Billy Joel Quotes

As soon as a man recognizes that he has drifted into age, he gets reminiscent. He wants to talk and talk; and not about the present or the future, but about his old times. For there is where the pathos of his life lies - and the charm of it. The pathos of it is there because it was opulent with treasures that are gone, and the charm of it is in casting them up from the musty ledgers and remembering how rich and gracious they were.

It's very odd, being older, because in a way it's hard to own the past, even.

I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger. I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was stronger

I do remember being young.

There are moments of life that we never forget, which brighten and brighten as time steals away.

I learned from my past.

What's that line from TS Eliot? To arrive at the place where you started, but to know it for the first time. I'm able to write about a breakup from a different place. Same brokenness. Same rock-bottom. But a little more informed, now I'm older. Thank God for growing up.

When I look back at the 1980s I pinch myself. Did I really do all that?

I find myself thinking more about the past as I get older... maybe because there's just more of it to think about. At the same time, I'm less haunted by it than I was as a younger person. I guess that's probably the ideal: to reach a point where you have access to all of your memories, but you don't feel victimized by them.

I think for all of us, as we age, there are always a few moments when you are shocked.

Knowledge is ancient error reflecting on its youth.

If you gave me an hour in the day between '09 and '14, I could have told you exactly where I was and what I was doing.

So often, we don't realize that the very moments in which we live become our history, our story.

I definitely do live my life at a different pace now than I used to... I feel like I'm guilty of all the overindulgences of a guy in his 20s and early 30s could've gone through, but I look back on it with great fondness. I don't have a lot of regrets.

Young fighters dream of the future. Old fighters seek to recapture the past.

As I've grown older, I appreciate what I had at Lilly even more than I did back then.

When you are 16 or 17, you think you are right about everything. But when you are over 20, you realise the mistakes you made at 16 or 18. You learn with age.

When I went to Munich, I was perhaps a little too young.

It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age: when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.

Every man is obsessed by the memories of his own youth.

Randolph," he said, "were you ever as young as me?" And Randolph said: "I was never so old.

I've always had a talent for recognizing when I am in a moment worth being nostalgic for.

Sometimes you are aware when your great moments are happening, and sometimes they rise from the past. Perhaps it's the same with people.

And your own life while it's happening to you never has any atmosphere until it's a memory.

We all have appointments with the past.