The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself, and die singing. At the very instant the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there is not the life left to utter another note. But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it.

That's the purpose of old age... To give us a breathing space before we die, in which to see why we did what we did.

The lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate twenty-five-year-old men more.

..the best is only bought at the cost of great pain...or so says the legend

Yet there's something ominous about turning sixty-five. Suddenly old age is not a phenomenon which will occur; it has occurred.

Truly God was good, to make man so blind.

There are no ambitions noble enough to justify breaking someone's heart.