Quotes & Sayings About Midlife Crisis

Ever heard of the phrase 'midlife crisis'? — Janet Maslin

Was he hitting some type of werewolf midlife crisis? First, he'd left Wolf Town, and now he was envisioning a mate. What next? Bird watching? Board games? Retirement homes? — Rose Wynters

To come across as younger than they are: Women buy creams that promise to slow aging; men buy fast cars. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Thinking of only the worse of yourself will eventually destroy you — Sid Mittra

Semiotic was the form Zipperstein's midlife crisis had taken... Instead of buying sports car, he'd bought deconstrution. — Jeffrey Eugenides

Forty-two. His age had astounded him for years, and each time that he had sat so astounded, trying to figure out what had become of the young, slim man in his twenties, a whole additional year slipped by and had to be recorded, a continually growing sum which he could not reconcile with his self-image. He still saw himself, in his mind's eye, as youthful, and when he caught sight of himself in photographs he usually collapsed ... Somebody took my actual physical presence away and substituted this, he had thought from time to time. Oh well, so it went. — Philip K. Dick

If you live your life all out today, not only is it fun, but you are preventing a midlife crisis. — Daphne Oz

In the second half of life, our old compasses no longer work. The magnetic fields alter. The new compass that we need cannot be held in our hand, only in our heart. We read it not with our mind alone, but with our soul.

Now we yearn for wholeness. We yearn to remember the parts of ourselves that we have forgotten, to nourish those that we have starved, to express those we have silenced, and to bring into the light those we have cast into the shadows. On this quest for wholeness, we must let go of cliches of adult life, both positive and negative . . . Using the best information available , each of us must find his own way.

To varying degrees, all of us are trying to break out of . . . the "life structure" that we have built during the first part of our lives. — Mark Gerzon

During my completely soul-shredding midlife crisis at the age of twenty-eight, I felt sure I had peaked too soon. — Jennifer Harrison

Are you having a midlife crisis?"

"You'll be having an end of life crisis if you say that again," he threatened. — Nicole Castle

You know that you have officially HIT at total midlife crisis when you get acne on your wrinkles. — Tanya Masse

Midlife crisis begins sometime in your 40s, when you look at your life and think, 'Is this all?' And it ends about 10 years later, when you look at your life again and think, 'Actually, this is pretty good.' — Donald Richie

what was rational about a midlife crisis? Weren't they always a little absurd? They were beginning the next phase of their lives together. She was not afraid of it. Let it come, she thought. He'll be in good hands. — Matthew Thomas

All three are hip-deep in midlife, when the eyes go and the waistline spreads and the city on the hill that shone so brightly in youth turns out to be more like a semi-incorporated town in the middle of a garbage strike. An age when a person can feel not so much himself as an inexplicably inferior version of himself. — Mary McNamara

The midlife crisis you're having at 30 is indulgent, but the midlife crisis you have at 45 is to an extent thrust upon you. — Moby

My generation is having its midlife crisis in its 20s. — Edward Norton

You are trapped by nothing more than a poor attitude — Sid Mittra

You really must stop acting
Like a 20-year-old, gold plated
In a midlife crisis
You just graduated
Happy 60th — John Walter Bratton

You know you've officially hit a midlife crisis when you finally start feeling like you have your life together and your body starts falling apart! — Tanya Masse

There are no atheists in foxholes, they say, and I was a foxhole atheist for a long time. But after going through a midlife crisis and having many things change very quickly, it made me realize my mortality. And when you start to think about death, you start to think about what's after it. And then you start hoping there is a God. — Peter Steele

A man in the midst of a midlife crisis is an abomination on society. [This is my own quote. And it's true.] — Ross Bonander

Her mother waved a card at her in farewell. "Bye. Will you be home for dinner? I'm making midlife crisis." "Oh," Blue said, "I guess I'll have a slice. If you're making it already. — Maggie Stiefvater

Midlife crisis, it turns out, is much less about a loss of flesh and far more about a loss of innocence, the stripping-away of the illusion of choice and order. — Steve Ochs

Men are much simpler mechanisms than women. Nothing changes them ... even when they have a midlife crisis, they do it in a mindless way ... that's why I think we should let men go off and have affairs and drive fast cars and dream of being virile - and we should run the world. — Goldie Hawn

But what the measured prose of psychiatrists and the carefully calculated statistics of social scientists rarely capture is the experience of inner struggle. These "significant changes" do not occur automatically. In fact, they must often fight against our resistance. In this sense, midlife is a drama more worthy of a playwright than a scholar. We are characters in the play, caught at the opening of the second act, and we do not know what will happen next. — Mark Gerzon

It certainly inhibits a man's desire to change companies for a better job. Thus, it is at least a minor pressure against free-spirited enterprise. All the benefits exert pressure, too. There is nothing sinister about them, since admittedly they are for your own material comfort -- and isn't that supposed to be one of the goals of mankind? What happens is that, as the years go by, the temptation to strike out on your own or take another job becomes less and less. Gradually you become accustomed to the Utopian drift. Soon another inhibition may make you even more amenable. If you have been in easy circumstances for a number of years, you feel that you are out of shape. Even in younger men the hard muscle of ambition tends to go slack, and you hesitate to take a chance in the jungle again. — Alan Harrington

I think everyone has one day like this, and some people have more than one. It's the day of the accident, the midlife crisis, the breakdown, the meltdown, the walkout, the sellout, the giving up, giving away, or giving in. The day you stop drinking, or the day you start. The day you know things will never be the same again. — Heather Sellers

Most of us abandoned the idea of a life full of adventure and travel sometime between puberty and our first job. Our dreams died under the dark weight of responsibility. Occasionally the old urge surfaces, and we label it with names that suggest psychological aberrations: the big chill, a midlife crisis. — Tim Cahill

Are you turning into a cougar? Is this some sort of midlife crisis I need to be concerned about? — Jennifer L. Armentrout

MIDLIFE is that pivotal moment when you can FINALLY say that you basically have all your shit together and then your body starts falling apart! — Tanya Masse

I don't believe the United States is going through a midlife crisis. The United States is going through an adolescent crisis. — Marianne Williamson

My career started young and I was really ambitious, and then I had success and I hung out with people who were much older. I think I might have been temporally misplaced, so I thought I was 40. It was a premature midlife crisis. — Elizabeth Gilbert

I think midlife crisis is just a point where people's careers have reached some plateau and they have to reflect on their personal relationships. — Bill Murray

You look like you're having a midlife crisis."
"It's not a midlife crisis. It's just a life crisis. — Alice Oseman

I'm 51. So I'm just saying, 30 years from now you're going to have a different outlook. That's what a midlife crisis is. — Kelly Reichardt

I turned fifty and decided to take a break. After twenty-five years of working, it seemed like a good idea. Honestly, I was feeling depleted. I still cared about my career and realized, amid a worsening economic climate, that I was lucky to have one. But that appreciation felt more lodged in my head than my heart. One day, United Airlines sent me a card, along with some new luggage tags, offering congratulations on having flown 2 million miles. Quick arithmetic translated all those zeroes into the equivalent of flying from one side of the country to the other every single day - Sundays, holidays, birthdays, sick or well - for more than two years. Maybe the card from United should have offered condolences. It all added up to an abiding fatigue. And a question: Did I want to fly 2 million more miles over the next twenty-five years of my life? Was I having a low-grade midlife crisis? I had no red sports car, reckless affair, — Marc Freedman

The sequence is suffering, insight, will, action, change. — Allen Wheelis

Don't you wear glasses, George?" "Not anymore. I had my eyes lasered." Can you say midlife crisis? Radial keratotomy is the new red Porsche. — Lisa Scottoline

Middle age is not the beginning of decline, but a time to reach for the highest in our selves. Middle age is a pause to re-examine what we have done and what we will do in the future. This is the time to give birth to our power. — Frank Natale

Adam and Eve had their midlife Crisis when they realized that they were older than sin! — Jonathan Edward Caldwell

Women's liberation and the male midlife crisis were the same search
for personal fulfillment, common values, mutual respect, love. But while women's liberation was thought of as promoting identity, the male midlife crisis was thought of as an identity crisis. — Warren Farrell

Don't waste time worrying about work/life balance, or looking for your best self, sham "secrets" or any other snake oil being pushed by sloppy hippies who have never built a business, let alone a bankroll, or you will wake up 20 years from now poor, pissed off and primed for a midlife crisis. — Ari Gold

On my fortieth birthday, rather than merely bore my friends by having anything as mundane as a midlife crisis I decided it might be more interesting to actually terrify them by going completely mad and declaring myself to be a magician. — Alan Moore

I've known plenty of couples who choose to ignore budding problems or dissatisfactions because it's easier in the moment. But too much of that for long enough, and you all of a sudden have a huge problem on your hands, or a midlife crisis, or a broken marriage. — Fawn Weaver

A motorcycle is a vehicle of change, after all. It puts the wheels beneath a midlife crisis, or a coming-of-age saga, or even just the discovery of something new, something you didn't realize was there. It provides the means to cross over, to transition, or to revitalize; motorcycles are self-discovery's favorite vehicle. — Lily Brooks-Dalton

I'd say imagine that you wake up one morning when you're going through a midlife crisis. You're getting divorced. Your kids won't speak to you. Their faces are covered with acne, and you have to decide why you should get out of bed. That's the career you should pick. The one that keeps you going no matter what, even if your life is falling apart. That's how I feel about my career. — Henry Louis Gates

Could I be having a midlife crisis? Ahead of schedule. God, I'd just turned thirty-four. How batty would I be by fourty? — Noreen Wald

I had kind of a midlife crisis at twenty which probably doesn't augur well for my longevity — David Foster Wallace

Simply thinking creatively is not the same as being innovative, and only those who risk breaking out of their comfort zone by putting thought into action will discover the profusion of opportunity that exists. — Michael Lum

There is some debate in professional circles about whether the so-called "midlife crisis" exists. — James Hollis

their own grandchildren. Parents like Kate's are so intent on protecting their kids from their brand of the midlife crisis - their regret over settling down too soon - that these parents fail to see an entirely new midlife crisis is afoot. The postmillennial midlife crisis is figuring out that while we were busy making — Meg Jay

Change is superficial. Transformation is deep. It alters our perception of reality and therefore causes everything in our life to shift. Transformation is what happens when we live our life rather than analyze it. — Frank Natale

Udden attack of culture snobbery is a common affliction among policemen of a certain rank and age; it's like a normal midlife crisis only with more chandeliers and foreign languages. — Ben Aaronovitch

Even if you do not want to, One day
you will look back through your
life ... the Question is, what are you
going to see? How will your rate and
direction of progress make you feel? — Moffat Machingura

If you're in the midst of a midlife crisis, you could buy a convertible, have an affair, or upgrade your cup size. But you'll probably be happiest if you save a dog's life. — Jen Lancaster

There is a Western phenomenon called the male midlife crisis. Very often it is heralded by divorce. What history might have done to you, you bring about on purpose: separation from woman and child. Don't tell me that such men aren't tasting the ancient flavors of death and defeat.
In America, with divorce achieved, the midlifer can expect to be more recreational, more discretionary. He can almost design the sort of crisis he is going to have: motorbike, teenage girlfriend, vegetarianism, jogging, sports car, mature boyfriend, cocaine, crash diet, powerboat, new baby, religion, hair transplant.
Over here, now, there's no angling around for your male midlife crisis. It is brought to you and it is always the same thing. It is death. — Martin Amis

I don't know anything anymore. Is that normal? Is it normal to notice the enormity of everything and just go blank? — A.M. Homes

she was wishing that whatever stage of her life she ws in now could be got through quickly, for it was seeming to her interminable. If life had to be looked at in terms of high moments or peaks, then nothing had "happened" to her for a long time; and she could look forward to nothing but a dwindling away from full household activities and getting old. — Doris Lessing

Screw the mid-life crisis
Go have a mid-life spa day
A mid-life quickie
A midlife tiramisu
But whatever you do
DON'T give in to mid-life blues! — Sanjo Jendayi

It's kind of like a midlife crisis kind of thing. When you turn 40, you have to run the marathon, while all the parts still work properly. — Joe Bastianich

Havin lunch and debatin Ferrari prices. 23 and goin through a midlife crisis. — Drake

There was a time in my 40s where I thought, oh, it's all over - not just work, but I'm never going to feel young again, I'm always going to feel like I know what's going to happen, I'll know what to expect. Looking back I don't know if that was a midlife crisis, I don't know - but I don't feel that now. There's possibilities. It gets better. — Paul Weller

I say I have a midlife crisis every time I start and finish a record. — Mika.

Everything I read about hitting a midlife crisis was true. I had such a struggle letting go of youthful things and learning how to exist and have enthusiasm while settling into the comfort of an older age. — David Bowie

Forget the midlife crisis," I say. "It's all about the sixth-life crisis. — Ned Vizzini

Neurotic suffering indicates inner conflict. Each side of the conflict is likely to be a composite of many partial forces, each one of which has been structured into behavior, attitude, perception, value. Each component asserts itself, claims priority, insists that something else yield, accommodates. The conflict therefore is fixed, stubborn, enduring. It may be impugned and dismissed without effect, imprecations and remorse are of no avail, strenuous acts of will may be futile; it causes - yet survives and continues to cause - the most intense suffering, humiliation, rending of flesh.
Such a conflict is not to be uprooted or excised. It is not an ailment, it is the patient himself. The suffering will not disappear without a change in the conflict, and a change in the conflict amounts to a change in what one is and how one lives, feels, reacts. — Allen Wheelis

Have interesting failures ... If you need to have a personal crisis have it now. Don't wait until midlife, when it will take longer to resolve ... Don't pity yourselves. Lighten up. Seek people with a sense of humor. Avoid humorless people-and do not marry one, for God's sake. — Garrison Keillor

Perhaps this is the solution to medicine's midlife crisis, too: doctors focusing on their noble craft, their relationships with patients, the stuff over which we have some control. Ultimately, this may be the best hope for our professional salvation. — Sandeep Jauhar

People may call what happens at midlife "a crisis," but it's not. It's an unraveling - a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you're "supposed" to live. The unraveling is a time when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and to embrace who you are. — Brene Brown

I found myself thinking a lot about my own spirituality. What it means to be Jewish, what it means to forgive, what it means to sacrifice, but mostly what it means to be alive, how to be a better person, how not to make the mistakes my parents had made. I guess that's what one might typically call a midlife crisis. — Tod Goldberg

People may indeed be treated as objects and may be profoundly affected thereby. Kick a dog often enough and he will become cowardly or vicious. People who are kicked undergo similar changes; their view of the world and of themselves is transformed ... People may indeed be brainwashed, for benign or exploitative reasons ...
If one's destiny is shaped by manipulation one has become more of an object, less of a subject, has lost freedom ...
If, however, one's destiny is shaped from within then one has become more of a creator, has gained freedom. This is self-transcendence, a process of change that originates in one's heart and expands outward ... begins with a vision of freedom, with an "I want to become ... ", with a sense of the potentiality to become what one is not. One gropes toward this vision in the dark, with no guide, no map, and no guarantee. Here one acts as subject, author, creator. — Allen Wheelis

With improved coping skills forged through my midlife crisis, I now listen first and do not control, and I allow these now adult children to come to their own conclusions about what they want for their lives. — David W. Earle

The place has had a super-conflicted relationship to its mission. In 1956, it opened as the Museum of Contemporary Crafts. Then in 1986 it had a midlife crisis and changed its name to the American Craft Museum. Then in 2002 the name changed again, this time to the Museum of Arts and Design. Maybe in 2025 the place will be called the Designatorium. The big problem with a museum of craft and design is that all art has craft and design. — Jerry Saltz

I figure if Doc is right about the time I have left,I should wrap up my adolescence in the next few days, get into my early productive stages about the third week of school, go through my midlife crisis during Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, redouble my efforts at productivity and think about my legacy, say, Easter, and start cashing in my 401(k)s a couple weeks before Memorial Day. — Chris Crutcher

You know, let a few years go by until I hit my midlife crisis. Then that can be documented on film. — Claire Danes

If you wish to succeed, you must believe in yourself and look at everything positively — Sid Mittra

It dawned on him gradually that he had entered middle-age without ever being young, and that he was, in the nicest possible way, "on the shelf". — John Le Carre

Are you having a midlife crisis?" Miriam asked.
"I'm eighteen."
"I know. But you've always been advanced. — J.C. Geiger

Encased in an elaborate illusion of unlimited power and progress, each of us subscribes, at least until one's midlife crisis, to the belief that existence consists of an eternal, upward spiral of achievement, dependent on will alone.
This comforting illusion may be shattered by some urgent irreversible experience ... None more potently confronts us with finiteness and contingency than the imminence of our own death. — Irvin D. Yalom

Turn your midlife crisis to your own advantage by making it a time for renewal of your body and mind, rather than stand by helplessly and watch them decline. — Jane Brody

Bad things happen in life, but we must learn to deal with them and move on — Sid Mittra

Midlife dynamically, for both straight and gay males, is often challenging as we face the reality that many of the dreams we had for our lives might not become a reality and unresolved conflicts come to the surface. For us to successfully transition in to the next phase of our lives we must find reconciliation of these issues. And for the gay male there is a sense that the gay self we have tried to keep in the closet or so many years begins to scream out. "Time is running out. When do I get to live?" You can't ignore that voice in the end, you can try and suppress it, and you can try and deny it, you can try and silence it by filling your life with other noises and diverting attention ... but that voice still exists. "Will my entire life be a lie? — Anthony Venn-Brown

I'm in politics to change things - if possible, for the better. I was a journalist for a long time, but I had a kind of midlife crisis, and I decided I needed to do something to get on the pitch and stop endlessly kicking over other peoples' sandcastles. — Boris Johnson

Suicide solves midlife crises. — Brian Spellman

Hollywood actresses age in dog years. I'm 25 in the rest of the world, but I'm about 48 in actress years. I'm just around the corner from my midlife crisis. — Amber Heard

The Hollywood Foreign Press have just given me a time out from my 20-year midlife crisis. My heartfelt thanks to them. — Colin Firth

People who aren't addicts want to know why I became one. They ask whether I had a midlife crisis. I'm only speaking for myself now, but I've stopped asking why and how. It's all about surrender and acceptance. It doesn't matter why I am an addict. — Kevin Sessums

I've been having a midlife crisis since I was four years old. — Moby

Towards the end of your life you have something like a pain schedule to fill out - a long schedule like a federal document, only it's your pain schedule. Endless categories. First, physical causes - like arthritis, gallstones, menstrual cramps. New category, injured vanity, betrayal, swindle, injustice. But the hardest items of all have to do with love. The question then is: So why does everybody persist? If love cuts them up so much ... — Saul Bellow

I tend to do something for two years then move on to something new. Yoga, then biking, then weight lifting, then back to biking. The moment it feels like a rut, I switch and search for a new love. It's like having a midlife crisis, but without the new wife or cheesy BMW. — Brad Meltzer

Most men bought a flashy sports car, had an affair or hooked up with a girl barely out of school in their midlife crisis. Apparently he did bizarre things like fall in love and throw away a multimillion-dollar deal. — Maya Banks