hypnotizes. When you're nine, you think you've
always been nine years old and will always be. When
you're thirty, it seems you've always been balanced
on that bright rim of middle life. And then when you
turn seventy, you are always and forever seventy.
You're in the present, you're trapped in a young now
or an old now, but there is no other now to be seen.
--Ray Bradbury (1920— )
American science fiction author.
_Dandelion Wine_ [1957]

It's nice to be here. When you're 99 years old,
it's nice to be anyplace.
--George Burns [Nathan Birnbaum] (1896—1996)
American comedian.

-

"So We'll Go No More a Roving"
by Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (1788—1824)
English Romantic poet and satirist.

So, we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.


A lady of 'a certain age,' which means
Certainly aged.
--Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (1788—1824)
English Romantic poet and satirist.
_Don Juan_ [1821], canto VI, st. 69


What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be alone on earth, as I am now.
--Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (1788—1824)
English Romantic poet and satirist.
"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" [1812], canto II, st. 98

-

The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse;
always harder. A young liar will be an old one; and a young
knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.
--Lord Chesterfield [Philip Dormer Stanhope] (1694—1773)
British writer and politician.

The woman who tells her age is either too young to
have anything to lose or too old to have anything to
gain.
--Chinese Proverb
In Bob Phillips
_Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts_, p. 12 [1993].

What the object of senile avarice may be I cannot conceive.
For can there be anything more absurd than to seek more
journey money, the less there remains of the journey?
--Marcus Tullius Cicero (106—43 BC)
Roman orator and statesman.
"On Old Age," tr. Evelyn Shirley Shuckburgh (1843—1906)
in _The Harvard Classics_ [1909—1914]
Edited by Charles William Eliot (1834—1926), vol. IX, pt. 2.

When a man of forty falls in love with a girl of twenty,
it isn't her youth he is seeking but his own.
--Lenore Coffee (1897—1984)
American screenwriter.
_Storyline; Recollections of a Hollywood Screenwriter_ [1973]

About sixty years ago, I said to my father, 'Old
Mr. Senex is showing his age; he sometimes talks
quite stupidly.' My father replied, 'That isn't age.
He's always been stupid. He is just losing his
ability to conceal it.'
--Robertson Davies (1913—1995)
Canadian author and playwright.
"You're Not Geting Older, You're Getting Nosier"
in the _New York Times Book Review_ [12 May 1991].

Anyone who says life begins at forty is full of it.
--Bette Davis (Ruth Elizabeth Davis) (1908—1989)
American actress.

Age is like love, it cannot be hid.
--Thomas Dekker (c. 1572—1632)
English dramatist and writter of prose
pamphlets of London life.

^

Chauncey Depew (1834—1928)
American lawyer, politician, and wit.

When Chauncey Depew was quite old, he
was sitting at dinner next to a young woman
wearing a very low-cut, off-the-shoulder
dress. The old lawyer peered at her
dιcolletage, leaned toward her, and
asked, "My dear, what is keeping that
dress on you?" "Only your age, Mr. Depew."

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

Youth is a blunder; manhood, a struggle;
old age, a regret.
--Benjamin Disraeli (1804—1881)
British Tory statesman, novelist, and
Prime Minister [1868, 1874—1880].
_Coningsby: Or, The New Generation_ [1844]

It may be, old age is gentle and fair. . .
Still I tremble at a gray hair.
--Dorothy Dow (1899?—?)
American poet.
"Unbeliever" [1942] _Time and Love_

The years between fifty and seventy are the
hardest. You are always being asked to do
things, and yet you are not decrepit enough
to turn them down.
--T.S. Eliot (1888—1965)
Anglo-American poet, critic, and dramatist.

Life begins at 40 — but so do fallen arches, rheumatism,
faulty eyesight, and the tendency to tell a story to the
same person, three or four times.
--attributed to William Feather (1889—1981)
and Helen Rowland (1875—1950) American writer.

She may very well pass for forty-three,
In the dusk with a light behind her.
--W. S. Gilbert (1836—1911)
English writer of comic and satirical verse.
_Trial by Jury _ [1875]

Once a man's thirty, he's already old,
He is indeed as good as dead.
It's best to kill him right away.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright.
_Faust_ The Second Part, act II, "The Gothic Chamber"

Old Cary Grant fine. How you?
(Attributed answer to telegraphed query,
'How old Cary Grant?')
--Cary Grant [Alexander Archibald Leach]
(1904—1986) English actor.

The hardest years in life are those
between ten and seventy.
--Helen Hayes (1900—1993)
One of the most popular American stage
actresses of the 20th century.

Every man who has lived for fifty years has buried a whole
world or even two; he has grown used to its disappearance
and accustomed to the new scenery of another act: but
suddenly the names and faces of a time long dead appear
more and more often on his way, calling up series of shades
and pictures kept somewhere, "just in case," in the endless
catacombs of the memory, making him smile or sigh, and
sometimes almost weep.
--Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen [or Hertzen] (1812—1870)
Russian political thinker, activist, and writer.
_My Past and Thoughts_ [1861—1867]

-

A person is always startled when he hears himself
seriously called an old man for the first time.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809—1894)
American physician, poet, and essayist.
_The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_ [1858]


A man over ninety is a great comfort to all his elderly neighbors;
he is a picket-guard at the extreme outpost; and the young folks
of sixty and seventy feel that the enemy must get by him before
he can come near their camp.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809—1894)
American physician, poet, and essayist.
_The Guardian Angel_ [1867]

-

Oh, to be seventy again!
--attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
At age ninety, upon seeing a beautiful young woman.

The Grecian ladies counted their age
from their marriage, not their birth.
--Homer (c. 850? BC)
Greek epic poet.

A woman is as old as she looks before breakfast.
--Edgar Watson Howe (1854—1937)
American journalist and author.

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty
is the youth of old age.
--Victor Hugo (1802—1885)
French poet, dramatist, and novelist.
In S. G. Lathrop
_Fifty Years and Beyond: Or, Gathered Gems for the Aged_, p. 376 [1881].

Any time I think I feel myself growing old I tell
myself, 'Self, I haven't got time for that today.
I'll think about it tomorrow.'
--Norma Hunkele
alt.fifty-plus.friends (USENET newsgroup)

No man is ever old enough to know better.
--Holbrook Jackson (1874—1948)
British journalist, writer, and publisher.

I see no comfort in outliving one's friends, and
remaining a mere monument of the times which
are past.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
In a letter to Charles Pinckney [3 September 1816].

Let us sing of the days that are gone, Maggie,
When you and I were young.
--George Washington Johnson (1838—1917)
Canadian teacher and poet.
"When You and I Were Young, Maggie" [1866]
(Music by James Austin Butterfield.)

Cautious age suspects the flattering form,
and only credits what experience tells.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.

Most men make use of the first part of their life
to render the last part miserable.
--Jean de La Bruyθre (1645—1696)
French essayist and moralist.
_Les Caractθres_ [1688] "De l'Homme"

-

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 (1807—1882)
American poet.
Closing lines, "Morituri Salutamus" [1875]
_The Masque of Pandora_


It is autumn; not without
But within me is the cold.
Youth and spring are all about;
It is I that have grown old.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
"Autumn Within"

-

-

From the earliest times, the old have rubbed it into the
young that they are wiser than they, and before the young
have discoverd what nonsense this was they were old too,
and it profited them to carry on the imposture.
--W. Somerset Maugham (1874—1965)
English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer.


The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age
as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning
and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very
silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light
in order to shut out the tranquillity of the evening. Old age
has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than
the pleasures of youth.
--W. Somerset Maugham (1874—1965)
English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer.
_The Summing Up_ [1938], ch. 73

-

The best years are the forties; after fifty a man
begins to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at
the maximum of his villainy.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.

Oft in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me:
The smiles, the tears
Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimm'd and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken.
Thus, in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
--Thomas Moore (1779—1852)
Irish poet, satirist, composer, and musician.
_National Airs_ [1815]
"Oft in the Stilly Night" st. 1

Like childhood, old age is irresponsible, reckless,
and foolhardy. Children & old people have everything
to gain and nothing much to lose. It's middle-age
which is cursed by the desperate need to cling to
some finger-hold halfway up the mountain, to conform,
not to cause trouble, to behave well.
--John Mortimer (1923— )
English barrister and author.
_Murderers & Other Friends_

How confusing the beams from memory's lamp are;
One day a bachelor, the next a grampa.
What is the secret of the trick?
How did I get old so quick?
--Ogden Nash (1902—1971)
American writer of humorous poetry.
"Preface to the Past" [1957]

Age does not protect you from love. But love,
to some extent, protects you from age.
--Anaοs Nin (1903—1977)
French-born American writer.
_Winter of Artifice_ [1939]

-

How old would you be if you didn't know
how old you was?
--Leroy "Satchel" Paige (1906—1982)
American baseball pitcher in both the Negro
Leagues and the Major League; inducted in
the Hall of Fame in 1971.


Age is a question of mind over matter.
If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
--Leroy "Satchel" Paige (1906—1982)
American baseball pitcher in both the Negro
Leagues and the Major League; inducted in
the Hall of Fame in 1971.
In Eugene C. Gerhart _Quote it Completely!_, p. 41 [1998].

-

We get too soon old and too late smart.
--Pennsylvania Dutch proverb

Das Alter wδgt, die Jugend wagt
(Age considers, youth ventures.)
--Ernst Benjamin Salomo Raupach (1784—1852)
German dramatist.
In James Wood
_Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern_, p.53 [1893].

I will not make age an issue. . . . I am not going
to exploit for political purposes my opponent's
youth and inexperience.
--Ronald Reagan (1911—2004)
U.S. President [1981—1989] and former Hollywood actor.
(Said at age 73 regarding his 56-year-old opponent,
Walter F. Mondale, during a televised presidential
campaign debate [21 October 1984].)

When you are younger you get blamed for crimes
you never committed and when you're older you
begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed.
It evens itself out.
--George Santayana (1863—1952)
Spanish-born philosopher and critic.

^^

Sir Malcolm Sargent (1895—1967)
British conductor and organist.

At the age of seventy, Sargent was asked by
an interviewer: "To what do you attribute
your advanced age?"

"Well," replied the conductor, "I suppose I
must attribute it to the fact I haven't died
yet."

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000]

^^

In a dream, you are never eighty.
--Anne Sexton (1928—1974)
American poet who won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth,
that are written down old with all the characters of
age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a
yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an
increasing belly? is not your voice broken? your
wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and
every part about you blasted with antiquity? and
will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie,
Sir John!
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist. _Henry 2nd_

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist
propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1925.
_Man and Superman_ [1903]

-

The denunciation of the young is a necessary
part of the hygiene of older people, and
greatly assists the circulation of their
blood.
--Logan Pearsall Smith (1865—1946)
American-born man of letters.


Am I the person who used to wake in the middle of the
night and laugh with the joy of living? Who worried
about the existence of God, and danced with young
ladies till long after daybreak? Who sang "Auld Lang
Syne" and howled with sentiment, and more than once
gazed at the full moon through a blur of great. romantic
tears?
--Logan Pearsall Smith (1865—1946)
American-born man of letters.
"Last Words" _More Trivia_ [1934]

-

In youth, everything seems possible; but we reach a point in the
middle years when we realize that we are never going to reach
all the shining goals we had set for ourselves. And in the end,
most of us reconcile ourselves, with what grace we can, to
living with our ulcers and arthritis, our sense of partial failure,
our less-than-ideal families — and even our politicians!
--Adlai E. Stevenson (1900—1965)
American Democratic politician.
_Call to Greatness_ [1954]

A man is as old as his arteries.
--Thomas Sydenham (1624—1689)
English physician recognized as a founder
of clinical medicine and epidemiology.
Quoted in Bulletin of the New York Academy
of Medicine, vol. IV [1928], p. 922.

None are so old as those who have
outlived their enthusiasm.
--Henry David Thoreau (1817—1862)
American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher.

The best years of a woman's life —
the ten years between 39 and 40.
--attributed to Sophie Tucker (1884—1966)
American vaudeville artist.

That vague, crepuscular time, the time of regrets that resemble hopes,
of hopes that resemble regrets, when youth has passed, but old age
has not yet arrived.
--Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818—1883)
Russian novelist, poet, and playwright.
_Fathers and Sons_ [1862], ch. 7

Youth is a silly, vapid state,
Old age with fears and ills is rife;
This simple boon I beg of Fate —
A thousand years of Middle Life.
--Carolyn Wells (1862—1942)
American writer.
_My Boon_

A little more tired at close of day,
A little less anxious to have our way;
A little less ready to scold and blame;
A little more care of a brother's name;
And so we are nearing our journey's end,
Where time and eternity meet and blend.
--Rollin J. Wells (1848—1923)
American poet, "Growing Old"

So here I sit in the early candle-light of old
age — I and my book — casting backward
glances over our travel'd road.
--Walt Whitman (1819—1892)
American poet.
"November Boughs_ [1888]

-

The old believe everything, the middle-aged
suspect everything, the young know everything.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.


Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society
is full of women of the very highest birth who have,
of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for
years.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
_The Importance of Being Earnest_ [1895], act III

-

1890: Old man in tuxedo:
'As long as they don't think I'm poor...'

1980: Old man in tennis togs:
'As long as they don't think I'm old...'

--Tom Wolfe (1931— )
American journalist and novelist.
Two-panel cartoon.

-

It's a sign of age if you feel like the morning after
the night before and you haven't been anywhere.
--anon.

I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape, so I got my
doctor's permission to join a fitness club and start exercising. I
decided to take an aerobics class for seniors. I bent, twisted,
gyrated, jumped up and down, and perspired for an hour. But,
by the time I got my leotards on, the class was over.
--anon.

I've sure gotten old. I've had two bypass surgeries, a hip replacement,
new knees. Fought prostate cancer and diabetes. I'm half blind, can't
hear anything quieter than a jet engine, take 40 different medications
that make me dizzy, winded, and subject to blackouts. Have bouts with
dementia. Have poor circulation; hardly feel my hands and feet anymore.
Can't remember if I'm 85 or 92. Have lost all my friends. But, thank
God, I still have my driver's license.
--anon.

My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used
to be.
--anon.

--

A man escaped jail by digging a hole from his jail cell to the outside
world. When finally his work was done, he emerged in the middle
of a preschool playground. “I’m free, I’m free!” he shouted.

“So what,” said a little girl. “I’m four.”

--

GOING FROM YOUTH TO MIDDLE AGE

Then : Getting into a new, hip joint
Now : Getting a new hip joint

Then : Moving to California because it's cool
Now : Moving to California because it's warm

Then : Long hair
Now : Longing for hair

Then: Acid rock
Now : Acid reflux

Then : You're growing pot
Now : Your growing pot

Then : Trying to look like Marlon Brando or Elizabeth Taylor
Now : Trying not to look like Marlon Brando or Elizabeth Taylor

Then : Worrying about no one coming to your party
Now : Worrying about no one coming to your funeral

Then : Killer weed
Now : Weed killer

-----

immemorial (adj.)
So old that it seems always to have existed

senescent (adj.) [sκ-'nes-κnt]
The state of being old, the process of becoming old.


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