Yo-Yo Ma Quotes

My 20s were a time where I made it; my 30s were when I was away, confused, and trying to figure it all out.

I had to figure out at 61 years of age: 'Holy moly! Who am I?'

Middle Age At forty-five, What next, what next? At every corner, I meet my Father, My age, still alive.

When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.

You hear about these guys having midlife crises - I don't see that happening to me.

I know it sounds pathetic, but I don't know who I am.

I always did think that when I turned 40, I'd start coming into my own.

It is always the same: once you are liberated, you are forced to ask who you are.

Being 21 years old is not easy in the sense that you're still trying to get to know yourself.

I don't like the term mid-life crisis.

I never felt like I had anything really figured out. When I was a teenager, it was all about teenagers having an 'identity crisis.' That was the phrase that was used. But in my early 20s, I was still like, 'When am I going to be over that?'

When I was in my 20s, I thought I knew who I was. And then as soon as I turned 30, I realized that person has bruises and bumps and dark parts. And you kind of go, well, that's it. I'd rather embrace it than force myself to change.

I did have a midlife crisis.

Like most people in college, I just wasn't really sure who I was.

I hit my thirties and felt I had to start being profound.

I was very frightened when I turned forty. I suddenly thought I ought to wake up and be speaking with the voice of God.

She left me then, surrounded by my extravagantly simple finery and I sat for a long time, uncomfortable both with the person I had been and the person I was finally becoming. Caught between the two of them, I felt rather lonely, as one often does with a new acquaintance.

I've never been in another kind of midlife crisis. I don't know what it feels like when you're through that, but I definitely feel that changing a few things, like being on a different label and having things kind of settle back into a sense of normality, helps to feel grounded.

What else do I have to offer? Nothing happens to me anymore. That’s the reality of getting old, and I guess that’s really the crux of the matter. I’m not ready to be old yet.

What happens at 50, more or less, you lose what you need to create another person, to sustain another person; you keep what you need to sustain yourself. And there's something wonderful about that.

I, at the age of 17 or 18 as a medical student, suddenly came up against a problem: 'What am I? What is the meaning of my existence as I experience it?'

When I was younger, my whole sense of self-worth was based on whether or not I was working, which was awful. And I had a baby at 20 years old, so it wasn't just about me. At around the age of 30 there was a stretch where I wasn't working - certainly not on anything I liked, anyway - and I started to do other things.

At midlife, I think a woman has more in common with her teenage children than anybody else. We all are kind of uncertain. We realize for the first time in either our lives or decades that we're in charge now.

You have to know who you are, if you don't you have nightmares.

Earlier in my career, I was really tight, really together, and knew who I was and I was confident. I kind of feel in between now.