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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #de
I don’t ever remember being afraid of “oldness”. There are things I miss about being younger - chiefly the ability to pull all-nighters and keep working and working well; and being smiled at by girls I didn’t know who thought I was cute; and I wish I had the eyesight I had even five years ago… but that stuff feels pretty trivial. I’m happier than I’ve been at any time in my life these days. I have a wonderful wife whom I adore, watched three amazing kids grow into two delightful adults and my favourite teenager, an astonishing number of grand life experiences, I’ve made art I’m proud of, I have real, true, glorious friends, and I’ve been able to do real good for things I care about, like freedom of speech, like libraries. Sometimes I’ll do something like An Evening With Neil and Amanda, or the 8 in 8 project, and completely surprise myself. I miss friends who have died, but then, I’m glad that time gave them to me, to befriend, even for a while, and that I was alive to know them. I knew Douglas Adams, and I knew Roger Zelazny, and I knew John M Ford, and I knew Diana Wynne Jones… do you know how lucky that makes me? Ah, I’m rabbiting on, and I sound a bit more Pollyannaish than I’m intending to sound: I know the downside of age and the downside of time, and I am sure that the view from age 51 is not the view from age 71. I wish the time hadn’t gone so fast, though. And sometimes I wish I’d enjoyed it more on the way, and worried about it less. ↗
If you were offered the chance to live your own life again, would you seize the opportunity? The only real philosophical answer is automatically self-contradictory: 'Only if I did not know that I was doing so.' To go through the entire experience once more would be banal and Sisyphean—even if it did build muscle—whereas to wish to be young again and to have the benefit of one's learned and acquired existence is not at all to wish for a repeat performance, or a Groundhog Day. And the mind ought to, but cannot, set some limits to wish-thinking. All right, same me but with more money, an even sturdier penis, slightly different parents, a briefer latency period… the thing is absurd. I seriously would like to know what it was to be a woman, but like blind Tiresias would also want the option of re-metamorphosing if I wished. How terrible it is that we have so many more desires than opportunities. ↗
Until recently, I was an ebook sceptic, see; one of those people who harrumphs about the “physical pleasure of turning actual pages” and how ebook will “never replace the real thing”. Then I was given a Kindle as a present. That shut me up. Stock complaints about the inherent pleasure of ye olde format are bandied about whenever some new upstart invention comes along. Each moan is nothing more than a little foetus of nostalgia jerking in your gut. First they said CDs were no match for vinyl. Then they said MP3s were no match for CDs. Now they say streaming music services are no match for MP3s. They’re only happy looking in the rear-view mirror. ↗
Children tease each other because you're short or you're tall or you're a redhead or because you're ugly or because you're smart or because you're dumb or all kinds of differences and as parents we have to deal with that and strengthen our children to be comfortable with themselves and also to show empathy and acceptance towards others. ↗
#also #because #children #comfortable #deal
I better go," Carter squeezed me once more and stood, grabbing his wallet from the coffee table. "I need to hit up the lottery if I want to get you out of this mess. Will you let me buy a monkey if we win, though?" "Only if you buy me an island off the coast of Fiji." "You crazy-ass woman. A monkey is so much cooler than an island." "How about a monkey IN Fiji?" "Now there's a woman after my own heart," Carter slapped his hand to his chest, sighing dramatically. "I'll let you know if we win." He started for the door. "Uh huh." "You'll know if we do. I'll be the one streaking on Pike Street. ↗
#contemporary-romance #friendship #kate #preservation #rachael-wade
I have lost years that I will never get back. Only now am I just beginning to live, on the verge of old age. It is painful and unfair. But today I have a different attitude to life: it can't be constructed from superficial things, no matter how attractive they may appear. Neither wealth not appearances have any importance now. Pain gave me new life. It took a long time for me to die as Malika, General Oufkir's eldest daughter, the child of a powerful figure, of a past. I've gained an identity. My own identity. And that is priceless. If there had not been all that waste, all that horror...I'd almost venture to say that my suffering made me grow. In any case, it changed me. for the better. It's as well to make the best of things. ↗
#age
