S. Jay Olshansky Quotes

I think some people do want to die, and they will get a disease. There are people who know their lives are so troubled, and their bodies are getting them out of here.

What we know for sure from our work and from others' is that mice have a life span of 1,000 days, dogs have 5,000 days, and we humans have 29,000 days. Recognizing that the duration is limited, and aging is inevitable, focus the attention on enhancing the quality of the days you have.

It's paradoxical, that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone.

I don't believe medical discoveries are doing much to advance human life. As fast as we create ways to extend it we are inventing ways to shorten it.

Soon you won't even have the choice to live or die as you wish!

I don't expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible.

I realized not long ago that by the time I leave this Earth, no matter when it is I will have officially only spent approximately 14 years of my life where I did not have to deal with cancer.

I don't want to live beyond the age of 75. That would be a good point to bow out. I don't want to go on for ever.

We have been so successful in the past century at the art of living longer and staying alive that we have forgotten how to die. Too often we learn the hard way. As soon as the baby boomers pass pensionable age, their lesson will be harsher still.

Death used to announce itself in the thick of life but now people drag on so long it sometimes seems that we are reaching the stage when we may have to announce ourselves to death. It is as though one needs a special strength to die, and not a final weakness.

People who died could not come back to life, so guaranteeing the right to life should not be a thing of the future, but should be advancing right now.

People say that life is short, but it isn't short. It's very long.

When I was young, I used to think that everyone should die at 70.

The thing about living in the 21st century is you can get to fortysomething and not have anyone major in your life die.

What is time, really? When you are diagnosed with a terminal disease like cancer or leukemia, your perception of time changes.

I can't say that I deserve longlife; I don't. I've just been around long enough. They say, "My God, she's still here."

Altogether, the task of estimating the length of human life is beyond our capacity, for directly we say that it is ages long, we are reminded that it is briefer than the fall of a rose leaf to the ground.

I just hope when my body goes, or when my mind does, I have the guts to end it the way Hemingway did. I don't want anybody wiping drool off my chin.

I hope this means you'll quit asking me to kill you. It gives me indigestion.

I would like to do my own eulogy, and then shoot myself and then get in the coffin.

I wish to live to 150 years old, but the day I die, I wish it to be with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other.

The secret to a long life is knowin' when it's time to go.

Naturally, there's got to be a limit for I don't expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible.

The will of the world is always a will to death, a will to suicide. We must not accept this suicide, and we must so act that it cannot take place.

It's hard to feel middle-aged, because how can you tell how long you are going to live?