Howard Jacobson Quotes

I'm passionate about old people because I am one myself.

I don't like the way young people write and talk about the old. I don't like their attitude, which, if they weren't young and therefore bright and vibrant, would be called outdated.

I believed that old people never laughed. I thought they sighed a lot and groaned. They walked with sticks, and they didn't like children on bicycles or roller skates... or with big dogs.

Being seventy is not a sin.

Commissioners are obsessed with young people, which is funny because they don't watch telly - only old people do.

Old people should be heard but not seen. Young people should be seen, not heard.

Most young people have tremendous respect for older people's views.

The entertainment industry is always targeted at young people. Understandably so, as they are the key consumers. The young are the ones who are falling in love, starting out in life; older people aren't. Nobody thinks, 'Now I'm going to write a film about an older person.'

Being old is such a treat!

Old people are often impatient, but for what?

When you're young, you wonder what all these old people are droning on about, trying to impart their wisdom. It's not relevant to you because being young is such a specific thing. Thank God for that. Thank God for the young people who go out and demonstrate against rampant capitalism or whatever.

Luckily, West End audiences seem to rather like very old people.

It's human nature to be curious about people, and to be more curious about young people than old people. We want to cheer something on at the same time we want to tear it down. That's just so normal.

I don't want to see old people doing rap or rock and roll. It makes me cringe.

Rock n' roll is for the young idiots, not an old fart like me.

I have a wonderful respect for old people.

I don't have this feeling that 70 is really old.

White people don't seem to have many Elders. They do have a lot of oldsters.

I have sympathy for young people, for their growing pains, but I balk when these growing pains are pushed into the foreground, when you make these young people the only vehicles of life's wisdom.

I thought it must be desperate to be old. To wake up in the morning and remember that you were ancient - and so behave that way. I thought old people were full of aches and pains and horrible illnesses.

It's almost a rite of passage for the middle-aged, it seems, to invent generational stereotypes for dumping on the young.

I intend to grow old very disgracefully.

I've dated men my age, younger than me and older. The only difference is the young ones are quicker at taking out the garbage.

When I was young, I despised old people. I was provincial and narrow-minded. It's the reason I stayed stupid so long. If you only get involved with young people you don't learn anything about the world.

Somehow our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them.