Older Women Quotes & Sayings

The daily work you put into rearing your children is a kind of intimacy, tedious and invisible as mothering itself. There is another kind of intimacy in the conversations you may have with your children as they grow older, in which you confess to failings, reveal anxieties, share your bouts of creative struggle, regret, frustration. There is intimacy in your quarrels, your negotiations and running jokes. But above all, there is intimacy in your contact with their bodies, with their shit and piss, sweat and vomit, with their stubbled kneecaps and dimpled knuckles, with the rips in their underpants as you fold them, with their hair against your lips as you kiss the tops of their heads, with the bones of their shoulders and with the horror of their breath in the morning as they pursue the ancient art of forgetting to brush. Lucky me that I should be permitted the luxury of choosing to find the intimacy inherent in this work that is thrust upon so many women. Lucky me. — Michael Chabon

I've always been attracted to women who are assertive and have confidence - qualities older women possess. They've been on the Earth a little longer. They're more seasoned. They don't play games. They know what they want, and they're not afraid to tell you. — Taye Diggs

In Europe you can be Sophia, you can be these older women who are considered very sexy. — Sally Kirkland

I think older women still have a full life. — Betty White

I really love cursing a lot. But as I get older, I realize it's a little unseemly for women of a certain age. — Tina Fey

I've just been so lucky. I don't know if you're really able to take advantage of your full potential until you're older. There are a few people who are incredibly gifted and make it when they are very young, but I didn't. With women it takes longer. You just keep working and when you finally get it, it feels very, very nice. — Helen Gurley Brown

Despite what anti-aging ads say, growing older can be better. I feel better in my skin, 100 percent. You have greater effects of gravity, but the better sense of yourself you have is something I wouldn't trade. Women who lie about their age - 'why?' — Demi Moore

We have the sort of beautiful older woman here in Paris. People like Loulou de la Falaise and Betty Catroux, all these beautiful looking women over 60 ... So there is culture here in France that even if you are older, you can stay beautiful. — Carine Roitfeld

I have nothing against younger women and older men on screen. What is sad is that so many women over 40 who have so much to give aren't being considered to play opposite men their own age or younger. — Rene Russo

The young woman at his side surveyed Tess in one quick, lethal glance. Tess could almost hear her brain clicking away on the sort of points system that some women used: Taller - 1 point for her. Hippy - 1 point against. Big breasts, long hair - 2 points for. Hair, unstyled, worn in a braid down her back - 2 points against. Older than me - 3 points against. Face, okay. Clothes, not stylish, not embarrassing. Tess wasn't sure of her final score, but apparently it was just a little too high. The woman gave her a terrifyingly fake smile, one that suggested she had little experience with real ones, and held out her hand. — Laura Lippman

I don't just use yarn from a store. I buy old sweaters from consignment shops. The older the better, and unravel them. There are countries of women in this scarf/shawl/blanket. Soon it will be big enough to keep me warm. — Laurie Halse Anderson

Don't wear excessive make-up as you grow older. Young women can wear whatever make-up they want, but if you are older, you will regret it. — Carolina Herrera

Before the moon I am, what a woman is, a woman of power, a woman's power, deeper than the roots of trees, deeper than the roots of islands, older than the Making, older than the moon. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Sex and older women used to be considered an oxymoron, rarely mentioned in the same breath. — Gail Sheehy

The older we women grow, the more clearly we see what men really are: hypocrites, boasters, he-goats. The older men grow, the more they doll us up with every perfection. — Jean Giraudoux

Getting older is not nice for anyone, not for men, not for women, and even more difficult for people who depend on their physical appearance. But it's not a drama. I know some people who are much more stressed than I am. And also, I live in Europe; I think it would be much more difficult if I lived in America. — Catherine Deneuve

I think women should start to embrace their age. What's the alternative to getting older? You die. I can't change the day I was born. But I can take care of my skin, my body, my mind, and try to live my life and be happy. — Olivia Munn

In my generation, if a man washes the dishes, the older women still tend to cluster around and coo and thank him and praise him. But if a woman washes the dishes, it's business as usual, even if both man and woman have tough office jobs. — Sherwood Smith

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

The library was a great sprawling complex with rolls and rolls of paper tucked into many shelves. Between the reading rooms were courtyards with living fountains and singing birds and butterflies that would transform into handsome young women to guide or entertain anyone who stayed there any length of time. I saw one among the stacks, explaining an older style of calligraphy to the newly appointed Heavenly Marine Official of the South China Sea. In another wing, a librarian stepped from her chrysalis for the first time, reciting T'ang Dynasty poetry to the flowers. That's how I knew I was in the right section. — Larissa Lai

The most cursory examination of even the most progressive organs of information reveals a curious inability to recognize women as newsmakers, unless they are young or married to a head of state or naked or pregnant by some triumph of technology or perpetrators or victims of some hideous crime or any combiniation of the above. Women's issues are often disguised as people issues, unless they are relegated to the women's pages which amazingly still suvive. Senior figures are all male; even the few women who are deemed worthy of obituaries are shown in images from their youth, as if the last fourty years of their lives have been without achievement of any kind. If you analyse the by-lines in your morning paper, you will see that the senior editorial staff are all older men, supported by a rabble of junior females, the infinitely replacesable 'hackettes'. — Germaine Greer

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

On the Decker bus she often gave up her seat to older passengers or to women with young children, she was nervously alert to the needs or near-needs of other people. It pleased and excited her to see the space she'd occupied taken, the emptiness where she had been so readily filled in. — Joyce Carol Oates

The older you are, the more you have to offer. Life begins at 40 and it just gets better and better. — Marcia Hines

The nineteenth-century wave of feminism was started by older women who had been through the radicalizing experience of getting married and becoming the legal chattel of their husbands (or the equally radicalizing experience of not getting married and being treated as spinsters). — Gloria Steinem

Tailor's work
the finishing of men's outside garments
was the "trade" learned most frequently by women in [the 1820s and 1830s],and one or more of my older sisters worked at it; I think it must have been at home, for I somehow or somewhere got the idea, while I was a small child, that the chief end of woman was to make clothing for mankind. — Lucy Larcom

Older homeless people are more likely to be women, because they don't have pensions and they are caretakers, so they withdraw from the workforce and end up having no pension if their husband leaves them, so the whole thing is just a nightmare. — Patricia Arquette

Let us open the doors to the Spirit, let ourselves be guided by him, and allow God's constant help to make us new men and women, inspired by the love of God which the Holy Spirit bestows on us! How beautiful it would be if each of you, every evening, could say: Today at school, at home, at work, guided by God, I showed a sign of love towards one of my friends, my parents, an older person! How beautiful! — Pope Francis

Yes and our obsession with youth in our culture and how we, women lie about their age after 35 obsessively and no one wants to let anyone know they're getting older, et cetera. — Sela Ward

Older men get lovable, and older women get monstrous. — Eileen Myles

Looking at female candidates today, other women are the hardest on them, especially older women who were brought up in a different culture. — Eleanor Clift

... your midthirties...is the age that women usually start to feel confident. Having finally left behind the...awfulness of your twenties...your thirties are the point where the good stuff kicks in...How odd, then, that as your face and body finally begin to display the signs (lines, softening, gray hairs) that you've entered the zone of kick-ass eminence and intolerance of dullards, there should be pressure for you to...totally remove them. Give the impression that, actually, you are still a bit gullible and incompetent, and totally open to being screwed over by someone a bit cleverer and older than you... Lines and grayness are nature's way of telling you not to fuck with someone--the equivalent of the yellow-and-black banding on a wasp...Lines are your weapons against the idiots. Lines are your 'KEEP AWAY FROM THE WISE INTOLERANT WOMAN' sign. — Caitlin Moran

He disapproved, he didn't believe in girls drinking, he was full of the conventions of a generation older than himself. Of course one drank oneself, one fornicated, but one didn't lie with a friend's sister, and 'decent' girls were never squiffy. — Graham Greene

The girls that I grew up with, and my friends and I, we just never had interests in common. I loved comedy. I loved Saturday Night Live, Gilda Radner, Lucille Ball, and Goldie Hawn movies. I just wanted to laugh. I liked women in comedy, and I liked male comics as I got a little older. My interests just never matched up with other girls'. — Amy Schumer

Some women say as they get older they're no longer noticed: they disappear. Men, for instance, don't see them. Nobody wants them. That doesn't happen to me because of who I am. Not because I'm any more scintillating company, but because I'm Ruth Rendell. — Ruth Rendell

This is exactly what I meant by unfair, Abe. If I woulda brought a guy home and announced, 'He's staying with me in my room,' both you and Hank would've trussed him up and dragged him off Lawson land."

"Not the same thing, Celia."

Her gray eyes narrowed. "Why? Because you both have dicks? Or because you both are dicks? — Lorelei James

We were still at the age when girls are years older than guy, and the guys grow up by doing their best when the girls need them to. — Tana French

But the great compensation for being fifty in a culture that is not kind to older women is that you care less about criticism and you are less afraid of confrontation. In a world not made for women, criticism and ridicule follow us all the days of our lives. Usually they are indications that we are doing something right. — Erica Jong

Age is just a number, and I know so many women who look fabulous at 40, 50 and 60 so it doesn't scare me. It's inevitable - I will get older, and the wrinkles will come, but I'm not that bothered. — Louise Nurding

I have two children myself. I always laugh; they have you playing mothers pretty early, us women. You look at the television, the mothers get younger and younger, and the children get older and older, and you start to wonder when these people had these children. Were they breeding when they were 12? — Megan Follows

When you're an older woman [in a movie], you are the brunt of the joke. — Jane Fonda

The other thing we have to do is to take seriously the role in this problem of ... older men who prey on underage women ... There are consequences to decisions and ... one way or the other, people always wind up being held accountable. — William J. Clinton

As you get older, you have your tribe of women that you grow and age gracefully with and you share wisdom with. That's your clan. That's your family. That's your strength. — Sheryl Crow

Because our nation is stupid and Hollywood is coarse, there is no one to tell us of the deep and extraordinary beauty of older women. I now see them all around me and am filled with a fierce joy that one of them has come to live in my house. — Pat Conroy

When dealing with older women, a trip to a hairdresser and two Bloody Marys goes further than any prescription drug. . . . — George Hodgman

When money, instead of man, is at the center of the system, when money becomes an idol, men and women are reduced to simple instruments of a social and economic system, which is characterized, better yet dominated, by profound inequalities. So we discard whatever is not useful to this logic; it is this attitude that discards children and older people, and is now affecting the young. — Pope Francis

He skidded to a dead halt and stared hard at Austin. The boy's chin carried so many nicks from his first shave that it was a wonder he hadn't bled to death. He was a year older than Houston had been when he'd last stood on a battlefield. Sweet Lord, Houston had never had the opportunity to shave his whole face; he'd never flirted with girls, wooed women, or danced through the night. He'd never loved.
Not until Amelia.
And he'd given her up because he'd thought it was best for her. Because he had nothing to offer her but a one-roomed log cabin, a few horses, a dream so small that it wouldn't cover the palm of her hand.
And his heart. His wounded heart. — Lorraine Heath

What bugs me is that movies don't reflect how interesting and vibrant women are. We don't treasure women as they get older. — Jill Clayburgh

Pride kept her from confiding in the other girls, and caution kept her from confessing to the older women. — Ursula K. Le Guin

I grew up in Long Island City. When I was growing up, my parents owned a women's clothing store in Queens. It was for older women. I got my bras there, until I realized I didn't want those huge, taupe bras. Everything was beige, with massive amounts of hooks. — Jessica Valenti

I definitely think some of my older female peer group are deeply beautiful women. They have this thing that radiates from them. — Julia Roberts

Grandma Mary would say, "That's why so many young women are marrying so many older men, because there aren't any more being raised. She would rather be an older man's sweetheart than a young man's fool and slave. — Lyanta' J. Tomlin

Germany's population is getting older and older and smaller and smaller. To be able to finance our welfare system over the long term, we need more women in the workforce, more children and more immigrants. — Paul Achleitner

The cool thing is that, unlike film, the theatre roles for women get better and better as you get older. — Idina Menzel

A woman can make a man feel older or younger than his years if she so chooses. Being a woman is a terribly difficult task since it consists principally in dealing with men. Women were made with a sense of humor so they could love men instead of laughing at them. — Will Rogers

It's so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that's what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower Is to bloom. — Alice Walker

Just as young people absorb all kinds of messages from the media, young girls learn what it means to be a woman by watching the older women in their lives. — Carre Otis

You know what they say, darling. When an older man seeks out younger women, he's virile. When an older woman seeks out younger men, she's desperate. Well, color me desperate, then. Because I want you, Harris Clayton. And I'm a woman who's very good at getting what she wants! Now come back to bed, darling, and let's forget all about everything except the way we feel. — Barbara Taylor Bradford

Children happen to be more attached to the female narcissist due to the way our society is still structured and to the fact that women are the ones to give birth and to serve as primary caretakers. It is much easier for a woman to think of her children as her extensions because they once indeed were her physical extensions and because her on-going interaction with them is both more intensive and more extensive.
[The] male narcissist is more likely to regard his children as a nuisance than as a Source of Narcissistic Supply - especially as they grow older and become autonomous.
With less alternatives than men, the narcissistic woman fights to maintain her most reliable Source of Supply: her children. Through insidious indoctrination, guilt-formation, emotional sanctions and blackmail, deprivation and other psychological mechanisms, she tries to induce in her offspring dependence which cannot easily be unraveled. — Sam Vaknin

Women want to know what's going on, whether it's the guys in the huddle the guys on the couch. One thing that's cool that I've seen as I've grown older is that women now think it is cool to enjoy sports and to sit there and talk the talk and know what's going on. — Erin Andrews

You know, when I first went into the movies Lionel Barrymore played my grandfather. Later he played my father and finally he played my husband. If he had lived I'm sure I would have played his mother. That's the way it is in Hollywood. The men get younger and the women get older. — Lillian Gish

The older dictators fell because they could never supply their subjects with enough bread, enough circuses, enough miracles, and mysteries. Under a scientific dictatorship, education will really work' with the result that most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution. There seems to be no good reason why a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should ever be overthrown. — Aldous Huxley

I don't believe men want women to have grotesque plastic surgery or be undernourished and bony. All the plastic surgery in the world can't stop you getting older. — Michelle Pfeiffer

The best I can say, it's like this. A man's in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell ... It's hard and strong, that shell, and it's all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, man-self. And that's all. That's all there is.
A woman's a different thing entirely. Who knows where a woman begins and ends? Listen mistress, I have roots, I have roots deeper than this island. Deeper than the sea, older than the raising of the lands. I go back into the dark ... I go back into the dark! Before the moon I am, what a woman is, a woman of power, a woman's power, deeper than the roots of trees, deeper than the roots of islands, older than the Making, older than the moon. Who dares ask questions of the dark? Who'll ask the dark its name? — Ursula K. Le Guin

Where's Kiernan?" I asked.
"He's with Brother Cyrus. Your turn."
The blood drained from my face and I stepped back, toward the wall. One of the older women, Glory, had died from a heart attack the year before. At the burial, all of the adults patted each other on the back and said she was with Brother Cyrus now.
The key suddenly felt like a lit coal in my hand, and I dropped it to the floor.
Patrick must have realized what I was thinking from my expression. "No, stupid," he said, as he bent down to pick up the key. "He's not dead. He's with Cyrus. In the future. He's fine. You'll be fine. — Rysa Walker

I grew up in a house full of women. I have two older sisters and my mum who is a very strong woman. — Patrick Dempsey

Brooding is more something I do when I'm working. I know so much more about sitting around worrying about a work project than I do about worrying about kids. This could just be a fact of life for older moms. We've worked and worked and worked and if we are lucky enough to finally have a child or two, we find ourselves suddenly catapulted into a most alien kind of chaos.
Work is so much easier. Anyone will tell you that. To have a desk, where you have everything all lined up, and a schedule you more or less get to agree to. Work. I am a worker. This is so funny because I never really think of my work as work. I certainly never though of myself as having a career. Writing, work, this is just who I am. I am a person who sits at a desk and makes phone calls and taps at a computer keyboard and sips coffee and calls her mom at five. That I am anything better or smaller than that has come as sudden news to me.
Brand new.
News. — Jeanne Marie Laskas

And isn't that weird? Think about this, when you're born, you nurse on your mama. And then you get a little older, you go to applesauce. And then you see these toddlers walking around with these Ziploc baggies full of Cheerios. Then you get to be my age, and the doctor wants you to start eating Cheerios to watch your cholesterol. Then you lose your teeth, you go to applesauce. I now know why old men like women with really big boobs. They see a trend. I mean, they call it a nursing home, hello. — Bill Engvall

If that's what you want, I'll give that to you. However, I need you to know that my heart, my mind and my soul belong to you. No one else can touch them like you because you and I both know that we are mates. — Brey King

What older men and younger women have in common is they are both suffering from different insecurities. She is looking for someone to make her feel safe, and he is looking for someone who doesn't answer back and is a trophy. — Mark Barrowcliffe

Maud: Young women are never happy.
Betty: Mother, what a thing to say.
Maud: Then when they're older they look back and see that comparatively speaking they were ecstatic. — Caryl Churchill

Men are allowed to get older and women are not. — Shirley Knight

A lot of women lose definition around their waist as they get older, which can mean their bottom half can look shapeless. — Marie Helvin

Women tend to be conservative in youth and get more radical as they get older because they lose power with age. So if a young woman is not a feminist, I say, 'Just wait.' — Gloria Steinem

They claim there's a rationale for the children, don't they, sir?"
"Yes. Those babes in arms will grow up and want revenge on the Nazis in about 1963. I suppose the rationale for the women under forty-five is that they might be pregnant. And the rationale for the older women is while we're at it. — Martin Amis

It was the world of Southern, rural, black growing up, of folks sitting on porches day and night, of folks calling your mama, 'cause you walked by and didn't speak, and of the switch waiting when you got home so that you could be taught some manners. It was a world of single black older women schoolteachers, dedicated, tough; they had taught your mama, her sisters, and her friends. They knew your people in ways that you never would and shared their insight, keeping us in touch with generations. It was a world where we had a history. — Bell Hooks

Women, as they grow older, rely more and more on cosmetics. Men, as they grow older, rely more and more on a sense of humor. — George Jean Nathan

What we've done, it seems to me, is allow women to get older, but not to age. — Caryl Rivers

There's one logical generational difference and that is that young women will have more chances to support a female president than older women. Older women feel it's their last chance, so that's just a factual, obvious difference. But other than that it depends on experience, on individual experience. — Gloria Steinem

I'm not interested in dating. I like being with my own best friend, me. Certain women, particularly older women, cannot believe I like going to a social event by myself. But I do. — Gloria Allred

I've been an admirer of Helen Mirren for a long time. As I get older, I find myself admiring older women who have poise and elegance. — Thomas Haden Church

Though Jones had formerly believed himself in the very prime of youth and vigor, his first encounter with Lady Bellaston both vexed and puzzled him. For though his own youthful appetites were quickly sated, hers were ravenous and almost beyond his power to satisfy. Her kisses and caresses were a source of inexpressible delight; yet when all was over it was he who collapsed into the most profound slumber. Early the next morning she took him shopping, her manner fresh and cheerful. Jones could not fathom her spritely behavior. And in spite of all his best endeavors, he could scarcely keep his eyes open. — Henry Fielding

Women my age just don't turn me on. That's another problem with getting older. I took out an older woman the other night, and I mean old. I told her, Act your age. She died. — Rodney Dangerfield

I think the important thing about sisters is that they share the same minute, familiar life-style, the same little sets of rules. Therefore they can keep house with each other late in life, because they share the same bunch of housewifely prejudices. The important thing about women today is, as they get older, they still keep house. It's one reason they don't die, but men die when they retire. Women just polish the teacups. — Margaret Mead

Thou shalt not commit adultry is a command which makes no distinction between the following persons. They are all required to obey it: children at birth. Children in the cradle. School children. Youths and maidens. Fresh adults. Older ones. Men and women of 40. Of 50. Of 60. Of 70. Of 80. Of 100. The command does not distribute its burden equally, and cannot. It is not hard upon the three sets of children. — Mark Twain

Reera did not keep them in misery more than a few seconds, for she touched each one with her right hand and instantly the fishes were transformed into three tall and slender young women, with fine, intelligent faces and clothed in handsome, clinging gowns. The one who had been a goldfish had beautiful golden hair and blue eyes and was exceedingly fair of skin; the one who had been a bronzefish had dark brown hair and clear gray eyes and her complexion matched these lovely features. The one who had been a silverfish had snow-white hair of the finest texture and deep brown eyes. The hair contrasted exquisitely with her pink cheeks and ruby-red lips, nor did it make her look a day older than her two companions. — L. Frank Baum

Just as the archetype of the supermom
the woman who can do it all
minimizes the real needs of women, so too the archetype of the"superkid" minimizes the real needs of children. It makes it all right to treat a young child as if he or she were older. — Arlie Russell Hochschild

In literature, older women are not often given center stage. — Kate Christensen

I think older women's voices are the most hated voices in the world - whether it's because people are reminded of their mothers or what, I don't know. — Judy Horacek

I was really raised by three women - my mom, and I have two older sisters, one nine years and one 11 years older - so I'm happy to have that many women in the house. — John Tesh

I'm older now, I'm a man getting near middle age, putting on a little fat and I still love to walk along Fifth Avenue at three o'clock on the east side of the street between Fiftieth and Fifty-seventh streets, they're all out then, making believe they're shopping, in their furs and their crazy hats, everything all concentrated from all over the world into eight blocks, the best furs, the best clothes, the handsomest women, out to spend money and feeling good about it, looking coldly at you, making believe they're not looking at you as you go past. — Irwin Shaw

Why ruin a young girl's life when you can make an older women SO very happy ! — Benjamin Franklin

As you know, all women at all ages do not feel their ages anymore. The young girl feels older, and the older woman feels younger. — Reem Acra

Edwina always enjoyed a morning ride. Some mornings she rode the horse, and some mornings she rode the groom. — Barbara Taylor Bradford

A memory: Isola as a toddler, sugarlump teeth, skin still smelling of milk. Hair that curled without use of an iron and sweet dresses that didn't matter were dirtied. When she was old enough, she demanded the usual suspects at bedtime: The Little Mermaid, Hansel and Gretel, Beauty and the Beast.
Even then, Mother's contempt for non-Pardieu fairytales was obvious.
'Hmph,' she snorted derisively, folding up her knees to perch on Isola's bed. 'Listen to me, Isola. The original Beauty's just an encouragement to young women to accept arranged marriages. What it's really saying to impressionable girls is, "Don't worry if your new husband is decades older than you, or ugly, or horrid. If you're sweet and obedient enough, you might just discover he's a prince in disguise!'

Mother's Most Lasting Advice
'Never be that girl, Isola. Never pick the beast or the wolf on the off-chance he won't devour you. — Allyse Near

We need an army of white-haired, wild-eyed radicals cutting a swath against the sexism that crosses our paths. It is a good antidote to the larger community's apparent belief that older women are slightly dotty, grandmotherly, benign souls. — Shari Graydon

Doing as many makeovers as I do, I've learned a few things about what makes women feel better about themselves. The starting point is usually getting a new haircut. I don't want to generalize, because every case is different, but I think it's best to err on the side of styling your hair shorter the older you get. In my opinion, it's generally not a good look for women over thirty to have hair way below their shoulders. — Tim Gunn

There are only two periods in a woman's life when she hopes to be taken for older than she is, under sixteen and over ninety. — Ruth Rendell

I guess I am attracted to older women. I'm looking for a 40-something who has had her heart broken two or three hundred times. She's going to be fun! — Bryan Callen

I do resent that when you're in the most cool, powerful time of your life, which is your 40s, you're put out to pasture. I think women are so much cooler when they're older. So it's a drag that we're not allowed to age. — Rosanna Arquette