Judith Viorst Quotes

Whenever I watch a show and twentysomethings have a lot of 'Star Wars' references, I know it's written by a 40-year-old dude.

Europe to me is young people trying to appear middle-aged and middle-aged people trying to appear young.

I do still get the odd fan letter about The Good Life, clearly written by somebody aged 18, who says: Will you send a photograph? And I think: Maybe it's kinder not to. I'm deeply into my 50s now.

Today's younger generation is no worse than my own. We were just as ignorant and repulsive as they are, but nobody listened to us.

I found myself in the doldrums in the early Nineties. I was too old to play the dolly bird any longer and I looked too young to play a woman of my real age. No one ever saw me as the aunt, mother or grandmother.

I have no problem being mainstream. I grew up in the '90s when the mainstream was amazing.

I have a hard time getting my head around the idea of playing 'The Perfect Kiss' in my 50s. I can't quite get there.

When you hit 30, people have got this perception that you're past it, and I really disagree with that.

Surely it isn't illegal here to complain about young people these days? How cruel. I had thought it a basic part of human nature, one of the few universally practiced human customs.

You know you're getting old when kids start to dress like you used to and movies are made about your teen life.

I don't feel that old, but when I talk to these kids, I do feel old. Because I'm talking about taxes and all this other stuff that is very, very boring. And these guys are talking about music, and I'm like, 'Oh, I remember those days.'

I had this almost secret life of going to 'Star Wars' conventions because,' when I was younger, Star Wars' had phased into the uncool part of its life and had yet to become cool again for everybody else.

Our public culture is one in which only the young and the beautiful will succeed. If you're forty, you're finished.

What is it to be normal, at 12, at 78? What is it like when you can't grow up?

Everyone looks cool in the '90s.

I was scared to say I was in my 40s because at that point, it sounded really old, and to out myself as a middle-aged human - I felt very awkward about it.

Youth fare aside, I have generally always been interested in what's going on culturally.

In your 20s and 30s, everything is possible. But then, sooner than you think, men walk past you in the street and don't look twice at you unless you're wearing a fabulous outfit.

Nobody under 40 carries a comb.

I have never worried about having my finger on the pulse, because I consume music and cinema voraciously, and assumed that meant I would know all of the things my kids were into, even if I didn't like them.

I woke up one morning and realised that one of the problems with being a middle-aged man - of being a man in general - is the tyranny of fashion.

To me, age is not that important.

As you get older you lose interest in what you hear on the radio. But you can't be like that, you have to enjoy what's going on.

I have become that middle-aged woman who listens to the 'Hamilton' soundtrack in my kitchen.

I think if you're 50 you just ruddy say it.