Quotes & Sayings About Old And Young

Procreation is nature's principal occupation, and every man, whether he be young or old, when meeting every woman measures the potentiality of sex between them. — Charlie Chaplin

A good man will take care of his horses and dogs, not only while they are young, but also when they are old and past service. — Plutarch

Combine nursing homes with nursery schools. Bring very old and very young together: they interest one another. — John Cage

Nobody suffers the pain of birth or the anguish of loving a child in order for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on the substance of their people, for insurance companies to cheat the young and rob the old. — Lewis H. Lapham

I was nineteen years five months old when I fell in love for the first time. This seemed to me a profound, advanced age; never can we anticipate being older than we are, or wiser; if we're exhausted, it's impossible to anticipate being strong; as, in the grip of a dream, we rarely understand that we're dreaming, and will escape by the simplest of methods, opening our eyes. — Joyce Carol Oates

Here's one of the things I learned that morning: if you cross a line and nothing happens, the line loses meaning. It's like that old riddle about a tree falling in a forest, and whether it makes a sound if there's no one around to hear it.
You keep drawing a line farther and farther away, crossing it every time. That's how people end up stepping off the edge of the earth. You'd be surprised at how easy it is to bust out of orbit, to spin out to a place where no one can touch you. To lose yourself
to get lost.
Or maybe you wouldn't be surprised. Maybe some of you already know.
To those people, I can only say: I'm sorry. — Lauren Oliver

There is something within our biological structure that screams out and says it is morally wrong for the old to outlive the young. This is one of the times when God doesn't seem to make sense. This is the worst that life gets. — Rick Atkinson

We retire too early and we die too young, our prime of life should be in the 70's and old age should not come until we are almost 100. — Joseph Pilates

My daughter is almost a young lady. She's going to be 10 years old in December and I want to be there day-in and day-out. — Gloria Estefan

Political struggle is the most important thing any of us can do as a citizen in a democracy; and that means the old joining the young to fight for elemental kinds of justice. — Jonathan Kozol

And when whatever happened in that barn happened, it was a moment I'll never forget. Like a missing key slid into a dusty old lock. Click. My world opened. — Jennifer Walkup

In my nutritional philosophy, tradition has weight. After all, we've survived anywhere from 7,000 to 77,000 generations on this planet (depending on whose science you believe). If we didn't know how to adequately nourish our children all that time, how did we even get here? And guess what? Traditional cultures didn't (and don't) feed their young babies infant cereal. Among the few cultures that fed their babies a gruel of grains, their practice radically differed from what we do today. They would either pre-chew the gruel for their babies until they were at least a year old, or the gruel was mildly fermented by soaking the grains for 24 hours or more. — Kristen Michaelis

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

Have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With such people the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow's hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life. — Charles Dickens

Old and young, we are all on our last cruise. — Robert Louis Stevenson

Everyone chooses one of two roads in life - the old and the young, the rich and the poor, men and women alike. One is the broad, well-traveled road to mediocrity, the other road to greatness and meaning. — Stephen Covey

Wonderful?" wrote J.O. Young in his diary. "To stand cheering, crying, waving your hat and acting like a damn fool in general. No one who has spent all but 16 days of the this war as a Nip prisoner can really know what it means to see 'Old Sammy' buzzing around over camp. — Laura Hillenbrand

It was a silly age, twenty-five; too old for teenaged dreaming, too young for settling down. Every corner was a possibility and a dead end. — Toni Morrison

I'll always remember being called by my mother who beckoned me to look at the screen where a young man was being tortured by the church. Bag over his head, rolling on the ground, crying, suffocating, vomiting while the congression continues yelling chants, "God will save you!" treating him like the devil's child.

It was the first time I've ever doubted God. First time I've ever heard the terms 'Gays, and 'Queers.' I went through a lot in my childhood, but this was the first I've ever been so traumatized. My mom tells me they deserved it and the church tries to justify their actions as if it was the most intelligent excuse in the world. At 12 years old, I knew only one thing. I would never be like them. — Merlin

That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself. Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?" The young sceptic says, "I have a right to think for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all." There — G.K. Chesterton

Adrian laughed just then, a weird kind of laugh that made my skin crawl. "Young girls? Young girls? Sure. Young and old at the same time. They've barely seen anything in life, yet they've already seen too much. One's marked with life, and one's marked with death ... but they're the ones you're worried about? Worry about yourself, dhampir. Worry about you, and worry about me. We're the ones who are young."
The rest of us just sort of stared. I don't think anyone had expected Adrian to suddenly take an abrupt trip to Crazyville. — Richelle Mead

Did you see them? They're kids, Nathan. Children, who ended up being in the wrong place, at the wrong time." I blew out a frustrated breath, tracking one of the angry young teens in topic as he was dragged kicking and yelling from the room. "They won't even consider switching sides. Plumber has them so scared, all they can see if the numbers advantage he has over us."
"Numbers don't mean shit when you're fighters have the same level of skill as a two year old." He sniffed, shaking his head at the kid who was finally pulled from the room. "And that's insulting to two year olds. — Violet Cross

When I was in the Navy, everyone fell under the purview of "navy gray". It is the military's way of reminding its enlisted personnel that they are all equal. Man or woman, black or white, young or old, everyone was navy gray. With God's grace I can proudly say a better understanding of this concept has helped me ameliorate disputes, mend fences that appeared hopeless and find light in the midst of darkness. — Carlos Wallace

Young women and young men grow up, but old women and old men just grow older and surer they've got right on their side. — Stephen King

Young girls always know. They know older women look at them and see what they've left behind and can't get back. It's a truth everyone knows but no one acknowledges: There's nothing more powerful than an eighteen-year-old girl. — Sarah Addison Allen

They were childless - Dan Needham suggested that their sexual roles might be so "reversed" as to make childbearing difficult - and their attendance at Little League games was marked by a constant disapproval of the sport: that little girls were not allowed to play in the Little League was an example of sexual stereotyping that exercised the Dowlings' humorlessness and fury. Should they have a daughter, they warned, she would play in the Little League. They were a couple with a theme - sadly, it was their only theme, and a small theme, and they overplayed it, but a young couple with such a burning mission was quite interesting to the generally slow, accepting types who were more typical in Gravesend. Mr. Chickering, our fat coach and manager, lived in dread of the day the Dowlings might produce a daughter. Mr. Chickering was of the old school - he believed that only boys should play baseball, and that girls should watch them play, or else play soft-ball. — John Irving

If you want to look young and thin on your birthday. Hang around a bunch of old fat people. — Anthony

Silence and twilight fell over the garden. Far away the sea was lapping gently and monotonously on the bar. The wind of evening in the poplars sounded like some sad, weird old rune-some broken dream of old memories. A slender, shapely young aspen rose up before them against the fine maize and emerald and paling rose of the western sky, which brought out every leaf and twig in dark, tremulous, elfin loveliness. — L.M. Montgomery

Gregory is a good boy, though all the Latin he has learned, all the sonorous periods of the great authors, have rolled through his head and out again, like stones. Still, you think of Thomas More's boy: offspring of a scholar all Europe admired, and poor young John can barely stumble through his Pater Noster. Gregory is a fine archer, a fine horseman, a shining star in the tilt yard, and his manners cannot be faulted. He speaks reverently to his superiors, not scuffling his feet or standing on one leg, and he is mild and polite with those below him. He knows how to bow to foreign diplomats in the manner of their own countries, sits at table without fidgeting or feeding spaniels, can neatly carve and joint any fowl if requested to serve his elders. He doesn't slouch around with his jacket off one shoulder, or look in windows to admire himself, or stare around in church, or interrupt old men, or finish their stories for them. If anyone sneezes, he says, 'Christ help you! — Hilary Mantel

Every year the aspiring photographer brought a stack of his best prints to an old, honored photographer, seeking his judgment. Every year the old man studied the prints and painstakingly ordered them into two piles, bad and good. Every year the old man moved a certain landscape print into the bad stack. At length he turned to the young man: "You submit this same landscape every year, and every year I put it on the bad stack. Why do you like it so much?" The young photographer said, "Because I had to climb a mountain to get it." A — Annie Dillard

She - philosophy is equally helpful to the rich and poor: neglect her, and she equally harms the young and old. — Horace

For seventy-five years I've made ladies dresses. That means that for seventy-five years I have made women happy. For seventy-five years I have made mature women spin around in front of the mirror like young girls. For seventy-five years I have made young girls look in the mirror and for the first time see a woman staring back at them. I have made young men's eyes pop out. I've made old men's eyes pop out. Because the right dress does that. It makes ordinary women feel extraordinary. — Jane L Rosen

Change appears to us mysterious because it is invisible. It is impossible to see a tree grow tall or a man grow old, except with the precarious imagination of hindsight. A tree is small, and later it is tall. A man is young, and later he is old. A people are at peace, and later they are at war. In each case, the intermediate states are at once infinitely many and infinitely complex, which is why they exceed our finite perceptions. — Daniel Tammet

If anyone thinks they'd rather be in a different part of history, they're probably not a very good student of history. Life sucked in the old days. People knew very little, and you were likely to die at a young age of some horrible disease. You'd probably have no teeth by now. It would be particularly awful if you were a woman. — Elon Musk

Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I'll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master ... it's when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems. — Charles Bukowski

25I have been young, and now I am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, — Anonymous

I thought that young people had more problems than old people ... Then I looked around and saw that everybody who looked young had young problems and that everybody who looked old had old problems. — Andy Warhol

The earth has grown old with its burden of care, but at Christmas it always is young, the heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair, and its soul full of music breaks the air, when the song of angels is sung. — Phillips Brooks

My old man tells me every chance he gets I'm "style over substance" and that I've never done anything of value in my life. I'm fifteen. What does he expect? Being "cool as" is the only thing anyone cares about."
Burt, Book 1 "Making it — Jamie Scallion

I love the acquaintance of young people; because, in the first place, I do not like to think myself growing old. In the next place, young acquaintances must last longest, if they do last; and then, sir, young men have more virtue than old men; they have more generous sentiments in every respect. — Samuel Johnson

Dream young. Don't settle for old - for to be old is to be superstitious and without curiosity and always questioning your faith. And be ferocious in your dreaming - run like a sun's explosion, and skip across bluing waves, and dance upon tips of swan feathers. — Carew Papritz

Depressions and melancholy are often a cover for tremendous greed.
At the beginning of an analysis there is often a depressed state of resignation-life has no meaning, there is no feeling of being in life. An exaggerated state can develop into complete lameness. Quite young people give the impression of having the resignation of a bitter old man or woman. When you dig into such a black mood you find that behind it there is overwhelming greed-for being loved, for being very rich, for having the right partner, for being the top dog, etc.
Behind such a melancholic resignation you will often discover in the darkness a recurring theme which makes things very difficult, namely if you give such people one bit of hope, the lion opens its mouth and you have to withdraw, and then they put the lid on again, and so it goes on, back and forth. — Marie-Louise Von Franz

It's just that old people always think young people haven't really learned about love; and young people think that old people have forgotten about love; and, you know, they're both wrong. — Isaac Asimov

Be militant! Be an organization that is going to do things! If you can find older men who will give you countenance and acceptableleadership, follow them; but if you cannot, organize separately and dispense with them. There are only two sorts of men to be associated with when something is to be done: Those are young men and men who never grow old. — Woodrow Wilson

The Water Babies "Young and Old" When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away: Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day. — Charles Kingsley

The young fought sleep, she thought, but the old relished it, and at the moment, she felt absolutely ancient. — Julie Garwood

Those who die young, they are cheated," she said. "Not cheated out of life, because life is a penance, but the young, they're cheated because they don't know it's coming. They don't have time to move closer, to return home. When you know you're going to die, you try to be near the bones of your own people. You don't even think you have bones when you're young, even when you break them, you don't believe you have them. But when you're old, they start reminding you they're there. They start turning to dust on you, even as you're walking here and there, going from place to place. And this is when you crave to be near the bones of your own people. My children never felt this. They had to look death in the face, even before they knew what it was. Just like you did, no? — Edwidge Danticat

I'm not the same person I was. I used to act dumb. It was an act. I am 26 years old, and that act is no longer cute. It is not who I am, nor do I want to be that person for the young girls who looked up to me. I know now that I can make a difference, that I have the power to do that. — Paris Hilton

She looked at him bravely now for the first time, at his face, the face from which a child had fled, and drew breath. She rose. Her eyes filled.

She knew.

He took her in his arms and kissed her ardently. Men in their hosts, young and old, innocent and corrupt, had paid her for her favors, but she put her arms about him of her own free will as though to give him what she could in recompense for this, the last gift she guessed, of his manhood. — Glendon Swarthout

As the imagination is set to look into the invisible and immaterial, it seems to attract something of their vitality; and though it can give nothing to the body to redeem it from years, it can give to the soul that freshness of youth in old age which is even more beautiful than youth in the young. — Henry Ward Beecher

The first quarter-century of your life was doubtless lived under the cloud of being too young for things, while the last quarter-century would normally be shadowed by the still darker cloud of being too old for them; and between those two clouds, what small and narrow sunlight illumines a human lifetime! — James Hilton

Women have made of themselves such a weapon to act upon the senses that a young man, and even an old man, cannot remain tranquil in their presence. Watch a popular festival, or our receptions or ball-rooms. Woman well knows her influence there. You will see it in her triumphant smiles. — Leo Tolstoy

You don't stop being in love with anyone because you get old. People like Derek and Deborah think you do. They can't imagine anyone who isn't young being in love. — Agatha Christie

I've seen it all in Nevada, Kansas before that, and the War of Northern Aggression before that. People do all sorts of nasty things. And while I used to believe that there was something profoundly wrong about the human condition - sin passed on from the first man and that only the grace of God in Jesus Christ could make everything right, the standard explanation in churches Mormon to Methodist - it didn't take me long to learn that Christians and non-Christians, women and men, young and old were all capable of doing the worse things a human being might imagine, and then some.

From my upcoming novel, BATHHOUSE ROW, (available this fall). — Gregg Edwards Townsley

If this is the degree of inflation planned for in advance, the real outcome is indeed likely to be such that most of those who will retire at the end of the century will be dependent on the charity of the younger generation. And ultimately not morals but the fact that the young supply the police and the army will decide the issue: concentration camps for the aged unable to maintain themselves are likely to be the fate of an old generation whose income is entirely dependent on coercing the young. — Friedrich August Von Hayek

There are two ways of being happy: We may either diminish our wants or augment our means- either will do- the result in the same; and it is for each man to decide for himself, and do that which happens to be the easiest. If you are idle or sick or poor, however hard it may be to diminish your wants, it will be harder to augment your means. If you are active and prosperous or young and in good health, it may be easier for you to augment your means than to diminish your wants. But if you are wise, you will do both at the same time, young or old, rich or poor, sick or well; and if you are very wise you will do both in such a way as to augment the general happiness of society. — Benjamin Franklin

When Abba Anthony thought about the depths of the judgments of God, he asked, 'Lord, how is it that some die when they are young, while others drag on to extreme old age? Why are there those who are poor and those who are rich? Why do wicked men prosper and why are the just in need?' He heard a voice answering him, 'Antony, keep your attention on yourself; these things are according to the judgment of God, and it is not to your advantage to know anything about them.' — Anthony The Great

To A Young Beauty
Dear fellow-artist, why so free
With every sort of company,
With every Jack and Jill?
Choose your companions from the best;
Who draws a bucket with the rest
Soon topples down the hill.
You may, that mirror for a school,
Be passionate, not bountiful
As common beauties may,
Who were not born to keep in trim
With old Ezekiel's cherubim
But those of Beauvarlet.
I know what wages beauty gives,
How hard a life her servant lives,
Yet praise the winters gone:
There is not a fool can call me friend,
And I may dine at journey's end
With Landor and with Donne. — W.B.Yeats

Hiding inside this well-meaning phrase is a deep cultural assumption that old is bad and young is good. — Susan Moon

But first of all he is a woodsman, and you aren't a woodsman unless you have such a feeling for topography that you can look at the earth and see what it would look like without any woods or covering on it. It's something like the gift all men wish for when they or young
or old
of being able to look through a woman's clothes and see her body, possibly even a little of her character. — Norman Maclean

Got a young brown stallion and she 20 years old/When she pop it from the back you see that hairy asshole. — Pimp C

Except for a handful, chess players don't have such illusions. The game has a severe analytic quality that makes self-deception difficult. Unlike the undiscovered poet who, despite the harsh criticism of his peers, lives on his fantasies for the day that he will be recognized as the next Dylan Thomas, even a young chess player can usually gauge his talent. When Josh was six, he played several games against a pudgy thirteen-year-old who was the top player on his high school team. He beat Josh every time, but a couple of the games were close, and afterwards the boy seemed gloomy about his performance. He explained that if he didn't make significant improvement during the next year, he would wind up as just another wood-pusher. Despite his celebrity in school, he seemed to know that he didn't have it. While — Fred Waitzkin

One day the farmer's horse ran away. His neighbors cried "such bad luck" to which he replied "maybe." His horse returned the next day with three wild horses. His neighbors shouted "that's wonderful" and the old farmer replied "maybe." The next day his son rode one of the wild horses, fell off, and broke his leg. The neighbors called it a "terrible misfortune." The old man replied "maybe." The day after, the army came to the village to draft young men, but the son was spared thanks to his broken leg. The neighbors said the farmer was lucky how things turned out, and the old man answered "maybe. — Peter Morville

I don't know what to say to this Clare who is old and young and different from other girls, who knows that different might be hard. — Audrey Niffenegger

I had always heard rumors of her, Nanook thought, she who can control the wind, the water, the earth, and fire ... she who can talk to time. But those were old myths of a woman who lived many thousands of years ago, the first daughter of the Earth. There is a prophecy that she will return again, during the end times -- every religion has someone like that, someone to wait for and put your faith in, but my culture had mostly covered up her existence. We had a god of the sea, a god of the land, a god of the air, a god of fire, but no one who could control all of the elements. We spoke, only in whispers, of the ancient bloodline -- the descendents of the Great Mother. Too many superstitious minds, too many men concerned only with their own power and position, had heard these whispers in the past and taken gruesome steps to erase the descendents. The lineage was said to be broken, the blood of the Great Mother spilled for the last time. — Sarah Warden

WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil. — Ambrose Bierce

So the conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it
perhaps as much more as the roots are more vital than grafts. It is good that new ideas should be heard, for the sake of the few that can be used; but it is also good that new ideas should be compelled to go through the mill of objection, opposition, and contumely; this is the trial heat which innovations must survive before being allowed to enter the human race. It is good that the old should resist the young, and that the young should prod the old; out of this tension, as out of the strife of the sexes and the classes, comes a creative tensile strength, a stimulated development, a secret and basic unity and movement of the whole. — Will Durant

Married or unmarried, young or old, poet or worker, you are still a dreamer, and will one time know, and feel, that your life is but a dream. — Donald G. Mitchell

Way for new, winter taking away the remnants of the old to clear room for the young growth. Life, in other words, in all its fierce beauty and stark routine. All things went to the soil eventually. It was the way of life. — Diana Palmer

It's an old story; it's as old as our history. The difference between Democrats and Republicans has always been measured in courage and confidence. The Republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the frontier unless some of the old, some of the young, some of the weak, are left behind by the side of the trail. The strong, the strong they tell us, will inherit the land. We Democrats believe in something else. We Democrats believe that we can make it all the way with the whole family intact, and we have more than once. — Mario Cuomo

And Vicky also told her sister that all girls at the Health Centre considered that men were born crazy, if not down-right stupid.They were prepared to do crazy things & pay high prices just to prove how "macho" they were, when it came to young pretty girls. And the sisters tittered with laughter at the thought of the old men who enjoyed drinking Phyllis' urine & the young men who ate cucumber sandwiches filled with her excrement. And thus Vicky told Phyllis that although one should not take candy off children, it was quite in order to take money off crazy & stupid rich men.[MMT] — Nicholas Chong

[T]he young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands. — William Faulkner

Run towards the roar,' the old people used to tell the young ones. When faced with great danger and when people panic and seek a false sense of safety, run towards the roaring and go where you fear to go. For only in facing your fears can you find some safety and a way through. When the world rattles and the end seems near, go towards the roar. — Michael Meade

You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub. — George Bernard Shaw

There's something beautiful about that Scripture that says, "Your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams" (Acts 2:17). We need each other. There is power when the old and young dream together. — Shane Claiborne

I don't talk to old people; they try to find ways to stay static. Young folks are the ones with the ideas and constantly moving forward. — Prince

And So This Is Christmas; And What Have We Done? Another Year Over; A New One Just Begun; And So Happy Christmas; I Hope You Have Fun; The Near And The Dear Ones; The Old And The Young. — John Lennon

Well, that was life. It was an old tree, and the old passed on. Probably they did not mind. There came a time when all sap ran slowly, and the peace of age with all things behind it merged easily into the peace of death. The difficult thing was to be young. — Mary Roberts Rinehart

There are Indian grandmas who get too much church and Indian grandmas where the church doesn't take, and who are let loose in their old age to shock the young. Zack had one of those last sort. — Louise Erdrich

SLEEP IS NOT, DEATH IS NOT; WHO SEEM TO DIE LIVE. HOUSE YOU WERE BORN IN, FRIENDS OF YOUR SPRING-TIME, OLD MAN AND YOUNG MAID, DAY'S TOIL AND ITS GUERDON, THEY ARE ALL VANISHING, FLEEING TO FABLES, CANNOT BE MOORED. - Ralph Waldo Emerson — Ransom Riggs

The young should not think of themselves as immature and the elderly need not view themselves as feeble. Our minds control our bodies. Have no age, transcend both past and future, and enter into naka-ima - the eternal present. — H.E. Davey

Everyone, young and old, must have access to the knowledge and skills to participate in the evolving economy. — James H. Douglas Jr.

I was not the only young nurse to be acutely conscious of a heightened sex appeal when in uniform. Ironically, the draconian old sisters and matrons who rigidly enforced the uniform seemed to be unaware of the effect it had on the male sex. — Jennifer Worth

I found myself speaking softly as if I were telling an old tale to a young child. And giving it a happy ending, when all know that tales never end, and the happy ending is but a moment to catch one's breath before the next disaster. — Robin Hobb

Everyone in Hollywood is seeking fame and fortune; it's in the water here. Everyone from young women to old men - they all want it. — Karrine Steffans

She's wearing the dreamy expression peculiar to the very old and the very young, where they seem fascinated by something everyone else takes for granted. People find the phenomenon adorable in babies. It means they're inquisitive and intrigued by objects in their new world. In old people they usually chalk it up to senility, but I don't think that's the case. For both, it's the ability to see things in their purest sense. All the knowledge that comes from experience doesn't exist for a child and doesn't matter anymore to an old lady. With a life completely in front of you or a life completely behind you, the world looks basically the same. She — Tawni O'Dell

He [Alan Lomax] started right off trying to find people who could introduce folk songs to city people. He found a young actor named Burl Ives and said, "Burl, you know a lot of great country songs learned from your grandmother, don't you know people would love to hear them?" He put on radio programs. He persuaded CBS to dedicate "The School of the Air" for one year to American folk music. He'd get some old sailor to sing an old sea shanty with a cracked voice. Then he'd get me to sing it with my banjo. — Pete Seeger

Death was democratic. It made no choice between the rich and the poor, the beautiful and the ugly, the young and the old. — Kathleen Winsor

Most of my colleagues go on backpacking trips when they have to do some thinking. I go to a good hardware store and head for the oiliest, dustiest corners ... If they're really good, they don't hassle me. They let me wander around and think. Young hardware clerks have a lot of hubris. They think they can help you find anything ... Old hardware clerks have learned the hard way that nothing in a hardware store ever gets bought for its nominal purpose. You buy something that was designed to do one thing, and you use it for another. — Neal Stephenson

We met with more closed doors than open ones
and the people who answered our knocks were invariably older. Young people didn't aswner the door to strangers, who would undoubtedly be trying to sell something, any more than they would answer the telephone to telemarketers once Caller ID came along. The only people we encountered going door-to-door were the ones old enough to remember when that's the way the world worked. — J. Mark Bertrand

Once, when the days were ages, And the old Earth was young, The high gods and the sages From Nature's golden pages Her open secrets wrung. — Richard Henry Stoddard

Our young people, raised under the old rules of courtesy, never indulged in the present habit of talking incessantly and all at the same time. To do so would have been not only impolite, but foolish; for poise, so much admired as a social grace, could not be accompanied by restlessness. Pauses were acknowledged gracefully and did not cause lack of ease or embarrassment. — Kent Nerburn

He held out a shaky and worn hand and she met it with one of her young and inexperienced ones. — S.A. Tawks

When you are spending time in front of the television, you are not doing other things. The young child of three or four years old is in the stage of the greatest emotional development that human beings undergo. And we only develop when we experience things, real-life things: a conversation with Mother, touching Father, going places, doing things, relating to others. This kind of experience is critical to a young child, and when the child spends thirty-five hours per week in front of the TV set, it is impossible to have the full range of real-life experience that a young child must have. — Jerry Mander

The weak link-- she liked the ring of it. To seek the imperfection in the chain that keeps you in bondage. Taken individually, the link was not much. But in concert with its fellows, a mighty iron that subjugated millions despite its weakness. The people she chose, young and old, from the rich part of town or the more modest streets, did not individually persecute Cora. As a community, they were shackles. If she kept at it, chipping away at weak links wherever she found them, it might add up to something. — Colson Whitehead

Just as apples when unripe are torn from trees, but when ripe and mellow drop down, so it is violence that takes life from young men, ripeness from old. This ripeness is so delightful to me that, as I approach nearer to death, I seem, as it were, to be sighting land, and to be coming to port at last after a long voyage. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

There was a genocide unfolding against Bosnian Muslims and we, in the United Kingdom, were incredibly angered - a teenager at the time, 15 years old, so my young teenage mind processed that in a way typical to the very passionate and angry and black-and-white way that teenagers often can do. — Maajid Nawaz

Then everything was normal again, except that the liner was speeding for the planet Krim at something more than thirty times the speed of light. Normality extended through all the galaxy so far inhabited by men. There were worlds on which there was peace, and worlds on which there was tumult. There were busy, zestful young worlds, and languid, weary old ones. From the Near Rim to the farthest of occupied systems, planets circled their suns, and men lived on them, and every man took himself seriously and did not quite believe that the universe had existed before he was born or would long survive his loss. Time passed. Comets let out vast streamers like bridal veils and swept toward and around their suns. Some of them - one in ten thousand, or twenty - were possibly seen by human eyes. The liner bearing Hoddan sped through the void. In time it made a landfall on the Planet Krim. — Murray Leinster

I encountered in the street a penniless young man who was in love. His hat was old and his jacket worn, with holes at the elbows; water soaked through his shoes, but starlight flooded through his soul. — Victor Hugo

Blood is thicker than water,
The young man said
As he knifed his friend
For a drooling old bitch
And a house full of lies. — Ernest Hemingway,