Douglas Wood Quotes

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.

The older you get the more you understand what you're doing.

I'm beginning to understand myself. But it would have been great to be able to understand myself when I was 20 rather than when I was 82.

There are things that you write when you're 20 and there are things that you write when you're 40 and then there are things that you write when you're old.

My life experience has made me realise what's important and what is not.

I put all my big revelations into songs when I was in my 20s; as you get older, revelations are harder to come by.

My films, sometimes, have my own reflections of life. They have life lessons I've had that I put across in a humorous or satirical way.

I've seen a lot of things and I've experienced a lot of things.

The truth, I discovered, is a tree that grows as a man gains access to experience. A child sees the acorn of his daily life, but a man looks back on the oak.

Your art kind of changes as you get older, by nature of the fact that you're hopefully gaining wisdom and you're starting to watch things with a better overview.

I have a feeling that books are a lot like people - they change as you age, so that some books that you hated in high school will strike you with the force of a revelation when you're older.

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

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.

I like to deal in the reality of life. I'm too old to sing about women and things like that.

As you get older, you're always maturing, you're always learning something new about yourself.

I suppose I was waiting until I was old enough to have some sort of experience to sing about. When you're young, it's hard to sing the blues. Nobody believes 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.

I actually think there's an incredible amount of self-knowledge that comes with getting older.

There are no regrets in life, just lessons.

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

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

I think that between 27 and 37 was a really big learning decade.

Everything that happens later in life is appreciated in a different way. You can appreciate the thing for what it is, which you couldn't if you were 25 and had never experienced much else. You would take it all for granted and think that's what life is like.

I've become a lot wiser over the years.

The person you are at 13 or 17 is not the person you are at 30, 40, or 50. Everyone old enough to look back on his or her teenage years knows this.