Best Retired Quotes & Sayings

'm so fortunate to have done what I love to do for so long, but the day I retired was one of the best days of my life. Not because I was happy to get away from the sport, but because it was clear in my mind that I had done all I possibly could, and that it was time to go. — Carl Lewis

After I retired, it seemed to me that there was a whole new world out there, which was a digital world driven by a marketplace, basically, which had a huge potential driven by handheld devices, which would one day become the virtual retail store of India. — Ratan Tata

As the brother of a retired law enforcement officer, I know firsthand that our men and women in uniform perform their duties in the face of tremendous threats and significant personal risk. They put their lives on the line every day, and they often have to make split-second decisions. — Eric Holder

I retired from acting the same time they stopped hiring me. But following my own thing of making these small indie movies has been the happiest I've ever been. — Bobcat Goldthwait

I gave my last concert in 1976. For 32 years, I had given everything I had. I wanted to stop. My last big debut was in Russia in 1973. After I retired, I didn't have to worry about going out in bad weather. I could stay up late. — Renata Tebaldi

I had a drug problem. I'd go to parties, take a leak, and there was cocaine right there. I was 25 when it started, rich, famous, and retired. — Sugar Ray Leonard

It was difficult being a teacher and out of the closet in the '50s. By the time I retired, the English department was proud of having a gay poet of a certain minor fame. It was a very satisfactory change! — Thom Gunn

Wisdom's self oft seeks to sweet retired solitude, where with her best nurse Contemplation, she plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings that in the various bustle of resort were all to-ruffled, and sometimes impaired. — John Milton

In what other business can a guy my age drink martinis, smoke cigars and sing? I think all people who retire ought to go into show business. I've been retired all my life. — George Burns

We will be judged according to our ability. The retired couple who count the offering every Sunday, never divulging the amount anyone in the congregation contributes, will not be tested in the same way as the millionaire who wants an inscription on the stained glass window, so everyone will know who donated it. Some of the most severe tests will be given to the [preachers] for the way in which they handled the Word of God. There will be no reward for leading others astray in lifestyle or in doctrine through false teaching. — Billy Graham

Unless you are completely retired, earning money is the best form of wealth preservation. — Felix Dennis

A lot of people have wondered what I've been up to. I retired from my career after 24 years. My feeling was that it was time to play my biggest part - Myself! — Kristy McNichol

I often would think about how we have built our society, and when you describe it out loud, it sounds rather insane. The idea of being funnelled through a conventional life progression of education, work, career, marriage, kids, divorce, retirement and then death doesn't seem that inspiring to me.
Then we're told we have to struggle to make a living, sacrifice enjoyment to have a family, delay our happiness until we're retired, fight the next person for a job, climb the ladder of success to get an even more stressful job,
spend more money than we earn, go into debt, live in fear of being blown up by some terrorist and then have TV passed off as the only way to escape it all. And when all of this gets too much and you can't keep up, you get prescribed antidepressants and made to feel like you've failed. — Josh Langley

When I retired from the circus at the grand old age of 11, my parents thought it would be best to focus more on the challenges ahead, and so I started at Methodist College Belfast. — Ian Beattie

In terms of age, I think I've covered about as wide a range as is possible, having written everything from picture books to early chapter books to middle grade novels to YA to one adult novel - and having been editor and lead writer for a magazine for retired people! — Bruce Coville

Throughout his life, General Wesley Clark has stood up to some tough opponents. He battled the Viet Cong, and went toe-to-toe with Slobodan Milosevic. But today the retired four-star general capitulated to the fiercest enemy he's ever confronted: the American voter. — Jon Stewart

(Mike) Schmitty provided what the relief pitchers need most, home runs and great defense. He's the best third baseman that I ever played with, and maybe of all-time. Obvious Hall of Famer, even then. He retired while on top of his game. I thought for sure he was going to hit 600 home runs. — Steve Carlton

I'm not studying the heroes who lead navies - and armies - and win wars. I'm studying ordinary people who you wouldn't expect to be heroic, but who, when there's a crisis, show extraordinary bravery and self-sacrifice. Like Jenna Geidel, who gave her life vaccinating people during the Pandemic. And the fishermen and retired boat owners and weekend sailors who rescued the British Army from Dunkirk. And Wells Crowther, the twenty-four-year-old equities trader who worked in the World Trade Center. When it was hit by terrorists, he could have gotten out, but instead he went back and saved ten people, and died. I'm going to observe six different sets of heroes in six different situations to try to determine what qualities they have in common. — Connie Willis

He's retired, he's just turned sixty, you know. And on the actual day of his retirement it turned out he wasn't a radiologist at heart at all, he didn't want to spend another day of his life on medicine. He'd always wanted to be a beekeeper, and now bees are the only thing he'll take an interest in. How do these things happen, do you think? If you're really a beekeeper, how is it that you waste the best years of your life doing something else? — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Just heard Paul Scholes has retired, best I've ever played against by a mile. Most technically gifted player in english history. Legend. — Joey Barton

Some of today's men and women give the impression that they have grown lazy, weary and out of love. Physically, they might entice you with their youthful looks, However, on the inside, they possess a dying spirit; a spirit which has retired from active love life engagements'. — Francis Otieno

Commuters sway like sides of beef and slump like corpses: red-eyed office slaves plugged into Discmans; their podgier selves in their forties buried in the Evening Standard; and nearly retired versions gazing over West London wondering where their lives went. I am the System you have to beat, clacks the carriage. I am the System you have to beat. — David Mitchell

One day, my youngest uncle - the other one who was first to go to college, Randy - and I were sitting out on the front porch. And he was brilliant. He ended up - he just retired from Boeing Aircraft in Wichita, Kansas. — James Earl Jones

The smartest thing I ever did as a writer was hire a retired conservation agent to blaze a hiking trail for me. It's nothing fancy - just a narrow path that meanders for a little over a mile through the woods near my home. But that trail through the trees has become my therapist, my personal trainer, and my best editor. — Kate Klise

The Aussies have spent so much time basking in the glory of the last generation that they have forgotten to plan for this one. It's just like the West Indies again; once their great names from the 1970s and 80s retired, the whole thing fell apart.

The way things are going, the next Ashes series cannot come too quickly for England. What a shame that we have to wait until 2013 to play this lot again. — Geoffrey Boycott

I can write best in the silence and solitude of the night, when everyone has retired. — Zane Grey

Glenn Beck retired or got fired ... and a lot of people are asking who will now speak for the raving lunatics who startle you outside of a parking garage? — Bill Maher

My father retired to San Francisco, and I got a chance to know him and be around him. It's always been someplace where everything changed for the better. It's always been a home for me. — Robin Williams

I usually dig the single-digit numbers, but No2 is retired. I'm going to change it up and wear No10. I'm going to wear it for Messi, my favourite soccer player. I've been playing a lot of FIFA lately and watching the games. He's the best little guy to do it and I've got to be the best little guy to do it at No10 in the NBA. That's my goal. — Nate Robinson

He summoned all his willpower and reined it in, promising himself he would drink just as much as he goddam wanted once he had his forty in - a pretty amazing number, when fifty percent of city cops retired after twenty-five and seventy percent after thirty. Only now that he has his forty, alcohol no longer interests him much. He forced himself to get drunk a few times, just to see if he could still do it, and he could, but being drunk turned out to be no better than being sober. Actually it was a little worse. — Stephen King

I told her my father was a retired janitor who liked to go fishing. She told me her father was a podiatrist who liked to punch his wife and two daughters in the face. — Gary Shteyngart

One of the best things about being [joyfully] retired is the freedom to travel when I want. When my son and daughter-in-law asked me to stay at their house for a week to house-sit while they were away on vacation, I had the freedom to do it. — Helen A. Rosburg

At a certain age, he thought, it is better for one's health not to do what I am about to do. At a certain age, a man's outlook is best tempered by moderation, if not resignation, if not outright capitulation. At a certain age, one should live without either harking too much back to grievances of the past or inviting resistance in the present by embodying a challenge to the pieties that be. Yet to give up playing any but the role socially assigned, in this instance assigned to the respectably retired - at seventy-one, that is surely what is appropriate, and so, for Coleman Silk, as he long ago demonstrated with requisite ruthlessness to his very own mother, that is what is unacceptable. — Philip Roth

I made my first Australian senior team when I was 16, first Olympics when I was 19, and I retired. I'm 32, I retired four years ago, so a good third of my life or nearly a third of my life has been all about running. — Cathy Freeman

The weird thing about rap is that you don't get compared in the same way that athletes do, even though it's probably the most competitive sport in music. In basketball, they look at a player and say: 'This guy was the best in his prime at this sport.' But in rap it's not until you're dead or retired that people think about it like that. — Chance The Rapper

The coaching profession has lost one of its true legends. Though he was best known for winning more football games than any other coach when he retired, Eddie Robinson's impact on coaching and the game of football went far beyond wins and losses. He brought a small school in northern Louisiana from obscurity to nationwide, if not worldwide, acclaim and touched the lives of hundreds and hundreds of young men in his 57 years at Grambling. That will be his greatest legacy. — Grant Teaff

There are many ways to measure a manager's success and contributions to a franchise ... but in this case the two numbers that illustrate it best are eight and four: Bobby Cox's #6 jersey was just the eighth number retired in franchise history, and of the remaining seven, four of them played for Bobby. — Tucker Elliot

You are nothing unless it comes from your heart. Passion, caring, really looking to create excellence. If you perform functions only and go to work only to do processes, then you are effectively retired. And it scares me - most people I see, by age twenty-eight are retired. — John C. Maxwell

As these debts become due, rich creditors will be pitted against poor debtors; private-sector taxpayers against public-sector workers, young workers against the retired, domestic voters against foreign bondholders. It is impossible to forecast who will win each of these battles but one thing seems certain: not all these debts will be paid in full. — Philip Coggan

I got my service dog when I was medically retired out of the military, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wish every medically retired serviceman could have a service dog. He's amazing. He's my best bud. I go everywhere and anywhere with him. — Marcus Luttrell

There's an enormous number of managers who have retired on the job. — Peter Drucker

There's really no such thing as an 'ex-cop' or a cop who's 'off-duty' or 'retired.' Once trained, once indoctrinated, a cop is always alert, assessing reality in terms of its potential for illegal acts. — Sue Grafton

All too often we say of a man doing a good job that he is indispensable. A flattering canard, as so many disillusioned and retired and fired have discovered when the world seems to keep on turning without them. In business, a man can come nearest to indispensability by being dispensable in his current job. How can a man move up to new responsibilities if he is the only one able to handle his present tasks? It matters not how small or large the job you now have, if you have trained no one to do it as well, you're not available; you've made your promotion difficult if not impossible. — Malcolm Forbes

I have retired but only in body. Spiritually, I still feel able. — Fauja Singh

I've got too many of my friends that retired and went home and got on a rocking chair, and about a year and a half later, I'm always going to the cemetery. — Red Adair

As a professional athlete and someone who has spent almost his entire life in boxing, not a day goes by when I don't think about coming back, but I am retired, and after speaking to my family and following a great deal of introspection, I have decided to stay retired. — Oscar De La Hoya

I, retired in prayer, will always be with you, and together we will move ahead with the Lord in certainty. The Lord is victorious. — Pope Benedict XVI

Thy shalt not worship thy investment advisor, for if she were so smart she would be retired by now. — Steven J. Lee

Pollution removed his helmet and shook out his long white hair. He had taken over when Pestilence, muttering about penicillin, had retired in 1936. — Terry Pratchett

A lot of my emotional issues come from dealing with the opposite sex. I've come to terms with the fact that I'll be retired before I can finally enter into a healthy relationship. — Adam Levine

In the centre of Bond was a hurricane-room, the kind of citadel found in old-fashioned houses in the tropics. These rooms are small, strongly built cells in the heart of the house, in the middle of the ground floor and sometimes dug down into its foundations. To this cell the owner and his family retire if the storm threatens to destroy the house, and they stay there until the danger is past. Bond went to his hurricane room only when the situation was beyond his control and no other possible action could be taken. Now he retired to this citadel, closed his mind to the hell of noise and violent movement, and focused on a single stitch in the back of the seat in front of him, waiting with slackened nerves for whatever fate had decided for B. E. A. Flight No. 130. — Ian Fleming

I'd retired for about six or seven years. Coming back to the business, I found that I was sort of not quite a has-been, and it wasn't a new career, it was just kind of difficult to crack the nut, so to speak. — Julie London

I NEVER LOOK BACK AT WHAT I HAVE ACHIEVED BECAUSE I AM ALWAYS LOOKING AT THE FUTURE. I CAN LOOK BACK AT WHAT I HAVE ACHIEVED WHEN I AM RETIRED - BUT UNTIL THEN IT IS ALL ABOUT FOCUS. — Lionel Messi

I am convinced that the best service a retired general can perform is to turn in his tongue along with his suit and to mothball his opinions. — Omar N. Bradley

George dutifully dusted the marks from the expensive rug and retired to the kitchen to await a grave and disapproving Collins, wishing with all of his boyish heart that he had applied for the stables. Cleaning stalls had to be beneficial exercise, and surely one must become accustomed to the smells...eventually. — Sarah Brazytis

If I'm being honest, I think I'd be good at television; I just don't know if I am interested, because you are kind of geographically responsible to a location, and frankly I don't know if I retired from tennis so that I could sit around tennis tournaments 12 hours a day. — Andy Roddick

Rose sat all alone in the big best parlor, with her little handkerchief laid ready to catch the first tear, for she was thinking of her troubles, and a shower was expected. She had retired to this room as a good place in which to be miserable; for it was dark and still, full of ancient furniture, somber curtains, and hung all around with portraits of solemn old gentlemen in wigs, severe-nosed ladies in top-heavy caps, and staring children in little bobtailed coats or short-waisted frocks. It was an excellent place for woe; amd the fitful spring rain that pattered on the windowpane seemed to sob,Cry away; I'm with you. — Louisa May Alcott

I retired once but you've got to have something to retire to and I don't want to do anything. My job is like a well paid hobby, I mean not a hobby but I'm not lining up every morning at the bus queue to go to work. I'm very lucky. — Ozzy Osbourne

Literally thousands of lawsuits have been filed against the NFL by retired players, many of whom say that information on brain injury in football was withheld from them. — Henry Rollins

As a subconscious attempt to add meaning or purpose to their life: The unemployed pray for a job; the retired pray for grandchildren. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

If I was in the US and had a serious medical condition, I would prefer to fly to Kuala Lumpur, Singapore or Bangkok to receive treatment. Not only would I save thousands of dollars, (even with the airfare), but I think that the care that I would receive would be superior - and this from a nurse-manager retired from the U.S. healthcare system! I would say the same for dental care as well - it's cheap and of a high standard. — Anonymous

It [retirement] was absolutely boring. You can't go and say, 'I'm retired now. That's it!' It won't take long and you're really gone for good and someone throws the last shovel of dirt on a coffin with your name on it. That's the moment you're really retiring - when you die. — Ozzy Osbourne

When Jack Swagger copies my Ankle Lock and Randy Orton does my Angle Slam, it's disrespectful. I didn't come up with the Ankle Lock; Ken Shamrock came up with the Ankle Lock, but I waited until he retired to do the Ankle Lock. — Kurt Angle

It's not that I'm retired; I just no longer accept acting work. — Jamie Lee Curtis

What's the difference between this school and a happy retirement community?" The room was silent again. "The difference is 'rithmetic! A retired person living by the ocean, just doing a little reading and writing till the end of their days - that's the dream, right? 'What do you do all day?' 'Some reading, a little writing.' Sounds idyllic, right? And yet school sucks. Everybody hates it. What's the difference? 'Rithmetic! It's time somebody put their finger on this fucking obvious thing. — B.J. Novak

Not just me but every professional footballer will tell you they miss playing the game, I miss the game especially as I retired early, not because I was a bad player but I retired solely for health reasons. — Fabrice Muamba