Aging

I suppose I will go on selling newspapers until at last will come the late night final.
~ William Maxwell Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook), (on his 75th birthday, 7 June 1954)

O! 'tis sad to lie and reckon
All the days of faded youth,
All the vows that we believed in,
All the words we spoke in truth.
~ William Edmondstoune (W.E.) Aytoun, from Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers (1849). The Buried Flower

Let me grow lovely, growing old --
So many fine things do;
Laces, and ivory, and gold,
And silks need not be new.
~ Karle Wilson Baker, Old Lace: Let Me Grow Lovely

Indeed, it is the commonest thing in the world for a son, or a daughter, or a friend to grow in years without those nearest them being aware of the fact, until some chance circumstance, some crisis, causes a revelation, and we are astounded at the change that time has insidiously made.
~ William Black, Sunrise: A Story Of These Times (1881). Chapter XXI. Father and Daughter

Summer wanes; the children are grown;
Fun and frolic no more he knows.
~ William Cullen Bryant, in Putnam's Magazine (1855). Robert of Lincoln

I had always thought that once you grew up you could do anything you wanted -- stay up all night or eat ice-cream straight out of the container.
~ Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America (1989).

Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are a cheese.
~ Billie Burke (Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke)

Trying to understand the factors that determine maximum possible lifespan is one of the most puzzling aspects of the overall study of senescence and death.
~ William R. Clark, A Means to an End: The Biological Basis of Aging and Death (1999).

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
~ Billy Collins, The Art of Drowning (1995). On Turning Ten

The people who've grown up think it's natural to do so, but it isn't. Rock'n'roll starts to hurt your ears, bright colours hurt your eyes and you start talking about common sense as if there was such a f[*]cking thing. It's the "beigeing-down".
~ Billy Connolly, in Pamela Stephenson's Billy (1 October 2001)

I'll borrow life, and not grow old.
~ William Johnson Cory, Ionica (1858). Academus

Gray hair is God's graffiti.
~ Bill Cosby

I recently turned fifty, which is young for a tree, midlife for an elephant, and ancient for a quarter miler, who's son now says, "Dad, I just can't run the quarter with you anymore unless I bring something to read."
~ Bill Cosby

Immortality is a long shot, I admit; but somebody has to be first.
~ Bill Cosby, Time Flies (1987).

Like everyone else who makes the mistake of getting older, I begin each day with coffee and obituaries.
~ Bill Cosby, Time Flies (1987).

Old is always fifteen years from now.
~ Bill Cosby

The beautiful thing about older people is their ability to cut the fat off of conversation. When they talk, they don't go on forever and ever. They say what they have to say, and that's it. That was my grand dad. Some of the things he said stunned me, but his words were logical. I'll never forget them.
~ Bill Cosby, Senior World Online (31 August 1998). Bill Cosby shares memories of his Grandfather

When you become senile, you won't know it.
~ Bill Cosby, in The New York Times (17 March 1987).

Those blessings of our early youth
Shall cheer our latest age.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). The Doves

The ego is willing but the machine cannot go. It's the last thing a man will admit, that his mind ages.
~ William James "Will" Durant, in The New York Times (6 November 1975).

As for me, I am in pursuit of excellence. I have no time to get old.
~ Will Eisner, in Famiglia Cristiana magazine, #38 (Interview; 23 September 2001).

Even at sixty-two, I can still go harder and further and longer than some of the others. That is, I seem to have reached the point where all I have to risk is just my bones.
~ William Faulkner, (November 1959).

A man of fifty looks as old as Santa Claus to a girl of twenty.
~ William Feather

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.
~ William Feather

When beauty and love are over,
And passion has spent its rage,
And the spectres of memory hover,
And glare on life's lonely stage,
'Tis wine that remains to kindle the veins
And strengthen the steps of age.
~ William Forster, Midas (1882). The Love in her Eyes lay Sleeping

Live to love and love to live --
You will ripen at your ease,
Growing on the sunny side --
Fate has nothing more to give.
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, from Songs of a Savoyard (1898). A Recipe

She may very well pass for forty-three
In the dusk, with a light behind her!
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, Trial by Jury (1875 opera).

Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years.
~ William Golding

As we grow old, our sense of the value of time becomes vivid. Nothing else, indeed, seems of any consequence. We can never cease wondering that that which has ever been should cease to be. We find many things remain the same; why then should there be change in us.
~ William Hazlitt, first published in the Monthly Magazine (March 1827). On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth

If to old age you would he bless'd,
Let peace of mind possess your breast.
~ William Hutton, from Poems, chiefly tales (1804). Maxims

The conceptions acquired before thirty remain usually the only ones we ever gain.
~ William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (March 1899). Apperception

The minute a man ceases to grow, no matter what his years, that minute he begins to be old.
~ William James

And if you came through this ordeal, you would age with dignity.
~ William Manchester

A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale (1930).

It is an illusion that youth is happy; an illusion of those who have lost it.
~ W. Somerset Maugham

It is not a very pleasant thing to recognise that for the young you are no longer an equal. You belong to a different generation. For them your race is run. They can look up to you; they can admire you; but you're apart from them, and in the long run they will always find the companionship of persons of their own age more grateful than yours.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, from A Writer's Notebook (1949). 1933 entry

Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up (1938).

Some men never seem to grow old . . . they always enjoy the best of what is, are the first to find the best of what will be.
~ W. Somerset Maugham

When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully.
~ W. Somerset Maugham

I have liked remembering almost as much as I have liked living.
~ William Maxwell, in The New York Times (9 March 1997). Nearing 90

The view after 70 is breathtaking. What is lacking is someone, anyone, of the older generation to whom you can turn when you want to satisfy your curiosity about some detail of the landscape of the past. There is no longer any older generation. You have become it, while your mind was mostly on other matters.
~ William Maxwell

The older you get the stronger the wind gets -- and it's always in your face.
~ Jack William Nicklaus

Maturity is the recovery of the seriousness of a child at play.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

I think I can point out the exact moment when a man begins to grow old. It is the moment, when, upon self-examination, he finds that his thoughts and reflexions in solitude turn more to the past than to the future. If a man's mind is more filled with memories and reminiscences than with anticipation, then he is growing old.
~ William Lyon ("Billy") Phelps, Human Nature (July 1931).

If the happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts, then we grow happier as we grow older.
~ William Lyon ("Billy") Phelps, Happiness (August 1927).

The last few years have been my happiest. I'm happy in the years that most people are blue and sad and waiting to die. I don't feel that a bit. Smiling has a lot to do with it. You can just lift your spirits by smiling a little bit.
~ William Proxmire, The Associated Press (9 April 1997). Proxmire targets campaign donations

Oh, I am so old, meseems
I am next of kin to Time.
~ George William (A.E.) Russell, The Grey Eros

And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.
~ Robert William Service, from The Spell of the Yukon, and Other Verses (1907). The Men That Don't Fit In

His life, though none too long,
Was never dull:
Of woman, wine and song
Bill had his full.
~ Robert William Service, Carols of an Old Codger (1954). The Sum-up

No need to race, slow down the pace,
Go easy, Pals -- you'll linger longer.
~ Robert William Service, from Rhymes of a Roughneck (1950). Take It Easy

A good old man, sir; he will be talking: as they say, When the age is in the wit is out.
~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. Act III, scene iv

Age, I do abhor thee; youth, I do adore thee;
O, my love, my love is young!
Age, I do defy thee: O, sweet shepherd, hie thee,
For methinks thou stay'st too long.
~ William Shakespeare, from The Passionate Pilgrim, Poem XII (1599).

At your age
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act III, scene iv

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?
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part II. Act I, scene ii

How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part II

I am declined
Into the vale of years.
~ William Shakespeare, Othello

It wears, sir, as it grows.
~ William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens. Act I, scene i

. . . Last scene of all
That ends this strange, eventful history,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act II, scene vii

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 60

My comfort is that old age, that ill layer-up of beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry V. Act V, scene ii

O excellent! I love long life better than figs.
~ William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra. Act I, scene ii

O, sir! you are old;
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine.
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear

Pray, do not mock me:
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more, or less:
And, to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear

The ripest fruit first falls.
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard II. Act II, scene i

Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear

Though age from folly could not give me freedom,
It does from childishness.
~ William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part II. Act I, scene ii

Sweet beast, I have gone prowling,
a proud rejected man
who lived along the edges
catch as catch can;
in darkness and in hedges
I sang my sour tone
and all my love was howling
conspicuously alone.
~ William De Witt (W.D.) Snodgrass, Heart's Needle (1959). Song

You will find as you grow older that the weight of rages will press harder and harder upon the employer.
~ Reverand William A. Spooner, Quoted in Spooner (1977).

As an occupation in declining years, I declare I think saving is useful, amusing and not unbecoming. It must be a perpetual amusement. It is a game that can be played by day, by night, at home and abroad, and at which you must win in the long run. . . . What an interest it imparts to life!
~ William Makepeace Thackeray

By the time you're eighty years old you've learned everything. You only have to remember it.
~ William E. "Bill" Vaughan

One trouble with growing older is that it gets progressively tougher to find a famous historical figure who didn't amount to much when he was your age.
~ William E. "Bill" Vaughan

Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to.
~ William E. "Bill" Vaughan

I am doing fabulous in terms of my health. I have had 32 operations now. With the ankle fusions, I am now ready for the middle 50 years of my life. My goals are to broadcast every game for every network that ABC and ESPN has until the year 2050. And then I will sit back and reassess my career.
~ William (Bill) Theodore Walton, III, The Chicago Tribune (29 October 2002). Fred Mitchell's Q&A: Bill Walton

. . . Still, it's a gift,
at forty-five to run, much less run good,
and look far newer than a classic should.
~ William John Watkins, Dividing Classics from Antiques

Childhood is short and maturity is forever.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

It seems like once people grow up, they have no idea what's cool.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (1994)

When we grow old we find that what is commonplace is true.
~ William Hale White, Catharine Furze (1893).

Oh! what are years? A ripe three score and ten
Hold often less of life, in its best sense,
Than just a twelvemonth lived by other men,
Whose high-strung souls are ardent and intense.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Yesterdays (August 1910). An Old Heart

With care, and skill, and cunning art,
She parried Time's malicious dart,
And kept the years at bay,
Till passion entered in her heart
And aged her in a day!
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Being sixty in Washington sometimes feels like having had one year's experience sixty times. However, age can confer a certain calm about the passing circus, a preference for understatement and for people with low emotional metabolisms.
~ George F. Will, With a Happy Eye But...: America and the World, 1997-2002 (September 2002).

Why is it that as we grow older and stronger
The road signs point us adrift and make us afraid
Saying "You never can win," "Watch your back," "Where's your husband?"
Oh I don't like the signs that the signmakers made.
~ Dar Williams, in Honesty Room (1993 album). You're Aging Well

For retirement brings repose, and repose allows a kindly judgment of all things.
~ John Sharp Williams (referred to as the "mocking bird speech"), Farewell Address, Mississippi Society of Washington, DC (4 March 1923).

It is a terrible thing for an old woman to outlive her dogs.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, Camino Real (1953). Prologue

My old lady died of a common cold.
She smoked cigars and was ninety years old.
She was slim as paper with the ribs of a kite,
And she flew out the kitchen door one night.

Now I'm no younger'n the old lady was,
When she lost gravitation, and I smoke cigars.
I feel sort of peaked, an' I look kinda pore,
So for God's sake, lock that kitchen door!
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, Kitchen Door Blues (1946)

Maturity includes the recognition that no one is going to see anything in us that we don't see in ourselves. Stop waiting for a producer. Produce yourself.
~ Marianne Williamson

For it stirs the blood in an old man's heart,
And makes his pulses fly,
To catch the thrill of a happy voice
And the light of a pleasant eye.
~ Nathaniel Parker Willis, from Sacred Poems (1853). Saturday Afternoon

Ancient person, for whom I
All the flattering youth defy,
Long be it ere thou grow old,
Aching, shaking, crazy, cold;
But still continue as thou art,
Ancient person of my heart.
~ John Wilmot, Earl Of Rochester, A Song of a Young Lady to her Ancient Lover (1691).

We are all of us getting old -- or older; nor would we, for our own parts -- if we could -- renew our youth. Methinks the river of life is nobler as it nears the sea.
~ John Wilson, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (1834). Aria (sotto voce.)

And yet the wiser mind
Mourns less for what age takes away,
Than what it leaves behind.
~ William Wordsworth, from Poems of Sentiment and Reflection (1800). The Fountain. A Conversion (written in 1799)

But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.
~ William Wordsworth, To a Young Lady, Dear Child of Nature

Four years and thirty, told this very week,
Have I been now a sojourner on earth,
And yet the morning gladness is not gone
Which then was in my mind.
~ William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1805).

My days, my friend, are almost gone,
My life has been approved,
And many love me; but by none
Am I enough beloved.
~ William Wordsworth, from Poems of Sentiment and Reflection (1800). The Fountain. A Conversion (written in 1799)

The tendency, too potent in itself,
Of use and custom to bow down the soul
Under a growing weight of vulgar sense,
And substitute a universe of death
For that which moves with light and life informed,
Actual, divine, and true.
~ William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1805). Book XIV: Conclusion

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Tower (1928). Sailing to Byzantium

For life moves out of a red flare of dreams
Into a common light of common hours,
Until old age bring the red flare again.
~ William Butler Yeats, The Land of Heart's Desire (1894).

For men improve with the years;
And yet, and yet,
Is this my dream, or the truth?
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Wild Swans at Coole (1917). Men Improve with the Years

I pray - for fashion's word is out
And prayer comes round again --
That I may seem, though I die old,
A foolish, passionate man.
~ William Butler Yeats, from A Full Moon in March (1935). A Prayer for Old Age

Much did I rage when young,
Being by the world oppressed,
But now with flattering tongue
It speeds the parting guest.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Tower (1928). Youth and Age

Oh, who could have foretold
That the heart grows old?
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Wild Swans at Coole (1919). A Song

The land of faery
Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,
Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,
Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.
~ William Butler Yeats, The Land of Heart's Desire (1894).

Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.
~ William Butler Yeats, from Responsibilities and Other Poems (1914). The Coming of Wisdom with Time

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face . . .
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Rose (1893). When You Are Old