Pithy Sayings

Old Age

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Tomorrow will be like today, and the day after tomorrow will be like the day before yesterday.
I see your remaining days as a tedious collection of hours full of useless vanities.
You will think no new thoughts, and you will forget what little you have known.
Older you will become, but no wiser. Stiffer, but not more dignified.
...
When you die, you will be buried and forgotten. And that is all.
And for all the good or evil, creation nor destruction your living might have accomplished, you might just as well never have lived at all.
I'm sorry but you see it is my curse to tell the absolute truth.
[Apollonias of Tyana, in the film 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, 1963]

If I'd known how old I was going to be I'd have taken better care of myself.
[Adolph Zukor, on approaching his hundredth birthday, quoted in Youth is Wasted on the Young by Stephen Blake and Andrew John, 2003]

Exercise regularly. Eat sensibly. Die anyway.
[Anonymous, quoted in The Body by Bill Bryson, 2019]

As you get older three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can't remember the other two.
[Norman Wisdom, 1915 to 2010, quoted in Youth is Wasted on the Young by Stephen Blake and Andrew John, 2003]

Sure, I'm for helping the elderly. I'm going to be old myself some day.
[Lillian Carter, in her eighties, quoted in Youth is Wasted on the Young by Stephen Blake and Andrew John, 2003]

At my age I do what Mark Twain did. I get my daily paper, look at the obituaries page and if I'm not there I carry on as usual.
[Patrick Moore, 1923 to 2012, astronomer, quoted in Youth is Wasted on the Young by Stephen Blake and Andrew John, 2003]

This is a terrible country for old people. You put them away in horrible buildings that are completely shut off from life, and then do everything possible to keep them alive. It is a very stupid system. You should all be shot.
[From The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland, 2017]

The worst part of being old is rememberin' when you was young.
[Richard Farnsworth, in the film The Straight Story, 1999, directed by David Lynch]

The worst part of being old is knowing it only gets worse, never better.
[Martin Leese, 1954 to ?]

You are beginning to be truly old when:
o You do not kneel down unless you have first spotted something you can grab to pull yourself up again.
o You get into a car by backing your bottom in and then hauling your legs in by hand.
o You have given up eating toffees, stewed figs (the seeds), and anything with nuts anywhere near it.
[Symptoms complied by Frank Muir & Denis Norden, and quoted in A Kentish Lad by Frank Muir, 1997]

I have often thought of aquiring an old lady to keep as a pet. They'd be of little use for a shooting man, of course - no nose, d'you see, and useless over marshy ground - but for the town-dweller they are incomparable. ... Old ladies can help one, too, in countless little ways such as marking shirts and arranging flowers: tricks which few dogs and no cats can be taught.
[From Something Nasty in the Woodshed by Kyril Bonfiglioli, 1976]