The crucial task of old age is balance: keeping just well enough, just brave enough, just gay and interested and starkly honest enough to remain a sentient human being.

Age puzzles me. I thought it was a quiet time. My seventies were interesting and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate. I grow more intense as I age.

The crucial task of old age is balance: keeping just well enough, just brave enough, just gay and interested and starkly honest enough to remain a sentient human being.

To know another, and to be known by another--that is everything.

I want to tell people approaching and perhaps fearing old age that it is a time of discovery. If they say "Of what?" I can only answer "We must find out for ourselves, otherwise it wouldn't be discovery."

The enchantment of the sky, ever changing beauty almost ignored. Beyond words, without fixed form, not to be understood, or stated. It ravished away dullness, worry, even pain. It graces life when nothing else does. It is the first marvel of the day. Even when leaden grey it is still a friend, withdrawn for a time.

Is there any stab as deep as wondering where and how much you failed those you loved.