From this one may see that there is no reason to pity old people. Instead, young people should envy them. It is true that old have no opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that. Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past—the potentialities they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized—and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.

Most women want their youth back again; but I wouldn't have mine back at any price. The worst years of my life are behind me, and my best ones ahead.

A man gets older, he said, he finds they's lots of things he can do jest as well without and so he don't have to worry about this and that the way a young feller will. I worked near all my life and never had nothin. Seems like a old man'd be allowed his rest but then he comes to find they's things you have to do on account of nobody else wants to attend to em... Most ever man loves peace, he said, and none better than a old man.

I wouldn't want to live if I did not have my work. In any case, it's good that I'm already old and personally don't have to count on a prolonged future.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

I am an old man and have had many worries, but most have never come to pass.