Looking Old Quotes & Sayings

Dirk looked at her expressionlessly. Apart from being extremely good-looking in a blondish, willowyish kind of way, she was dressed well in an "I don't care what I wear, just any old thing that's lying around" kind of way that relies on extremely careful about what you leave lying around. — Douglas Adams

I love Chatsworth, Winchester Cathedral, Edinburgh Castle ... Every time I'm in the vicinity of something old and worth looking at, I try to go. You don't even have to leave your home town to see some places. How many Londoners have seen the crown jewels? Not many, and they'll blow you away, I promise. — Alan Titchmarsh

I think the people are just looking for freedom in music ... There's a lot of she-bop she-bop going on out there. Maybe they're tired of that same old thing. — Rick James

Ireland is a series of stories that have been told to us, starting with the Irish Celtic national revival. I never believed in 'Old Ireland.' It has been made all of kitsch by the diaspora, looking back and deciding what Ireland is. Yes, it is green. Yes, it is friendly. I can't think of anything else for definite. — Anne Enright

They were just clear of the summer colony before the first sleeper turned over and lifted a drowsy head; their cry sounded in the dreams of little children... who lifted their arms to drag down, to cuddle the darling little woolly lambs of sleep. Then the first inhabitant appeared; it was the Burnells' cat Florrie, sitting on the gatepost, far too early as usual, looking for their milk-girl. When she saw the old sheep-dog she sprang up quickly, arched her back, drew in her — Katherine Mansfield

I'm sure." I smiled and took a sip of coffee. "I don't want to be stranded on the side of the road. Will that old thing even make it that far?" He looked toward his truck. "That old thing hasn't let me down yet." "So how long will it take to get there?" "'bout six, six and a half hours. That should give me time to get settled into my motel room and practice a little before I go to the studio in the morning." I nodded. "Have you had breakfast?" "I ate at Mrs. Wrigley's when I dropped Amy off." "How about a cup of coffee?" I said. "No thanks. It'll just make me have to stop and pee." I laughed. I stood and stepped to him. "Call me when you get there. Okay?" "I'll call. I promise." He turned to look down at Bo, who sat in the yard looking up at us, stick in mouth, waiting. "I asked Mike to keep an eye on you while I'm gone," he said. "The — Heather Meyer

The late '60s and the '70s, a lot of this really beautiful equipment was being made and installed into studios around the world and the Neve boards were considered like the Cadillacs of recording consoles. They're these really big, behemoth-looking recording desks; they kind of look like they're from the Enterprise in Star Trek or something like that. They're like a grayish color, sort of like an old Army tank with lots of knobs, and to any studio geek or gear enthusiast it's like the coolest toy in the world. — Dave Grohl

Outside the station of Santa Maria Novella Isabella has to stand aside while a line of prisoners are marched into the terminus by armed Fascist guards. They pass within touching distance of her, carrying bags and bundles. There are old people and some children too. They all seem swamped by their clothes, disembodied by them somehow. Then she catches the eye of Ezra, a young Jewish man who once worked in the arts material shop where she buys most of her pigments and brushes. He is almost at the back of the line. The veins are high and urgent on his hand. His trousers are held up with a dirty piece of string. His cobalt blue eyes hold hers for the barest beat of a moment but some essence of his being conveys itself to her and her blood quickens in sympathy for him. She has the feeling of looking into the eyes of a ghost. — Glenn Haybittle

Innately, the Old Soul carries a sense of world-wariness as he stands on the outside, looking in. As an observer, the Old Soul like the Steppenwolf, feels an all-pervading sense of alienation. He is the ultimate Outsider who is both in the world, but not quite of the world at the same time. — Aletheia Luna

MEET MR. HIV," writes an 11-year-old child, over a diamond-shaped face from which six scaly legs extend. "He invades your body. This is what he looks like when he does," another child writes over a scary-looking monster that resembles a tarantula. An HIV-infected 12-year-old draws a transparent yellow picture of his body filled with hairy, bloblike creatures that resemble paramecia and amoebae. "I hate you because you do bad things to my body," writes another boy. "Go pick on someone your own size. — Jonathan Kozol

Having been away from competitive tennis for a while, I am looking forward immensely to getting back on the circuit ... I am looking forward to playing the Big Girls. People have had expectations from me even when I was 10 years old. I try to switch off but you are right, it isn't always easy to do that because the expectations are really mounting. — Sania Mirza

Self-discovery changes everything, including your relationships with people. When you find your authentic self, those who loved your mask are disappointed. you may end up alone, but you don't need to stay alone. While it's painful to sever old connections, it's not a tragedy. it's an opportunity. Now, you can find people who understand the importance of looking for truth and being authentic. Now you can find people who want to connect deeply, like you've always wanted to, instead of constant small talk and head games. Now you can have real intimacy. Now, you can find your tribe. — Vironika Tugaleva

You know how they say Black Flag got in a van, and they brought punk rock to the world? The Strokes got on a bus, and they brought "downtown cool" to the world. Along with the Internet, they were changing everything, not just music. They were changing attitudes. The Strokes were making New York travel with them. I saw kids in Connecticut and Maine and Philadelphia and DC looking like they had just been drinking on Avenue A all night. Sixteen-year-old kids in white belts and Converse Chuck Taylors with the greasy hair - hair that had been clean a week ago. Those kids had probably never even smelled the inside of a thrift store before Is This It came out. They found a band that they wanted to be like. They found their band. APRIL — Lizzy Goodman

Every woman should have a youth she's content to leave behind and a past juicy enough that she's looking forward to telling it in her old age — Pamela Redmond Satran

Believing is never a waste of time." Simon looked at me intently his eyes flickering. "Even if you're wrong you could have been right. Take me with my painting I don't know if I'm any good. So maybe I shouldn't try because maybe I'd be setting myself up for disappointment. But it's like you looking for old coins on the beach. Whether you find any or not is for bonus points it's the search that counts. It's the belief that they might be out there. — Amanda Howells

Reading all my old love letters was disorienting. You remember thinking the thoughts and writing the words but, man, you can't TOUCH those feelings. Its like they belonged to someone else. Someone you don't even know. I'm aware, in an intellectual way. That I felt all those things about him, but this emotions are far away now.
What's so strange to me is that I can't even force my heart back to that place where I felt that all consuming passion. That makes me feel distant from myself. Who WAS I then? Will I ever be able to get back to that place? Reading the letters again made me wonder: Which is the real me? The one who saw the world in that emotionally saturated way, or the me who sees it the way I do now? — Bill Shapiro

It made me think of the nice old Marimekko-clad ladies I sometimes went to see in the Ritz Tower: gravel-voiced, turban-wearing, panther-braceleted widows looking to move to Miami, their apartments filled with smoked-glass and chromed-steel furniture that, in the seventies, they'd purchased through their decorators for the price of a good Queen Anne
but (I was responsible for telling them, reluctantly) had not held its value and could not be re-sold at even half what they'd bought it for. — Donna Tartt

Mom, how do you know if the guy is the guy?"
You mean if he'll be a good husband?" She pauses, then says "The ticket is for the man to love the woman more than she loves him."
Shouldn't it be equal?"
Mom cackles. "It can never be equal."
But what if the woman loves the man more?"
A life of hell awaits her. As women, the deck is stacked against us because time is our enemy. We age, while men season. And trust me, there are plenty of women out there looking for a man, and they don't mind staking a claim on somebody else's husband, no matter how old, creaky, and deaf they are. — Adriana Trigiani

As I was walking up the stairs to dad's old room, and I was looking at the photographs, I started thinking that there was a time when these weren't memories. That someone actually took the photograph, and the people in the photograph had just eaten lunch or something. — Stephen Chbosky

The old face, crinkled and dented with canals running every which way, pushed and shoved up against itself for a while, till a big old smile busted out from beneath 'em all, and his grey eyes fairly glowed. It was the first time I ever saw him smile free. A true smile. It was like looking at the face of God. And I knowed then, for the first time, that him being the person to lead the colored to freedom weren't no lunacy. It was something he knowed true inside him. I saw it clear for the first time. I knowed then, too, that he knowed what I was - from the very first. — James McBride

How to describe what she felt as she stood at the head of an all-new cobblestone drive looking at the rebuilt facade of what had once been a weary old Cape? There was relief that the hard work was done, and surprise - always surprise - that everything had come together so well. There was also a sense of ownership. Caroline hadn't asked to be the mouthpiece of the show, but after nearly ten years as host, it was her baby as much as anyone's. Gut — Barbara Delinsky

I will be a President for all the people, whether they voted for me or not, whether they are young or old and particularly for the Irish abroad. I'm looking forward to it and I think it will be exciting and wonderful. — Michael D. Higgins

I never knew what an extraordinary thing it could be to write a book. In the first place, the characters take the bit between their jaws and canter off with you into places you don't want and never catered for. I had smugly intended my book to be about a family rather like ours, but, lud love you! it's already turned into an account of a barmaid's career in an Edgware Road pub, and I can't squeeze us in anywhere!

Odd things happen, too. I had called my pub, 'The Three Feathers,' and counted on there being heaps of pubs in Edgware Road, not called that, but looking a bit like my description. Before we left home, I went down Edgware Road to investigate, and found my pub, even down to the old-fashioned phonograph on the table in the upstairs sitting-room. And I thought, 'I built that place. — Rachel Ferguson

He is looking down on the two crystal balls that the old man's foul, strong hands have rolled across to him. In one he sees Margaret, not in her raincoat and her nodding plumes, but as she is transfigured in the light of eternity. Long he looks there; then drops a glance to the other, just long enough to see that in its depths Kitty and I walk in bright dresses through our glowing gardens. We had suffered no transfiguration, for we are as we are, and there is nothing more to us. The whole truth about us lies in our material seeming. He sighs a deep sigh of delight and puts out his hand to the ball where Margaret shines. His sleeve catches the other one and sends it down to crash in a thousand pieces on the floor. The old man's smile continues to be lewd and benevolent; he is still not more interested in me than in the bare-armed woman. Chris is wholly inclosed in his intentness on his chosen crystal. No one weeps for this shattering of our world. — Rebecca West

He was becoming an effective human being. He had learned from his birth family how to snare rabbits, make stew, paint fingernails, glue wallpaper, conduct ceremonies, start outside fires in a driving rain, sew with a sewing machine, cut quilt squares, play Halo, gather, dry, and boil various medicine teas. He had learned from the old people how to move between worlds seen and unseen. Peter taught him how to use an ax, a chain saw, safely handle a .22, drive a riding lawn mower, drive a tractor, even a car. Nola taught him how to paint walls, keep animals, how to plant and grow things, how to fry meat, how to bake. Maggie taught him how to hide fear, fake pain, how to punch with a knuckle jutting. How to go for the eyes. How to hook your fingers in a person's nose from behind and threaten to rip the nose off your face. He hadn't done these things yet, and neither had Maggie, but she was always looking for a chance. When — Louise Erdrich

The first thought was this: that he was a foolish old man, because all his life he'd been looking for something and it was only when Anna joined him in the bar that evening that he realized that home is not something you find outside yourself; home is something you carry inside you, and it's made from the memories of the people you love, and the people who have loved you. — Marcus Sedgwick

I love looking at the old Bond films. Maybe it's purely out of reminiscence, the nostalgic things you think about. But there were some very good films made, and I think that the public has enjoyed them, too. — Albert R. Broccoli

He was old-fashioned looking, Grace decided. Not just the suit, which made him look as though he should be taking the air in one of those fifties movies on the French Riviera, but as if he was the second male lead in one of those same films. Not matinee-idol handsome enough to get the girl, but good enough to be the best friend of the one who got the girl. Or the arch nemesis of the one who got the girl who had his comeuppance ten minutes before the credits began to roll. — Sarra Manning

I'm very stodgy. I'm always looking at old photos of California and Los Angeles, knowing that what I'm looking at is now full of houses. There used to be vacant lots in Los Angeles, now all taken up by three-storey boxes - it's all getting infilled. — Edward Ruscha

Nigerians don't buy houses because they're old. A renovated two-hundred-year-old mill granary, you know, the kind of thing Europeans like. It doesn't work here at all. But of course it makes sense because we are Third Worlders and Third Worlders are forward-looking, we like things to be new, because our best is still ahead, while in the West their best is already past and so they have to make a fetish of that past. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Now, revealing that you're a keeper is no guarantee that this guy won't just walk away. Some men really are just sport fishing and have no intention of doing anything more than throwing back the women they bed. If this is the cae with this man, then let him walk-what do you care? He's not the guy you're looking for. — Steve Harvey

People think that they can love only when they find a worthy partner - nonsense! You will never find one. People think they will love only when they find a perfect man or a perfect woman. Nonsense! You will never find them, because perfect women and perfect men don't exist. And if they exist, they won't bother about your love. They will not be interested. I have heard about a man who remained a bachelor his whole life because he was in search of a perfect woman. When he was seventy, somebody asked, "You have been traveling and traveling - from New York to Kathmandu, from Kathmandu to Rome, from Rome to London you have been searching. Could you not find a perfect woman? Not even one?" The old man became very sad. He said, "Yes, once I did. One day, long ago, I came across a perfect woman." The inquirer said, "Then what happened? Why didn't you get married?" Sadly, the old man said, "What to do? She was looking for a perfect man. — Osho

Lofts were never supposed to be homes. They were vacant old factories and warehouses, taken over by artists looking for cheap space and good light. — Virginia Postrel

What does it matter, if we tell the same old stories? ... Stories tell us who we are. What we're capable of. When we go out looking for stories we are, I think, in many ways going in search of ourselves, trying to find understanding of our lives, and the people around us. Stories, and language tell us what's important. — Kameron Hurley

I'm OK with being the Old Spice Guy because before I was the Old Spice Guy I was the guy looking for work on his couch. — Isaiah Mustafa

Frankenswine:

Like an old crazy quilt, I'm pieces and parts from nine different bodies and five different hearts. My brain is a poet's, my snout's from a thief, my hooves all belonged to the old fire chief, I'm slogging thru swamps and mist covered bogs, hunted by farmers with torches and dogs. Thru mountains and towns, over oceans and snow, I've landed here on this arctic ice floe. So I sit here alone at the world frozen end, just looking for someone whom I can call friend. — Doug Cushman

I'm doing philosophy like an old woman, first I'm looking for my pencil, then I'm looking for my glasses, then I'm looking for my pencil again. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

When you're young and good-looking, you've got to behave. But when you're old, you can get away with murder. — Julie Newmar

I stood on the old ferry dock and watched the icy sludge slide by. Patches of white ice slipped through, but mostly it was grey slush, sluggish and heavy looking. The air was sharp and clear, one of the few benefits of the evacuation and reducing temperature, the centuries-old odour of industry and modern life frozen and discarded, leaving a crispness previously only found among the peaks of mountain ranges. On the far bank stood the ruins of Birkenhead, where the riots had been particularly bad and the fires that followed were allowed to rage out of control. It had taken weeks for the conflagration to finally die, leaving behind soot-blackened husks of buildings, grotesque sculptures of melted glass and metal and more dead than anyone ever cared to count. — Neil Davies

In town, there's a tiny beach that's never busy, not even in the summer.

I used to like walking there, looking for stuff.

Like old fireworks.

Or kelp.

A hat knocked off someone's head by the wind.

You basically never find what you were expecting to.

And maybe you weren't expecting to find anything right from the start... — Inio Asano

I guess that's the lesson in all of this-not to be eighty years old, looking back on your life, wondering if you made the right choice or how your life might have been different if you'd done one thing and not another. — Mary Simses

A lover of comfort might shrug after looking at the whole apparent jumble of furniture, old paintings, statues with missing arms and legs, engravings that were sometimes bad but precious in memory, and bric-a-brac. Only the eye of a connoisseur would have blazed with eagerness at the sight of this painting or that, some book yellowed with age, a piece of old porcelain, or stones and coins.
But the furniture and paintings of different ages, the bric-a-brac that meant nothing to anyone but had been marked for them both by a happy hour or memorable moment, and the ocean of books and sheet music breathed a warm life that oddly stimulated the mind and aesthetic sense. Present everywhere was vigilant thought. The beauty of human effort shone here, just as the eternal beauty of nature shone all around.
pp. 492-493 — Ivan Goncharov

I don't want to sound like the old guy, but cynicism is a potential danger. It colors our way of looking at the world. — Bob Newhart

Once there was a little old lady who lived next-door. I was eleven when I decided to kill her. But I didn't. As an eleven-year-old I was shocked, upset and angry enough to take the life of the frail-looking, white-haired woman, but I lacked the ingenuity and resolve to put a plan into action. It's easy to want to kill someone but hard to actually do it. Especially when you're a kid. That's why I waited until I was eighteen. — G.H. Finn

Oh, please could you spare us a little water?" "Certainly," replied the old gentleman; "take as much as you want, and leave the rest." "Thank you so much," murmured George, looking about him. "Where - where do you keep it?" "It's always in the same place my boy," was the stolid reply: "just behind you. — Jerome K. Jerome

I wouldn't say they're neglected, but everybody is going to grow old and we should be looking after the older generation more than we do at the moment. — Alan Hansen

Since the moment I saw her yesterday, I've been looking through the sparkly prism of exhilaration that comes with any old flame. But now, for the first time, I'm not just seeing what I want. I'm seeing what my friend needs. — Brad Meltzer

Except for a couple of hours
in the morning
which I passed in the company
of a sage
I stayed in bed
without food
only a few mouthfuls of water
"you are a fine looking old man"
I said to myself in the mirror
"and what is more
you have the correct attitude
You don't care if it ends
or if it goes on
And as for the women
and the music
there will be plenty of that
in Paradise"
Then I went to the Mosque
of Memory
to express my gratitude — Leonard Cohen

The Stones can get out there and do it till they're old men. But certain groups are sad-looking to me. — Toni Tennille

To cultivate a pleasure in being wrong sounds perverse, yet losing an argument means escaping from an old idea and the acquisition of a new way of looking at things. — Edward De Bono

The matron glanced at the old man and suppressed a smile. "He is absolutely miserable."
"I enjoy miserable. It gives one a contrast to all the delectabilities of life. But is he housebroken, inpala? He is rather rumpled. He will look well on my ship, but will he wash well? Do professors fray as a general rule? I will not have my ship looking ragged."
"They do tend to fade after a few years of hard use. — Michelle Franklin

Whenever a man's friends begin to compliment him about looking young, he may be sure that they think he is growing old. — Victor Hugo

Most people remember being 4 objectively, as if they're seeing a movie of a 4-year-old. But me, if you ask me to think about when I'm 4, I can feel myself being 4, and I am there, looking out through my 4-year-old eyes. — Lois Lowry

Looking at numbers as groups of rocks may seem unusual, but actually it's as old as math itself. The word "calculate" reflects that legacy - it comes from the Latin word calculus, meaning a pebble used for counting. To enjoy working with numbers you don't have to be Einstein (German for "one stone"), but it might help to have rocks in your head. — Steven Strogatz

Looking at old photographs makes it hard for me to believe that I was ever that thin physically. And remembering some of the things I did in those days makes it hard to believe that I was ever that thin mentally. — Thomas Sowell

Morgan glanced over his shoulder to where Dougie walked behind him. "Dougie, you're lookin' a bit worn. Are you needin' to stop and, um, rest a bit?"
Dougie looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "Rest? Are you daft?"
Morgan glared at him and gave a jerk of his head toward Amalie, who struggled on determinedly before him.
Dougie winked. "Och, aye, I am a bit weary."
In no time, word had gotten up and down the line that Amalie needed to rest but was being too stubborn to admit it. And suddenly Morgan was besieged with whispered pleas to stop, his men whining of sore feet, headaches, and aching backs.
Then Connor appeared at his side, looking fashed.
"What in God's name has come over the men? They're complainin' like old wom - — Pamela Clare

One day - when the emperor had come to call on his uncle the cardinal - our worthy priest happened to be waiting as his Majesty went by. Noticing that the old man looked at him with a certain curiosity, Napoleon turned around and said brusquely, 'Who is this good man looking at me?'
'Sire,' replied M. Myriel, "you are looking at a good man, and I at a great one. May we both be the better for it."
That evening the emperor asked the cardinal the priest's name, Still later, M. Myriel was totally surprised to learn he had been appointed Bishop of Digne. — Victor Hugo

And maybe I was a little intense. But not as much as the princess who marched into that court in a very unprofessional pair of jeans and a T-shirt, looking like she had gone to hell and back
and was about to drag the rest of us back there with her, just like I kinda planned to do.
I knew it in a split second
and everybody else knew it too, even old Fabio
that we weren't just seeing a princess standing there in a pair of jeans and boots.
We were all getting our first glimpse of the next queen. — Beth Fantaskey

Dear FB Friends,
Fuck Facebook!!!!! - It has proven to be worthless as a book-selling device, and is nothing but a repository for perverts, reparation-seekers, old buddies looking for handouts, syphillitic ex-girlfriends looking for extra-curricular schlong and hack writers begging for blurbs. — James Ellroy

Marriage is supposed to be this huge great overwhelming passion, and that we're supposed to be looking for our soulmate, our other half, but it's actually pretty damn mundane. After all the excitement goes, what you really want to be left with is someone who is a really good person and who adores you, and who you can grow old with. I know the bastards are exciting, but they don't make a good husband material. — Jane Green

I was thirty-seven years old and wearing nothing but a butt plug. But there was a 1940's film-star Toby, looking about to spontaneously combust from sheer desire. It was probably hysterical postpubescent hormones, but still, it felt so good. So ridiculously good. — Alexis Hall

I think the biggest shift is the way people look at and have access to fashion. It's already old the minute you've seen it, and we've already moved on. Fashion has become very in and out. Back in the days when I started, you would wait for Vogue to come out, and that is where you would see what people wore that month. Now we are looking at what someone is wearing this second. — Matthew Williamson

Looking back, I'm so proud to have gone to five Olympics - I believe only three other Americans have achieved that. My true gold medal, though, is my daughter, Karsen, who is 18 months old. And I have a wonderful husband, Mike. — Gail Devers

Soon I am seeing the blue-and-yellow flags that line the campus streets, and it makes me feel happy and sad at the same time to be back at La Salle
almost like looking at old pictures of people who have either died or with whom you have lost contact. — Matthew Quick

She had to do that
she had to become a widow, for life, before she was even married. That's why I never got married. I'm thirty-eight years old. I can read and write very well
my mother made sure I was educated
and I do the bookwork for all the shops and businesses in the slum. I do the taxes for every man who pays them. I make a good living here, and I have respect. I shouldn't been married fifteen or even twenty years ago. But she was a widow, all her life, for me. And I couldn't do it. I just couldn't allow myself to get married. I kept hoping I would see him, the sailor with the best moustache. My mother had one very old, faded photograph of the two of them, looking very serious and stern. That's why I lived in this area. I always hoped I would see him. And I never married. And she died last week, Lin. My mother died last week. — Gregory David Roberts

There was a moment of hesitation in which Joe looked into her eyes, and she looked back without flinching. Many a time, he had been at the same game with her, and she had always crumbled, bowing to his will. Now, he must have realized he was looking into the eyes of a stranger. She was someone he could not recognize, a foreigner inhabiting the body of that old Clairey, the girl he had abused, intimidated, and broken. Clairey decided then and there she would no longer cower before him. It was almost as if she were daring him to strike her in their unspoken exchange. — Tracy Winegar

Kestrel took Arin's battered hand in hers, the rough heat of it, the fingernails still ringed with carbon from the smith's coal fire. His skin was raw-looking: scrubbed clean and scrubbed often. But the black grime was too ingrained.
She twined her fingers with his. Kestrel and Arin walked together through the passageway and the ghost of its old door, which her people had smashed through ten years before. — Marie Rutkoski

I had been in love all year, or at least since the first week in September, when a boy named Martin Collingwood had given me a surprised, appreciative, and rather ominously complacent smile in the school assembly. I never knew what surprised him; I was not looking like anybody but me; I had an old blouse on and my home-permanent had turned out badly. — Alice Munro

It's been a harder book to write for personal reasons too. What gets me most are not the scary scientific studies about melting glaciers, the ones I used to avoid. It's the books I read to my two-year-old. Looking For a Moose is one of his favorites. It's about a bunch of kids that really, really, really want to see a moose. They search high and low - through a forest, a swamp, in brambly bushes and up a mountain, for "a long legged, bulgy nosed, branchy antlered moose." The joke is that there are moose hiding on each page. In the end, the animals all come out of hiding and the ecstatic kids proclaim: "We've never ever seen so many moose! — Naomi Klein

Detainees were not allowed to talk to each other, but we enjoyed looking at each other. The punishment for talking was hanging the detainee by the hands with his feet barely touching the ground. I saw an Afghani detainee who passed out a couple of times while hanging from his hands. The medics "fixed" him and hung him back up. Other detainees were luckier: they were hung for a certain time and then released. Most of the detainees tried to talk while they were hanging, which made the guards double their punishment. There was a very old Afghani fellow who reportedly was arrested to turn over his son. The guy was mentally sick; he couldn't stop talking because he didn't know where he was, nor why. I don't think he understood his environment, but the guards kept dutifully hanging him. It was so pitiful. One day one of the guards threw him on his face, and he was crying like a baby. — Mohamedou Ould Slahi

I remember when I was twenty-five," he said. "No client comes to you when you're twenty-five. It's like when you are looking for a doctor. You don't want the new one that just graduated. You don't want the very old one, the one shaking, the one twenty years past his prime. You want the seasoned one who has done it so many times he can do it in his sleep though. Same thing with attorneys. — Daniel Amory

I have to say that I thought search-and-rescue duties over Snowdonia were physically and mentally demanding, but looking after a 3-week-old baby is up there! — Prince William

IT WAS AN OLD SETTLERS' SAYING that you could burn your eyes out faster by staring straight and hard at the sun-scorched flatlands of Tatooine than by looking directly at its two huge suns themselves, so powerful was the penetrating glare reflected from those endless wastes. — George Lucas

What the great mentor is always looking for is a person who is willing to tap his genius, to put it through the refiner's fire, to do the hard work to develop it. Indeed, mentoring is the medieval art of alchemy-turning plain old human steel into hearts and minds of gold. — Oliver DeMille

She day-dreams just as I do. She is addicted to her solitude just as I am. She loves watching the rain-drops fall slowly on to the green leaves of an old guava tree just as I do. She loves drifting in time and time travel just as I do. She loves looking at the waves dashing against the rocks just as I do. — Avijeet Das

We chose younger and younger politicians to lead us because they looked good on television and were sharp. But really we should be looking for wisdom, and choosing people who had acquired it; and such people, in general, looked bad on television - gray, lined, thoughtful. — Alexander McCall Smith

Improvising, I participated in the discussion, and questioned another woman in the group. I asked her how old she was and she answered, "Thirty." I replied, "No, you are not thirty but instead eighty and lying on your deathbed. And now you are looking back on your life, a life which was childless but full of financial success and social prestige." And then I invited her to imagine what she would feel in this situation. "What will you think of it? What will you say to yourself?" Let me quote what she actually said from a tape which was recorded during that session. "Oh, I married a millionaire, I had an easy life full of wealth, and I lived it up! I flirted with men; I teased them! But now I am eighty; I have no children of my own. Looking back as an old woman, I cannot see what all that was for; actually, I must say, my life was a failure! — Viktor E. Frankl

I was relatively buff (before 'Avatar'), because I was working in a tanktop half the time on stage, anyway, but I just went kind of into hyperdrive after that and really worked to beat that old body into shape, to get that carcass where ... I didn't want to be looking at it and see anything hanging where it shouldn't be hanging. — Stephen Lang

Not everybody wants be texting their 15-year-old asking how his math tutor was. They would rather be home looking at how the math tutor was today. But it is what it is. — Renee James

In a Ramada Inn near the grapevine, they stop to rest for the night. Traveling down south, looking for good times. Visiting old friends feels right. — Neil Young

You are young," said my father. "You won't get any younger even if you clean your teeth twice a day."

"You'll get older," said my mother, "that's what happens."

"Then what happens?"

"You won't be able to find the treasure."

"Will I be too old to look for it?"

"No, but you'll be looking in the wrong place. — Jeanette Winterson

You think people was meaner then than they are now? the deputy said.
The old man was looking out at the flooded town. No, he said. I don't. I think people are the same from the day God first made one. — Cormac McCarthy

'The Conversation' was the first film I edited on a flatbed machine - a KEM editing machine. I've been using Final Cut or the AVID for 12 years now, so I was interested in looking at this film and seeing if I could tell if it had been edited the old way. — Walter Murch

You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign land, back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing's sake, back home to aestheticism, to one's youthful idea of 'the artist' and the all-sufficiency of 'art' and 'beauty' and 'love,' back home to the ivory tower, back home to places in the country, to the cottage in Bermude, away from all the strife and conflict of the world, back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time
back home to the escapes of Time and Memory. — Thomas Wolfe

They had a year of joy, twelve months of the strange heaven which the salmon know on beds of river shingle, under the gin-clear water. For twenty-four years they were guilty, but this first year was the only one which seemed like happiness. Looking back on it, when they were old, they did not remember that in this year it had ever rained or frozen. The four seasons were coloured like the edge of a rose petal for them. — T.H. White

I re-mastered 'The Conversation' a few years ago for DVD. 'The Conversation' was the first film I edited on a flatbed machine - a KEM editing machine. I've been using Final Cut or the AVID for 12 years now, so I was interested in looking at this film and seeing if I could tell if it had been edited the old way. Truth be told, I couldn't. — Walter Murch

I recall the story of the philosopher and the theologian... The two were engaged in disputation and the theologian used the old quip about a philosopher resembling a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat - which wasn't there. 'That may be,' said the philosopher, 'but a theologian would have found it. — Julian Huxley

We were putting into these gomers our fear of death, but who knew if they feared death? Perhaps they welcomed death like a dear long-lost cousin, grown old but still known, coming to visit, relieving the loneliness, the failing of the senses, the fury of the half-blind looking into the mirror and not recognizing who is looking back, a dear friend, a dear reliever, a healer who would be with them for an eternity, the same eternity as the long ago, before birth. — Samuel Shem

It was an old Herrani flag, stitched with the royal crest.
Arin said, "But the royal line is gone."
"They're looking for something to call you, Kestrel said, nudging Javelin forward.
"Not this. It's not right."
"Don't worry. They'll find the right words to describe you."
"And you."
"Oh, that's easy."
"It is?" It seemed impossible to name every thing she was to him.
Kestrel's expression was serious, luminous. He loved to see her like this. "They'll say that I'm yours," she told him, "just as you are mine. — Marie Rutkoski

We must not be taken in by the myth of youth, the unending propaganda to the effect that young men are younger than old men; that they are better looking; that they are slimmer, stronger and more athletic; that they can hold a girl in more romantic fashion and speak more sweetly. — Isaac Asimov

True understanding is to see the events of life in this way: 'You are here for my benefit, though rumor paints you otherwise.' And everything is turned to one's advantage when he greets a situation like this: You are the very thing I was looking for. Truly whatever arises in life is the right material to bring about your growth and the growth of those around you. This, in a word, is art
and this art called 'life' is a practice suitable to both men and gods. Everything contains some special purpose and a hidden blessing; what then could be strange or arduous when all of life is here to greet you like an old and faithful friend? — Marcus Aurelius

She shut the door and moved on to the floor-to-ceiling cabinets. "There is nothing here. Nothing. What do you eat?"
"Ah ... " Assail found himself looking at the cousins for aid.
"usually we take our meals in town."
The scoffing sound certainly appeared like the old-lady equivalent of Fuck that. "I need the staples. — J.R. Ward

Because I've been so bad at looking after myself, how would I ever look after a kid? But the old cliche applied: they handed her to me, and my world turned upside down - and I realised I was now going to be vulnerable in more ways than I expected. — Ken Bruen

One of the bonds between Lily and me is that we both suffer with our teeth. She is twenty years my junior but we wear bridges, each of us. Mine are at the sides, hers are in front. She has lost the four upper incisors. It happened while she was still in high school, out playing golf with her father, whom she adored. The poor old guy was a lush and far too drunk to be out on a golf course that day. Without looking or given warning, he drove from the first tee and on the backswing struck his daughter. It always kills me to think of that cursed hot July golf course, and this drunk from the plumbing supply business, and the girl of fifteen bleeding. Damn these weak drunks! Damn these unsteady men! I can't stand these clowns who go out in public as soon as they get swacked to show how broken-hearted they are. But Lily would never hear a single word against him and wept for him sooner than for herself. She carries his photo in her wallet. — Saul Bellow

Looking around today, I see a lot of young people who act as if they have all the time in the world, and older persons who think this attitude is alright. It is unfortunate that there are young citizens who still believe life begins at forty and that life before forty is non-scoring, and older citizens who still insist that unless you are old, you have nothing to offer, equating age with wisdom. — Nana Awere Damoah

. Only - if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn't it? And isn't the whole point of things - beautiful things - that they connect you to some larger beauty? Those first images that crack your heart wide open and you spend the rest of your life chasing, or trying to recapture, in one way or another? Because, I mean - mending old things, preserving them, looking after them - on some level there's no rational grounds for it - "
"There's no 'rational grounds' for anything I care about — Donna Tartt

It's like, say, if you were a dog. You notice that you're getting old, and you look at your human and you think, 'Why isn't this human getting old?' ... But now we're the human looking out and imagining a different human. — Cynthia Kenyon

Win or lose, the crows always laughed
the hard, old jaded laughter that came of looking at the world with a black and practiced eye. From the less skillful the laugh might have hinted of despair, or silliness, like the magpies', but the crows were masters of the wry outlook, and Viv never heard them but what she followed their expert lead and laughed along
they knew the secret of black, that it could not be made blacker, and if neither could it be made lighter, it could still be made funnier. — Ken Kesey

When you get as old as I am, you kind of believe there's nothing new under the sun, but there's always a fresh way of looking at something. That's why I love working with young people. They remind you of things you used to know and have since forgotten. — Jacki Weaver

He scanned the page looking for an entry that read, "Help! I'm Almost Thirteen Years Old and I Still Have the Muscles of a Third-Grader!" but apparently Robert's condition was so freakish and rare, the authors of the book didn't even bother to include it. — Charles Gilman