Quotes by Florida Scott-Maxwell

“You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality. When at last age has as...”

“...[T]here are days when emptiness is spacious, and non-existence elevating.”

“I admire a contented mind. I revere enjoyment of the simple things. I can imagine that contentment has a high degree of truth. But the human tendency is to take good as normal, and one's natural ri...”

“I say to life, "You are very hard", and I also say: "We are blind, we prefer to be blind. It is easier...". Life has to be hard to have any affect on us; even now we hardly notice it. Beyond that c...”

“Life does not accommodate you; it shatters you. Every seed destroys its container, or else there would be no fruition.”

“This is what creation is. The might and marvel of forever creating out of opposition.”

“It is as though God said, "You think to create order? Here is the appropriate disorder, since they are one.”

“Difficulties are what makes it honorable and interesting to be alive.”

“Age puzzles me. I thought it was a quiet time. My seventies were interesting and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate. I grow more intense as I age.”

“The crucial task of old age is balance: keeping just well enough, just brave enough, just gay and interested and starkly honest enough to remain a sentient human being.”

“My kitchen linoleum is so black and shiny that I waltz while I wait for the kettle to boil. This pleasure is for the old who live alone.”

“Is there any stab as deep as wondering where and how much you failed those you loved?”

“No matter how old a mother is she still watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.”

“No matter how old a mother is she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.”

“It is not easy to be sure that being yourself is worth the trouble but [we do know] it is our sacred duty.”

“We who are old know that age is more than a disability. It is an intense and varied experience almost beyond our capacity at times but something to be carried high.”

“You need to claim the events in your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done which may take some time you are fierce with reality.”

“No matter how old a mother is she still watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.”

“No matter how old a mother is she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.”

“It is not easy to be sure that being yourself is worth the trouble but [we do know] it is our sacred duty.”