"Oh, once you've been initiated into the Elderly, the world doesn't want you back. Veronica settled herself in a rattan chair and adjusted her hat just so. "We-by whom I mean anyone over sixty-commit two offenses just by existing. One is Lack of Velocity. We drive too slowly, walk too slowly, talk too slowly. The world will do business with dictators, perverts, and drug barons of all stripes, but being slowed down it cannot abide. Our second offence is being Everyman's memento mori. The world can only get comfy in shiny-eyed denial if we are out of sight."

Aging, Denial, Society, Isolation

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"Oh, once you've been initiated into the Elderly, the world doesn't want you back. Veronica settled herself in a rattan chair and adjusted her hat just so. "We-by whom I mean anyone over sixty-commit two offenses just by existing. One is Lack of Velocity. We drive too slowly, walk too slowly, talk too slowly. The world will do business with dictators, perverts, and drug barons of all stripes, but being slowed down it cannot abide. Our second offence is being Everyman's memento mori. The world can only get comfy in shiny-eyed denial if we are out of sight."

Exlpore more Aging quotes

"When we age we shed many skins: ego, arrognace, dominance, self-opionated, unreliable, pessimism, rudeness, selfish, uncaring ... Wow, it's good to be old!"

Stephen Richards, British Author

Aging, Age, Skins, Shedding, Growth

"Old-age sucks, but the alternative doesn't look that great, either."

Lois Greiman, American Author

Aging, Humor, Acceptance, Mortality

"Lines and greyness are nature's way of telling you not to fuck with someone - the equivalent of yellow and black lines on a wasp, or the markings on the back of a black widow spider."

Caitlin Moran, British Journalist

Aging, Warning, Survival, Nature

"Growing older is certain, growing wiser is harder and optional."

Debasish Mridha, American Author

Aging, Wisdom, Life, Choice

"I think that, with age, people come to realize that death is inevitable. And we need to learn to face it with serenity, wisdom and resignation. Death often frees us from a lot of senseless sufferings."

Paulo Coelho, Brazilian Novelist

Aging, Death, Wisdom, Acceptance

"When you start believing that you are too old to enjoy something, you lose so much joy in your life."

Avina Celeste, American Writer

Aging, Joy, Limitation, Mindset

"They asked Abboud of Omdurman: 'Which is better, to be young or to be old?' He said: 'To be old is to have less time before you and more mistakes behind. I leave you to decide whether this is better than the reverse."

Idries Shah, Indian Author

Aging, Youth, Old, Time, Mistake

"I've been playing the game of life for over 52 years now and I don't feel one day younger or older than I am. Maybe its I just don't feel."

Stanley Victor Paskavich, American Politician

Aging, Life, Reflection, Identity

"All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes - a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners."

George Orwell, British Author

Aging, Tea, Tradition, Taste

"You talk a lot about this amazing flow of time but you hardly see it. you see a women, you think that one day she'll be old, only you don't see her grow old. But there are moments when you think you see her grow old and feel yourself growing old with her: this is the feeling of adventure."

Jean-Paul Sartre, French Philosopher

Aging, Time, Adventure, Life

Explore more quotes by David Mitchell

"All the supernatural yarns need a realist explanation and a supernatural one."

Mystery

"I watched the stars and thought of other lives."

Wonder

"But this isn't a ghost story: the ghost is in the background, where she has to be. If she was in the foreground she'd be a person."

Mystery

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love."

Religion

"The truth is "#9dream" is a descendant of "Norwegian Wood". Both are ghost stories. "She" in "Norwegian Wood" curses you with loneliness. The "Two spirits dancing so strange" in "#9dream" bless you with harmony. But people prefer loneliness to harmony."

Emotions

"Rights are susceptible to subversion, as even granite is susceptible to erosion. My fifth Declaration posits how, in a cycle as old as tribalism, ignorance of the Other engenders fear; fear engenders hatred; hatred engenders violence; violence engenders further violence until the only "rights, the only law, are whatever is willed by the most powerful."

Justice

"Do," said Louisa finally, "whatever you can't not do."

Inspirational

"You say you're 'depressed' - all i see is resilience. You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human."

Mental Health

"A book can't be a half-fantasy any more than a woman can be half pregnant."

Literature

"Have you noticed," said John, "how countries call theirs 'sovereign nuclear deterrents,' but call the other countries' ones 'weapons of mass destruction'?"

Politics