The only real change in life comes with the consciousness of old age.
Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?
I have a great family, great kids. I have practically everything, you know? Sometimes I have to pinch myself. It's really true: Life starts at 50.
I suddenly became aware over the last couple of years that I'm in my sixties. I never thought about it. I thought I'd better start acting my age or find roles that are going to be interesting to me in the sexagenarian repertoire, because it's not what you do in your forties or fifties.
By the time a man notices that he is no longer young, his youth has long since left him.
The great comfort of turning forty-nine is the realization that you are now too old to die young.
I have examples of people who find their way back later on in life, in their 30's, 40's, it can happen in your 50's, I'm sure it can. It's not really a science. It's maybe more of an art.
One of my big milestones came when I turned forty and promised myself to stop worrying about all the things I thought I might do but never really would. I was very relieved when I realized that you can actually complete a project by dropping it. That's how I "completed" learning to cook and learning German, becoming a good skier, and a list of other things too long to recite!
My thirties merged into my forties, and I sort of gradually realised that I don't really want children. Now I'm glad I don't have them. Part of that is because I have my books.
There is no doubt in my mind, that I have found out how to begin (at 40) to say something in my own voice.
