Almost as soon as it was lit it began to sound as though it were running down, but in fact it would continue to run down for a long time. He knew the feeling.

— John Crowley

...alone in this city, alone on this sea. The days were strewn about him, he was a drunkard of days. He had achieved nothing. He had his life--it was not worth much--not like a life that, though ended, had truly been something. If I had had courage, he thought, if I had had faith. We preserve ourselves as if that were important, and always at the expense of others. We hoard ourselves. Furthermore, we succeed if they fail, we are wise if they are foolish, and we go onward, clutching, until there is no one--we are left with no companion save God. In whom we do not believe. Who we know does not exist.

— James Salter

Although generally our sight diminishes with age; I submit that our vision improves. The older we get, the more clearly we see our life’s decisions played out to their logical conclusions.

— David C. Maloney

Always count your blessings, even if you have to count them through your tears

— Eleanor Brownn

Always enjoyed a smile with dimples But time adds wrinkles to the smile

— Richard L. Ratliff

A majority of young people seem to develop mental arteriosclerosis forty years before they get the physical kind. Another question: why do some people remain open and elastic into ancient age, whereas others become rigid and unproductive before they're fifty?

— Aldous Huxley

A man is unlikely to be brought within earshot of women as they judge men's appearance, height, muscle tone, sexual technique, penis size, personal grooming, or taste in clothes--all of which we do. The fact is that women are able to view men just as men view women, as objects for sexual and aesthetic evaluation; we too are effortlessly able to choose the male "ideal" from a lineup and if we could have male beauty as well as everything else, most of us would not say no. But so what? Given all that, women make the choice, by and large, to take men as human beings first.

— Naomi Wolf

A man of fifty is responsible for his face.

— Edwin McMasters Stanton

A man of fifty looks as old as Santa Claus to a girl of twenty.

— William Feather

A man of sixty has spent twenty years in bed and over three years in eating.

— Arnold Bennett