Florence King Quotes

My first job was in a nursing home - a terrible place in retrospect. It was in an old house, and the residents were so lonely. People rarely visited them. I only stayed there a couple of months, but it made a strong impression on me.

It's much better to go when you are still capable than wait until people say you're so doddery it's time you went.

Florida was a living tomb, she used to tell anyone who'd listen, an old-age home in the shape of a state, God's little waiting room, as she was fond of quoting.

Far more than dreading ending up in a care home myself, I dread having to put my husband in one.

I'm not going to sit on the porch of the old anchorman's home with a drool cup.

I don't have any fear of death. I do, however, have an inordinate fear of becoming dependent on other people. To me, that's the severest test, not death.

I can't bear the thought of my mother having to push me around in a wheelchair. I'd rather die quickly.

Our treatment of both older people and children reflects the value we place on independence and autonomy. We do our best to make our children independent from birth. We leave them all alone in rooms with the lights out and tell them, "Go to sleep by yourselves." And the old people we respect most are the ones who will fight for their independence, who would sooner starve to death than ask for help.

I value my independence a lot, and the thought of having to lose that due to age or any other reason terrifies me.

I don't want to hang around in a wheelchair in a nursing home. I don't. I don't want to be like that.

No one should be alone in their old age, he thought.

At times it seems as if arranging to have no commitment of any kind to anyone would be a special freedom. But in fact the whole idea works in reverse. The most deadly commitment of all is to be committed only to one's self. Some come to realize this after they are in the nursing home.

Science has taught us to lengthen life. Now we must learn to make a longer life worth living. Older people deserve choices that let us live out our days as we wish. We've seen people making such choices all over America, and we realize what we might have known from the start: For most of us, there really is no place like home.

When you're alone, it's easier," she said a little wistfully. "You can do what you want. You don't have to go home.

Old age is - a lot of crossed off names in an address book.

Alone I'm nothing.

Let's put it this way: there wouldn't be much point in me attending a high-school reunion now because there wouldn't be anybody there. We'd struggle to raise a quorum.

There is a certain moment in the film when the son is in the nursing home and he goes to the television and turns it off because he sees himself in the image.

Death is better than slavery.

Solitude is independence.

My personal telephone book is a book of the dead now. I'm so old. Almost all of my friends have died, and I don't have the guts to take their names out of the book.

If you're not ready to die for it, put the word 'freedom' out of your vocabulary.

Be able to live alone, even if you don't want to and think you will never find it necessary.

I have sworn to only live free. Even if I find bitter the taste of death, I don't want to die humiliated or deceived.

I don't collaborate. You're born alone, you die alone, you get on stage alone.