Marianne Elliott Quotes

After adolescence, if one's life is sufficiently interesting, the desire to tell oneself stories diminishes.

I don't have any issues with my age.

The feelings we all have as 50-year-olds are different than the feelings we all have as 30-year-olds. That informs everything we do.

It's funny how you get a bit older and become more accepting of things. When you're in your twenties, you're skeptical of everything. I definitely felt like that.

I used to think, 'How can I write my life story? I'm still living it.'

You can't sing about the same things as you did when you were 20; it would be ridiculous to sing about, I don't know, being in the quad. You can't really write about mortgage payments or stuff like that... but you can talk about 'let's make the world a better place.'

Recently I read the stories I wrote in my early 20s, to put in a volume. And here is this brittle young woman, writing about marriage as, not the worst thing, but the most boring thing that could happen to a person. Now I think I was wrong. I like to be proven wrong.

I thought I was an old soul, and that I knew life, but then starting the real life, I figured I am completely new.

I remember thinking, when I was in my early 30s, that this is the best age to be, and I still believe your 30s are a wonderful time.

Maybe something that's acceptable in your teens or 20s is unacceptable in your 30s or 40s.

I feel the older I get, the more I'm learning to handle life. Being on this quest for a long time, it's all about finding yourself.

You grow up a lot on set, but it doesn't change you.

When I turned 45, I lay in bed reflecting on all life had taught me. My soul sprang a leak and ideas flowed out. My pen simply caught them and set the words on paper. I typed them up and turned them into a newspaper column of the 45 lessons life taught me. When I hit 50, I added five more lessons and the paper ran the column again.

When you're 22 or 23, you think the world revolves around you, and I felt that way for a long time. But I just turned 30, and I love it! You realize, 'Whoa, baby, you ain't all that.' And you're not! You're just a woman out there doing something she loves.

I've always thrown myself into different kinds of experiences, sometimes into really bad things. But, you grow up. You become more of a woman and you know yourself. I think knowing yourself is a wonderful thing especially when you're in your 40s and you're kind of in your skin. Life is not so confusing anymore.

At 67, you are what you are. I think it's too late to change much.

With age and experience, I started to know myself better.

I had to have experience, you know what I mean? Because I've been doing this since I was 14... I couldn't write about anything at 14. I had to live some life. I definitely lived some life.

You make your own kinds of mistakes, and I’m sure you’ll have your share of regrets in life. But commitment was never your problem, sweetie. You have a better chance of making this work than most forty-year-olds I know. My little middle-aged child. Luckily, you seem to have found another old soul.

The fact is that this conversation is going on at every level at every age, we're all going, "God, what a jerk I've been," "How could I have married that guy?" or "How could I have done this or that?" With time, this is the gift of being older, that you get to look back and say, "It wasn't all about them."

Age has given me what I was looking for my entire life - it gave me me. It provided the time and experience and failures and triumphs and friends who helped me step into the shape that had been waiting for me all my life...I not only get along with me most of the time now, I am militantly and maternally on my own side.

I felt like it was a great secret when I found out that I could be in my 30s.

I suspect I was not the first 21-year-old who thought he knew more than he did. And one of the virtues of age, one of the virtues of getting married and becoming a father, is it often leads one to take a more measured approach to life.

Think back to yourself at age 18. I know I was mighty different than the Patti I am today. As we grow up, we grow out of our haircuts, our apartments and - often times - our romantic decisions.

I'm not changing to the point where suddenly I wear floor-length skirts and start playing the violin; I'm just growing up a little bit, I guess.