John Updike Quotes

As you get older three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can't remember the other two.

I am in the prime of my senility.

Age gives you a great sense of proportion. You can be very hard on yourself when you're younger but now I just think 'well everybody's absolutely mad and I'm doing quite well'.

You get clarity as you get sober, and you get clarity as you get older.

I am too old to think.

I've had a lot of 'aha' moments, but the big 'aha' about growing older is the mental freedom.

Turning 50 is a little bit of a 'taking stock' moment. I feel probably a little dumber. I don't think I'm as sharp as I was when I was younger, but I'm definitely wiser and less likely to make gigantic blunders of an intellectual, spiritual, emotional or physical type.

They tell you that you'll lose your mind when you grow older. What they don't tell you is that you won't miss it very much.

We may lose our memory as we get older, but this might not be such a bad thing - who wants to drag a mental junkyard around at a time of life when you're starting to grow interesting little wings?

You know you're getting older when - well, first off, when you read almost any story that begins 'You know you're getting older when.' But you also know it when you not only never heard of the musical guest on a given 'Saturday Night Live' but never heard of the host, either.

I'm still learning, you know. At 80, I feel there is a lot I don't know.

That's the privilege of old age: You don't have to remember.

I used to panic and get rattled when I was young, but as I've got older, I've started literally to live day to day. With age, you work out what matters.

I'm an old man of 73, and I've been around a long time. If I don't know something by now, I probably never will.

I think middle-age is the best time, if we can escape the fatty degeneration of the conscience which often sets in at about fifty.

I think you go nuts when you get older.

I want to be older. I actually think there's an incredible amount of self-knowledge that comes with getting older. I feel way better now than I did when I was 20. I'm stronger, I'm smarter in every way, I'm so much less crazy than I was then.

After a while, you just don't do things you don't wanna do - that's the great freedom you get, the older you get. You learn what to do and what not to do, and what will be a waste of time and what won't be a waste of time.

Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.

I've been around the track a lot. I've had the best of the years, and I don't want a single year back.

I feel more grounded and more settled than I ever have. I don't know whether that is to do with my spirituality or whether I'm wiser about life, but as you age you become more selective about what you listen to, devote your time to and who you hang out with.

When you're older and wiser a lot of the ego has gone out of the window.

If you're asking me to acknowledge that I've gotten older, I can do that.

The older one gets the more one comes to resemble oneself.

As you age, you have this vast cauldron of experience to draw from. Some of the experiences are great; some of them you wish you'd never had. But all of them shape the work that you do and the person you become. It's just inevitable.