Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “The young know the rules. The old know the exceptions.” We learn as the years go by that life is nothing but a series of exceptions to be reckoned with, to be mediated, t...  Read More

“What is the worst of woes that wait on age?” Lord Byron wrote. “What stamps the wrinkle on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life’s page and be alone on earth as I am now.” A major charac...  Read More

If, as the years go by, we grow more and more aware of both the meaning and the meaninglessness of things, we must certainly also grow more sensitive, not less aware of the ebb and flow of life. In he...  Read More

There is no perfect, no ultimate, no crowning stage of life. Whatever we are now, that is it. If we privilege one stage of life over the others, we stand to miss their pulp. “I have no romantic feelin...  Read More

Only children understand the impulsive, impetuous, impelling urge to throw snowballs. Only wise adults realize that unless we throw them, it is unlikely we will ever manage to escape the traces that h...  Read More

“Old age,” in Louis Kronenberger’s view, “is an excellent time for outrage. My goal,” he went on, “is to say or do at least one outrageous thing every week.” The future is a very sweet part of getting...  Read More

W. Somerset Maugham wrote, “What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one’s faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one’s memories.” What we often fail to realize is that memory ...  Read More

“The answer to old age is to keep one’s mind busy and to go on with one’s life as if it were interminable. I always admired Chekhov for building a new house when he was dying of tuberculosis” wrote Le...  Read More

Carl Jung taught, “For a younger person, it is almost a sin and certainly a danger to be too much occupied with himself. But for the aging person it is the duty and a necessity to give serious attenti...  Read More

Maggie Kuhn said, “Old age is not a disease. It is strength and survivorship.” When we ignore the fact that all of us are on an inexorable journey to our own old age, we miss the gift of years. We mis...  Read More

“In a dream you are never eighty,” Anne Sexton wrote. Our dreams reveal to us the basic truth of life: years are biological; the spirit is eternal. The number of our years does not define us. Deep dow...  Read More

“Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read,” said Francis Bacon. There is something about getting older that tempts us to settle down a bit. We begin to r...  Read More