Ruth Rendell Quotes

Are you thankful for not being young?' 'Yes, sir. If I was young, it would all have to be gone through again, and the end would be a weary way off, don't you see?

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

The thing to remember about being young is you eventually get old.

Age, what is it? It's not a figure that has ever meant anything to me.

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.

Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.

I think being able to age gracefully is a very important talent. It is too late for me.

I hate getting old, but I'm sticking with it!

It's not the same thing to make a work - a film, a book, a play - about youth as it is to make one about old age.

One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it's such a nice change from being young.

It's a good thing to be old. Because when you get older, that means you haven't died yet, right? And when I do get older, I want to have the grace to be proud of it, not to lie about it or try to fight it.

One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it's such a nice change from being young.

Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.

Memory tempers prosperity, mitigates adversity, controls youth, and delights old age.

You wake up one day and suddenly realize that your youth is behind you, even though you're still young at heart.

I used to love getting older.

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!

A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.

Experience is a great advantage. The problem is that when you get the experience, you're too damned old to do anything about it.

He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.

The fear of old age is something that one feels when they're younger. Once you get to being old, you're already there, so you don't even think about it anymore.

Age puzzles me. I thought it was a quiet time. My seventies were interesting and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate. I grow more intense as I age.

To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.

Age wins and one must learn to grow old.