(This week I am running a Giveaway. The rules are simple. Drop a comment on any of this week's postings (Saturday 3rd to Saturday 10th inclusive) and I'll put the names of all those who have commented in a hat (assuming I can find one – it may have to be a saucepan or some other substitute) and draw out the winner on Sunday 11th. The winner will receive one of the books shown in my Giveaway post on Sunday. I look forward to all your comments.)
I recently had my annual 'Enthusiasm for Life' examination and discovered I'm only forty two. My doctor reckons my body is about seventy two. I feel about twenty two and my birth certificate says I'm sixty two. Life is very confusing. My only consolation is that I'm not alone as some of these quotations show.
"The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball." ~ Doug Larson
"Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone." ~ Jim Fiebig
"Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children." ~ George Bernard Shaw
"There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward." ~ John Mortimer
"Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative." ~ Maurice Chevalier
"Father Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With such people the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow's hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life." ~ Charles Dickens
"The first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to the left." ~ Jerry M. Wright
"The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion." ~ Doris Lessing
"There is always a lot to be thankful for, if you take the time to look. For example, I'm sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don't hurt." ~ Author Unknown
Do you have a favourite quotation about ageing?
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No favourite quotes from me but I do agree that getting old is way better than the alternative!
ReplyDeleteIs this some "real" test you take or just a personal approximation? I'm not really one for all those multiple choice quizzes the internet is swarming with. However you got me curious just now so I went in random search of one. I shouldn't have, because apparently, my life is really miserable. Luckily I don't quite agree. What happens with me is just that with certain kind of multiple choice questions I tend to get stuck in two-way thinking. Here they had an alternative "this statement about me could be either true or false"! Which many of them could, depending on what details of life I applied it to in my mind... I did not save the link because I would not really recommend that particular test to anyone! ... Basically I often feel the same kind of confusion as you describe. I have a quote at the back of my mind... I'll get back to it, must find it first.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much John. You always make me smile but to make me laugh out loud in the morning is no mean feat! The next time I look in the mirror I will be thankful that wrinkles don't hurt!!
ReplyDelete"No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now. --- 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."
ReplyDeleteFrom Ray Bradbury - Dandelion Wine
My favourite novel on the age theme - I liked it when I first read it in my upper teens, I reread it several times over the years, and I still liked it just as much when three years ago for the first time I read it in English.
Sorry Monics, the annual enthusiasm for life test was a figment of my imaginastion. At least I thought it was; but now you've got me wondering...
ReplyDeleteI'd recommend sticking with your 'imaginative' test result. That's probably more accurate than any other kind! ;)
ReplyDeleteNot a quotation but a song, look up the words to the song "Young At Heart". That's the right idea!
ReplyDelete:) You make me smile!
ReplyDeleteAn archeologist is the best husband a woman can have, the older she gets the more interested in her he is.
ReplyDeleteAgatha Chrisie
I think that John Mortimer and Maurice Chevalier have already summed it up.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! Two quotes spring to mind:
ReplyDelete"Age is only important if you're a cheese."
"Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."
Don't know where they come from, but your quotes are better anyway. Cheers!
You make me chuckle! heh, heh, My granddaughter Charley told me lately that I have a young mind, not bad for someone 72, I say. Well, at least I think it was meant as a compliment. If it wasn't, I don't want to know that! :D
ReplyDeleteThere were some great quotes among these - a couple of them made me laugh out loud! Aging is strange isn't it? I've never minded it much, but sometimes it occurs to me that I am heading toward 50 (well, 46 this year) and I just have to laugh! On the inside I still feel like I did years ago - many years ago. Even with my silver hair, it's hard for me to believe that I am middle-aged. Like a good cheese... ;-) Silke
ReplyDeleteGreat quotes on ageing (with an e, the British way!). The one about always being who we are from our earliest age until now gives me pause. As I look back on my childhood and early to mid teens, I don't recognize myself at all. The person I was then is definitely not who I am now. Some of my tastes are the same, like candy, animals and wide open spaces. But my character doesn't seem to be the same. Back then I was a follower and easily dominated. I don't think I am like that now. But my childhood was always an enigma to me.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I definitely agree with John Mortimer. I am definitely a realist. Which brings me to THE AWARD. Getting it ready. Posting it soon.
ReplyDelete