Ernest Gaines Quotes

I wish I was more adventurous.

Experience is a great advantage. The problem is that when you get the experience, you're too damned old to do anything about it.

Nothing seemed as scary as waking up at 40 and realizing that I had not lived a very courageous life.

To think that an old soldier should come to this.

I lived with the terrible knowledge that one day I would be an old man still waiting for my real life to start. Already, I pitied that old man.

Faith, courage, optimism, looking forward, bring us new life and more life. Futility, frustration, living in the past are not only characteristic of 'old age'; they contribute to it.

That was the one thing she knew now. Some chances came and went, and if you missed them, you could spend the rest of your life standing alone, waiting for an opportunity that had already passed you by.

We'll grow old waiting.

At one point, we were all fearful. But as you get older, it's the things you don't do that you regret, more so than the things you do. When fear knocks, answer.

Nobody will use other people's experience, nor have any of his own till it is too late to use it.

I wanted to show I had balls at age 60.

The trouble with experience is that by the time you have it you are too old to take advantage of it.

What I'm certain I don't want is to find myself someday in a new century, an old bitter woman looking back, wishing that right now I'd had more nerve.

Growing old is, of all things we experience, that which takes the most courage, and at a time when we have the least resources, especially with which to meet frustration.

Ever notice how people wait until they're not going to see you anymore to say something nice to you?

If you wait for things to be perfect you'll just miss out on life.

This is what I miss, Cordelia: not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. Two old women giggling over their tea.

when you are old and realize that time is running out, you start imagining that you have the cure for all the ills of the world in your hand, and get frustrated because no one pays you any attention.

--There you are. The sight of the changing world is miraculous and heartbreaking, both at the same time. --But so it is for me too. The heartbreaking side of growing old is not in the things around one but in oneself.

Yes, time flies. And where did it leave you? Old too soon...smart too late.

Don't you want to take a leap of faith? Or become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone!

When you get old the worst thing is you lose so many friends. Burt Lancaster, Frank Sinatra, John Wayne. People who I loved to work with.