Years ago we discovered the exact point the dead center of middle age. It occurs when you are too young to take up golf and too old to rush up to the net.
-Franklin Pierce Adams, "Nods and Becks", "New England Primer", 1944

Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be at age, then to be a man of business, then to make up an estate, then to arrive at honors, then to retire.
-Joseph Addison

I have made a plan for my life, as I am in my teens, and no more a child. I am old for my age and don't care much for girls' things. People think I'm wild and queer; but mother understands and helps me. I have not told anyone about my plans but I am going to be good. . . . Now I'm going to work really, for I feel a desire to improve and be a help and comfort, not a care and sorrow to my dear mother.
-Louisa May Alcott

To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent — that is to triumph over old age.
-Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.
-Francis Bacon

"Judges don't age; time decorates them."
-Enid Bagnold

The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.
-Lucille Ball

You have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.
-James Barrie

Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can't retire his experience. He must use it. Experience achieves more with less energy and time.
-Bernard Baruch

As for me, except for an occasional heart attack, I feel as young as I ever did.
-Robert Benchley

Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
-Jack Benny, [attributed]

It's a wonderful day for me, I made it to 80.
-Patty Berg, [on her 80th birthday]

Old age is like climbing a mountain. You climb from ledge to ledge. The higher you get, the more tired and breathless you become, but your views become more extensive.
-Ingmar Bergman

I can't tell you his age, but when he was born the wonder drug was Mercurochrome.
-Milton Berle

"A woman's always younger than a man of equal years."
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh

Ah well, perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked.
-Pearl Buck

If someone wants a piece of you, never let them pay. What you do not give to them time takes anyway.
-Jimmy Buffett

If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age.
-George Burns

By the time you're eighty years old you've learned everything. You only have to remember it.
-George Burns

You know you're getting old when you stop to tie your shoes and wonder what else you can do while you're down there.
-George Burns

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty. Life shapes the face you have at thirty. But at fifty you get the face you deserve.
-Coco Chanel

I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming that comes when you finish the life of the emotions and of personal relations; and suddenly find - at the age of fifty, say - that a whole new life has opened before you, filled with things you can think about, study, or read about...It is as if a fresh sap of ideas and thoughts was rising in you.
-Agatha Christie, An Autobiography, 1977

"Turning 50 gives me more yesterdays than tomorrows."
-William Jefferson Clinton

When young we are faithful to individuals, when older we grow loyal to situations and to types.
-Cyril Connolly

I recently turned fifty, which is young for a tree, mid-life for an elephant, and ancient for a quarter-miler whose son now says, “Dad, I just can't run with you anymore unless I bring something to read.”
-Bill Cosby

"The whole business of marshaling one's energies becomes more and more important as one grows older."
-Hume Cronyn

Turning one hundred was the worst birthday of my life. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Turning 101 was not so bad. Once you're past that century mark, it's just not as shocking.
-Annie Elizabeth Delany, Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years, 1993

Father Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With such people the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow's hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life.
-Charles Dickens

People like you and I, though mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live...[We] never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.
-Albert Einstein, in a letter to Otto Juliusburger

The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always asked to do things, and you are not yet decrepit enough to turn them down.