“Women not only bear the brunt of the equation of beauty with youth, we perpetuate itevery time we dye our hair to cover the gray or lie about our age, not to mention have plastic surgery to cover t...”

“My first interview was with eighty-eight-year-old folk artist Marcia Muth Your life does change as you get older, she told me. You get into whats important and whats not.”

“Its not loving a man that makes life harder for gay guys, its homophobia. Its not the color of their skin that makes life harder for people of color; its racism. Its not having vaginas that makes l...”

“We dont ask when people age out of singing, or eating ice cream; why would we stop making love?”

“Nowhere is ageism more sexist, and vicious, than in the domain of sexuality.”

“The myth of self-sufficiency demands optimism without end, downplays lifes challenges, and shames us when, inevitably, we fall short.”

“I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be okay with being different, and with being this alive, this intense. (xxvi)”

“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.”

“Birthdays could be such a bummer when you were older than the country you lived in.”

“We can never skip growing old. As we grow older, we understand old things and things of old times better!”

“The picture enclosed here is of a hibiscus that has been flowering in the parlor window one bloom at a time for what seems like a year or more. Its getting to where I dont remember when there wasnt...”

“Why couldn't everyone stay young forever? If not on the outside, then just on the inside, where no one ever got too old to be optimistic.”

“We are just too blinded by the phrase, "grow old together" and learning its meaning from hopeless movies and novels that glorify undying love and unbelievable understanding. Don't you think? Realit...”

“The bones of the oak tree that had stood by the spring branch during my youth were scattered about the ground, pieces of the skeleton of a majestic life that had passed while I was off growing up a...”

“We live to work.Man was made to move.Without work we shall grow old quickly.”