Norman Cousins Quotes

There's no such thing as old age. I'm no different now than I was 50 years ago. I'm just having more fun.

I'm pretty good for an old geek.

If you don't learn to laugh at troubles, you won't have anything to laugh at when you grow old.

It is a pledge that senility has not the last say in everything.

I am 58. That is pretty old, for God's sake. I look pretty good for my age, and I am enjoying that.

You reach a certain age, and you're so proud that you're walking and breathing and loving and working and all of that at 90.

I was seducing shepherdesses when you weren't a twinkle in your great-grandcestor's eyes. I think I know what I'm doing.

I was thinking, as I watched her, how little it mattered –about her teeth for instance. I know so many women who have kept all the things she had lost, *but whose inner glow has faded*. Whatever else was gone, Antonia had not lost the fire of life.

I think we all get our own bag of hammers. We all get our own Parkinson's. We all have our own thing. I think that we'll look at it through the filter of that experience, and we'll say, "Yeah, I need to laugh at my stuff, too."

I'm 81 and I'm in the prime of my life.

Profundity of thought belongs to youth, clarity of thought to old age.

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.

These old knights are more cunning than you think, or they would never have lived to see their first grey hair.

I've got cheekier with age. You can get away with murder when you're 71 years old. People just think I'm a silly old fool.

If you look in the eyes of the young, you see flame. If you look in the eyes of the old, you see light.

The essence of age is intellect. Wherever that appears, we call it old.

Do we all become garrulous and confidential as we approach the gates of old age? Is it that we instinctively feel, and cannot help asserting, our one advantage over the younger generation, which has so many over us? - the one advantage of time!

I always say my age is connected with three Cs. In here, cuore, which means the heart. Up here, cervello, which is the brain. And, of course, down here: the coglioni. I no feel my age, I tell you.

As you get older your willingness to tell more of the truth is awakened and you don't have to think about it or imagine it because now you know this to be true.

So is work ethic. You do things over and over again, and when you get in a situation you like to think it comes natural. I think there has to be a mind-set that you’re not afraid to fail. I’m not afraid to fail. I’ve done it quite a bit. The calmer you are, the more the game slows down for you, and I think part of that is controlling your emotions.

For inside all the weakness of old age, the spirit, God knows, is as mercurial as it ever was.

an old woman ... is a person who has no sense of decency; if once she takes to living, the devil himself can't get rid of her.

Alas, how right the ancient saying is: We, who are old, are nothing else but noise And shape. Like mimicries of dreams we go, And have no wits, although we think us wise.

Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age, and to imagine right up to the brink of death that life is only beginning. I think that is the only way to keep adding to one's talent, and one's inner happiness.