Smile And Age Quotes & Sayings

A woman of a certain age must learn to hear what suits her purpose," Theodora said with a naughty smile. "Old women and cats do as they please. — Jackie King

Bette Davis lived long enough to hear the Kim Carnes song, 'Bette Davis Eyes'. The lyrics to that song were not very interesting. But the fact of the song was the proof of an acknowledgement that in the twentieth century we lived through an age of immense romantic personalities larger than life, yet models for it, too - for good or ill. Like twin moons, promising a struggle and an embrace, the Davis eyes would survive her - and us. Kim Carnes has hardly had a consistent career, but that one song - sluggish yet surging, druggy and dreamy - became an instant classic. It's like the sigh of the islanders when they behold their Kong. And I suspect it made the real eyes smile, whatever else was on their mind. — David Thomson

He smiles shyly at Leah. Aged ten he had a smile! Nathan Bogle: the very definition of desire for girls who had previously only felt that way about certain fragrant erasers. A smile to destroy the resolve of even the strictest teachers, other people's parents. Now she sees ten-year-olds and cannot believe they have inside them what she had inside her at the same age. — Zadie Smith

She fluttered her fan. "And do you know what they say of women of a certain age, what they want above all?"
Desire simmered in him at her not quite smile. "Do tell."
"To be rid of you, Hastings. So that they don't have to waste what remains of their precious few years suffering your lecherous looks."
"If I stopped looking at you lecherously, you'd miss it."
"Why don't we test that hypothesis? You stop and I'll tell you after ten years or so whether I miss it."
...
He rose and bowed slightly. "You wouldn't last two weeks, Miss Fitzhugh. — Sherry Thomas

It takes us away from the world of strangers
To a new world of laughter
With time the whirled churning deep inside
And why does the smile fades, as age passes? — Dr. Chitra Navada

The man smiled at him a sly smile. As if they knew a secret between them, these two. Something of age and youth and their claims and the justice of those claims. And of their claims upon them. The world past, the world to come. Their common transciencies. Above all a knowing deep in the bone that beauty and loss are one. — Cormac McCarthy

Smile. "It's growing old that's painful. That's when reality hits. You find yourself with special memories that have nowhere to go and dreams that will never be fulfilled, and it doesn't matter how whimsical or impossible those dreams were. While they were yours, they were lovely." She sighed. "At my age, there isn't much point left in dreaming. That's the painful part. — Barbara Delinsky

Discipline
I am old and I have had
more than my share of good and bad.
I've had love and sorrow, seen sudden death
and been left alone and of love bereft.
I thought I would never love again
and I thought my life was grief and pain.
The edge between life and death was thin,
but then I discovered discipline.
I learned to smile when I felt sad,
I learned to take the good and the bad,
I learned to care a great deal more
for the world about me than before.
I began to forget the "Me" and "I"
and joined in life as it rolled by:
this may not mean sheer ecstasy
but is better by far than "I" and "Me. — Meryl Gordon

Hands grab me, steady me. I jerk back, but they are surprisingly gentle. He doesn't smile as I turn to see his face. He just stands there, letting me inspect him. He's tall with a wide forehead and dark blond hair that's cut short. His green eyes are deeply set beneath that forehead. His lips are wide and rugged like the rest of him. His hands have huge knuckles like he's a boxer or arthritic or hits walls. He looks like he did when he pulled me out of the car, but stronger, taller somehow. He must be completely healed. He looks my age and he looks good, like the guy in high school that everyone, even the teachers, fall in love with. — Carrie Jones

He said I was bein hard on myself. Said it was a sign of old age. Tryin to set things right. I guess there's some truth to that. But it aint the whole truth. I agreed with him that there wasnt a whole lot good you could say about old age and he said he knew one thing and I said what is that. And he said it dont last long. I waited for him to smile but he didn't. I said well, that's pretty cold. And he said it was no colder than what the facts called for. So that was all there was about that. — Cormac McCarthy

Nature offers us a thousand simple pleasers- Plays of light and color, fragrance in the air, the sun's warmth on skin and muscle, the audible rhythm of life's stir and push- for the price of merely paying attention. What joy! But how unwilling or unable many of us are to pay this price in an age when manufactured sources of stimulation and pleasure are everywhere at hand. For me, enjoying nature's pleasures takes conscious choice, a choice to slow down to seed time or rock time, to still the clamoring ego, to set aside plans and busyness, and to simply to be present in my body, to offer myself up.
Respond to the above quote. Pay special attention to each of your five senses as you describe your surroundings. Also, you need to incorporate at least one metaphor and smile in your descriptions. — Lorraine Anderson

Swallowing back her bitterness, Amelia glanced up at her brother and managed a rueful smile. "Thank you, but at this advanced stage of life, I have no ambitions to marry."
Leo surprised her by bending to brush a light kiss on her forehead. His voice was soft and kind. "Be that as it may, I think someday you'll meet a man worth giving up your independence for." He grinned before adding, "Despite your encroaching old age. — Lisa Kleypas

But why give a man something it's so hard to earn? In that respect women are really thick. They're the daughters of rigidity. They need a man to feel secure but they don't realize that the one thing they should be afraid of is men. They don't know how to run their lives. They have to sacrifice themselves for the sake of someone else. Whores are the worst, patron, believe me. They throw their lives away working for some pimp, smile when he beats them, feel proud when he's well dressed, with his gold teeth and rings on his fingers, and when he goes off and takes up with a woman half their age they forgive him everything because 'he's a man. — Isabel Allende

And then there she was, a girl of elegant height, perhaps eighteen or nineteen years of age - gawky and coltish, all long legs and arms, but with the promise of stunning beauty to add graceful curves to the lean lines of her body. She was dressed in a pair of my blue jeans, cut off at the tops of her muscled thighs, and my own T-shirt, tied off over her abdomen. A pentacle amulet, identical to my own, if less battered, lay over her heart, between the curves of her modest breasts. Her skin was pale, almost luminous, her hair a shade of brown-gold, like ripe wheat, her eyes a startling, storm-cloud grey in contrast. Her smile lit up her face, — Jim Butcher

Parker, I'm old," She said matter-of-factly. "I get away with these things." She continued to wave and smile wildly. "People treat me like an idiot so I'm allowed to act like one from time to time. It's one of the perks. — Abby Slovin

My mum is great for keeping hold of old classics - pieces of clothing that never age and never go out of fashion. She also says, 'Make sure you always smile - it makes everything look better!' — Amber Le Bon

You reach a certain age when reality grabs you by the scruff of the neck and shouts in your face:"Hey, look, this is what life is." And you have to open your eyes and look at it, listen to it, smell it: people who don't like you, things you don't want to do, things that hurt, things that scare you, questions without answers, feelings you don't understand, feelings you don't want but have no control over.
Reality.
When you gradually come to realise that all that stuff in books, films, television, magazines, newspapers, comics - it's all rubbish. It's got nothing to do with anything. It's all made up. It doesn't happen like that. It's not real. It means nothing. Reality is what you see when you look out of the window of a bus: dour faces, sad and temporary lives, millions of cars, metal, bricks, glass, rain, cruel laughter, ugliness, dirt, bad teeth, crippled pigeons, little kids in pushchairs who've already forgotten how to smile ... — Kevin Brooks

It is well-known that those who have charge of young infants, that it is difficult to feel sure when certain movements about their mouths are really expressive; that is when they really smile. Hence I carefully watched my own infants. One of them at the age of forty-five days, and being in a happy frame of mind, smiled ... I observed the same thing on the following day: but on the third day the child was not quite well and there was no trace of a smile, and this renders it probable that the previous smiles were real. — Charles Darwin

Ideas are like beards. Men don't have them until they grow up. Somebody said that, but I can't remember who."
"Voltaire," the younger man said. He rubbed his chin and smiled, a cheerful,
unaffected smile. "Voltaire might be off the mark, though, when it comes to me. I have hardly any beard at all, but have loved thinking about things since I was a kid."
His face was indeed smooth, with no hint of a beard. His eyebrows were narrow, but thick, his ears nicely formed, like lovely seashells. "I wonder if what Voltaire meant wasn't ideas as much as meditation," Tsukuru said. The man inclined his head a fraction. "Pain is what gives rise to meditation. It has
nothing to do with age, let alone beards. — Haruki Murakami

He let out a breath. "How old are you?" he asked, fearful of the answer.

"Twenty-five." She gave him a wry smile. "And since you yelled it at Heather, I know you're 'forty fucking years old'."

He would have laughed, but he couldn't breathe. Jesus, he'd known she was young, but hearing her actual age..."That's fifteen years."

"I can do the math, but you know what else? I'm legal. I can drink. I have decent car insurance since I hit the quarter century mark, and I own this house." she paused. "Well the bank owns most of it, but I qualified for a loan and everything since I have decent credit." Her nose wrinkled. "I'm getting off subject. If the age difference truly bothers you, then I will see you at the shop to finish your tattoo. No hard feelings."

He growled softly. Well, something was hard, and it wasn't his feelings. — Carrie Ann Ryan

Most of you have been where I am tonight. The crash site of unrequited love. You ask yourself, How did I get here? What was it about? Was it her smile? Was it the way she crossed her legs, the turn of her ankle, the poignant vulnerability of her slender wrists? What are these elusive and ephemeral things that ignite passion in the human heart? That's an age-old question. It's perfect food for thought on a bright midsummer's night. — Sybil Adelman

Age isn't triggered by wrinkles,nor by the reduction of strong footing,for the true youth exists effectively in your heart,brightens through your smile and beats slow when your heart is right, innocent like that of a child — Nwilliams S C

All the dying that summer began with the death of a child, a boy with golden hair and thick glasses, killed on the railroad tracks outside New Bremen, Minnesota, sliced into pieces by a thousand tons of steel speeding across the prairie toward South Dakota. His name was Bobby Cole. He was a sweet-looking kid and by that I mean he had eyes that seemed full of dreaming and he wore a half smile as if he was just about to understand something you'd spent an hour trying to explain. I should have known him better, been a better friend. He lived not far from my house and we were the same age. But he was two years behind me in school and might have been held back even more except for the kindness of certain teachers. He was a small kid, a simple child, no match at all for the diesel-fed drive of a Union Pacific locomotive. It — William Kent Krueger

The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade
Pants for the refuge of some rural shade,
Where all his long anxieties forgot
Amid the charms of a sequester'd spot,
Or recollected only to gild o'er
And add a smile to what was sweet before,
He may possess the joys he thinks he sees,
Lay his old age upon the lap of ease,
Improve the remnant of his wasted span.
And having lived a trifler, die a man. — William Cowper

No, time has silverted the dark sheen of her hair, and thickened her body, and lined the corners of her eyes and her lips.
He saw in them the hints of the smile he loved, and knew, to be fair, that time had been no kinder to him. Or perhaps, it had been just as kind; for she did not look the part of a young girl, and she was not: she was stronger, wiser, and more just than the fear of youth allowed; she gave him the shelter that he needed, on the rare occasions that that need drove him. She trusted him, always; she looked up to him, still; he strove, in every way, to continue to live up to her expectation. She was the one person in his life he did not wish to disappoint. — Michelle Sagara West

At age ten I switched to guitar, and I've loved the instrument ever since. And I love to practice. I just do. I just love guitar. It still brings a smile to my face! — Michael Angelo Batio

Do you ever wear leather?" the guy asks.
"What?"
"Leather. Do you like leather?"
"It doesn't exactly wipe me out."
"I like to see boys in leather."
I look at him cool. "Okay," I say, "what is it you want and how much are you willing to pay for it?"
"I've got a leather jacket upstairs...Would you put it on?"
"Just put it on?"
"I'll go and get it."
He leaves the horror hole and returns a few minutes later holding a leather flying jacket with a lambswool collar. There are tears in the jacket's sleeves, and the lambswool is yellow with age. John Wayne could've worn it in one of those crappy war films he made. "Put it on," the guy says.
I give him a spiky smile and put on the jacket. "Okay, where's the plane, and what time's take-off?"
"Drop your jeans and turn around. — Eric Bishop-Potter

Miss Featherington!' Lady D boomed. 'You haven't told me who you suspect.'
'No, Penelope,' Colin said, a rather smirky smile on his face, 'you haven't.'
Penelope's first instinct was to mumble something under her breath and hope that Lady Danbury's age had left her hard enough of hearing that she would assume that any lack of understanding was the fault of her own ears and not Penelope's lips. But even without glancing to her side, she could feel Colin's presence, sense his quirky, cocky grin egging her on, and she found herself standing a little straighter, with her chin perched just a little higher than usual.
He made her more confident, more daring. He made her more ... herself. Or at least the herself she wished she could be. — Julia Quinn

And much later, long after Bastian had returned to his world, in his maturity and
even in his old age, this joy never left him entirely. Even in the hardest moments of hislife he preserved a lightheartedness that made him smile and that comforted others. — Michael Ende

Young women from a very young age are taught that life will be easier if you can just turn on the charming smile and say very little and be complacent and docile and sweet. — Amber Heard

The instant she saw the letter she squinted her eyes and bent her lips in a tough tiny smile that advanced her age immeasurably. "Darling," she instructed me, "would you reach in the drawer there and give me my purse. A girl doesn't read this sort of thing without her lipstick. — Truman Capote

We have reached the age, those of us to whom fortune has assigned a post in life's struggle, when beaten and smashed and biffed by the lashing of the dragon's tail, we begin to appreciate that the old man was not such a fool after all. We saw our parents wrestling with the same dragon, and we thought, though we never spoke a thought aloud, 'Why doesn't he hit him on the head?' Alas, comrads, we know now. We have hit the dragon on the head and we have seen the dragon smile. — Ernest Lawrence

After a certain age, we put on a mask of confidence and certainty. In time, that mask gets stuck to our face and we can't remove it. As children, we learn that if we cry we'll receive affection, that if we show we're sad, we'll be consoled. If we can't get what we want with a smile, then we can surely do so with our tears. — Paulo Coelho

I agreed with him that there wasnt a whole lot good you could say about old age and he said he knew one thing and I said what is that. And he said it dont last long. I waited for him to smile but he didnt. — Cormac McCarthy

All around her it was like that: a fast crack on the head if you let the hunger show so she decided then and there at the age of twelve in Baltimore never to be broken in the hands of any man. Whatever it took
knife blades or screaming teeth
Never. And yes, she would tap dance, and yes, she would skate, but she would do it with a frown, pugnacious lips and scary eyes, because Never. And anybody who wanted nice from this little colored girl would have to get it with pliers and chloroform, because Never. When her mother died and she went to Philadelphia and then away to school, she was so quick to learn, but no touchee, teacher, and no, I do not smile, because Never. It smoothed out a little as she grew older. The pugnacious lips became a seductive pout
eyes more heated than scary. But beneath the easy manners was a claw always ready to rein in the dogs, because Never. — Toni Morrison

Your brother?" St. Clair points above my bed to the only picture I've hung up. Seany is grinning at the camera and pointing at one of my mother's research turtles,which is lifting its neck and threatening to take away his finger. Mom is doing a study on the lifetime reproductive habits of snapping turtles and visits her brood in the Chattahoochie River several times a month. My brother loves to go with her, while I prefer the safety of our home. Snapping turtles are mean.
"Yep.That's Sean."
"That's a little Irish for a family with tartan bedspreads."
I smile. "It's kind of a sore spot. My mom loved the name,but Granddad-my father's father-practically died when he heard it.He was rooting for Malcolm or Ewan or Dougal instead."
St. Clair laughs. "How old is he?"
"Seven.He's in the second grade."
"That's a big age difference."
"Well,he was either an accident or a last-ditch effort to save a failing marriage.I've never had the nerve to ask which. — Stephanie Perkins

How do people know for certain when they find their lifemate?"
Julian's smile was like a physical touch, a soft caress. "I have lived centuries without seeing color or feeling emotion.And then I found you. The world is now beautiful again and filled with life, with color, with so much intense emotion I can barely process it. When I look at you my body is alive. My heart is overwhelmed. You are the one."
"What happens if the woman does not feel it also?" Desari asked, curious. This was an entirely new concept to her, one she had never considered.
"There is only one true lifemate for each of us. If the male feels it, so does his mate." His white teeth flashed at her. "Perhaps she might wish to be stubborn and not admit it right away, not wanting her freedom curtailed for all time. Because there are so few of our women, they are guarded carefully from birth and given into the care of their lifemate as soon as they are of age. — Christine Feehan

At his age, it can be overwhelming and painful to harbor a thought accompanied by too much nostalgia. Not that he wanted to. Mabel, in her final years, had stopped listening to music. The songs of her teenage years brought her back to people and feelings of that time - people she could never see again and sensations that were no longer coming. It was too much for her. There are people who can manage such things. There are those of us who can no longer walk, but can close our eyes and remember a summer hike through a field, or the feeling of cool grass beneath our feet, and smile. Who still have the courage to embrace the past, and give it life and a voice in the present. But Mabel was not one of those people. Maybe she lacked that very form of courage. Or maybe her humanity was so complete, so expansive, that she would be crushed by her capacity to imagine the love that was gone. — Derek B. Miller

From a very young age, music was very much in my house. I would sit with my mom, with the old LPs, listening to The Beatles and Carly Simon and Lionel Richie. The old LPs used to have the lyrics. From there, I would put on dance and music displays for my family, just to entertain them and make people laugh and smile. — Lara Pulver

His smile is beautiful. It's the kind of smile that can take away all nervousness and tension in a room, no matter how big. I have no choice but to smile back. — S. Elle Cameron

Pale eyes, and a pointy nose. A gingham bonnet covered her hair. "Hello," she said to Cora. Both the man and the woman crouched low, their faces level with hers. Cora could not cough or pretend to be slow: one of the agents was right there, watching. The man asked her name, and she told him. He asked her age, and she said she didn't know, but that she'd just lost her first tooth. Both the man and the woman laughed as if Cora had said something terribly funny, as if she were one of the children singing the Jesus song, trying hard to be cute. She gave them a hard look, but they continued to smile. The man looked at the woman. The — Laura Moriarty

Martin Sloan, age thirty-six, vice-president in charge of media. Successful in most things but not in the one effort that all men try at some time in their lives - trying to go home again. And also like all men perhaps there'll be an occasion, maybe a summer night sometime, when he'll look up from what he's doing and listen to the distant music of a calliope, and hear the voices and the laughter of the people and the places of his past. And perhaps across his mind there'll flit a little errant wish, that a man might not have to become old, never outgrow the parks and the merry-go-rounds of his youth. And he'll smile then too because he'll know it is just an errant wish, some wisp of memory not too important really, some laughing ghosts that cross a man's mind, that are a part of the Twilight Zone. — Rod Serling

Monsieur Foinet got up and made as if to go, but he changed his mind, and, stopping, put his hand on Philip's shoulder.
"But if you were going to ask me my advice, I should say: take your courage in both hands and try your luck at something else. It sounds very hard, but let me tell you this: I would give all I have in the world if someone had given me that advice when I was your age and I had taken it."
Philip looked up at him with surprise. The master forced his lips into a smile, but his eyes remained grave and sad.
"It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it's too late. It does not improve the temper."
He gave a little laugh as he said the last words and quickly walked out of the room. — W. Somerset Maugham

He took another swallow of beer. "Are things as bad as they seem? Or have I just gotten old like my da, and now everything tastes a little bitter compared to when I was a boy?" Kote wiped at the bar for a long moment, as if reluctant to speak. "I think things are usually bad one way or another," he said. "It might be that only us older folk can see it." Graham began to nod, then frowned. "Except you're not old, are you? I forget that most times." He looked the red-haired man up and down. "I mean, you move around old, and you talk old, but you're not, are you? I'll bet you're half my age." He squinted at the innkeeper. "How old are you, anyway?" The innkeeper gave a tired smile. "Old enough to feel old. — Patrick Rothfuss

I will love you always. When this red hair is white, I will still love you. When the smooth softness of youth is replaced by the delicate softness of age, I will still want to touch your skin. When your face is full of the lines of every smile you have ever smiled, of every surprise I have seen flash through your eyes, when every tear you have ever cried has left its mark upon your face,I will treasure you all the more, because I was there to see it all. I will share your life with you, Meredith, and I will love you until the last breath leaves your body or mine. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Dan was shorter than me, especially as I was wearing sky blue silk stilettos. He appeared to be my age or a few years older,stocky, and thick necked with swirling tattoos just visible beneath the blue collar of his uniform.Dan gave me a plain once over as he walked me to an elevator and placed his palm against a glass screen. The screen retracted to reveal keypad. Dan then punched in a series of numbers and he said- "You're very big."I gave him a cursory smile, "Yes. I ate all my vegetables as a child. — Penny Reid

Fanny Price was at this time just ten years old, and though there might not be much in her first appearance to captivate, there was, at least, nothing to disgust her relations. She was small of her age, with no glow of complexion, nor any other striking beauty; exceedingly timid and shy, and shrinking from notice; but her air, though awkward, was not vulgar, her voice was sweet, and when she spoke her countenance was pretty. Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram received her very kindly; and Sir Thomas, seeing how much she needed encouragement, tried to be all that was conciliating: but he had to work against a most untoward gravity of deportment; and Lady Bertram, without taking half so much trouble, or speaking one word where he spoke ten, by the mere aid of a good-humoured smile, became immediately the less awful character of the two. — Jane Austen

No more tubs for me." I jumped off the bed and pulled on a pair of Pack sweats. "They make me lose all sense."
Curran sprawled on the bed with a big self-satisfied smile. "Want to know a secret?"
"Sure."
"It's not the bathtub, baby."
Well, aren't we smug. I picked up the corner of the lowest mattress and made a show of looking under it.
"What are you looking for?"
"A pea Your Majesty."
"What?"
"You heard me."
I jumped back as he lunged and his fingers missed me by an inch.
"Getting slow in your old age."
"I thought you liked it slow."
A flashback to last night mugged me and my mind executed a full stop.
He laughed. "Ran out of snappy comebacks?"
"Hush. I'm trying to think of one. — Ilona Andrews

I who know many present things by my art," replied the Hermit with a smile, "have yet little knowledge of things future. Therefore I do not know whether any man or woman or beast in the whole world will be alive when the sun sets tonight. But be of good hope. The damsel is likely to live as long as any her age. — C.S. Lewis

Sweet is the infant's waking smile, And sweet the old man's rest
But middle age by no fond wile, No soothing calm is blest. — John Keble

She was of that certain age when the bloom of youth must give way to strength of character, but her face was handsome in its intelligent eyes and commanding smile, and her hair retained a youthful spring as it threatened to escape from its carefully pinned rolls. — Helen Simonson

Myron walked up the little brick walk and knocked on the door. A very attractive black woman answered, a pleasant smile at the ready. Her hair was tied back in a severe bun, emphasizing the high cheekbones. Age lines around the eyes and mouth, but nothing drastic. She was well dressed, kind of conservative. Anne Klein II. Her jewelry was noticeable but not too flashy. The overall impression: classy. Her smile seemed to fade when she saw him. "Can I help you?" "Mrs. Yeller?" She nodded slowly, as though not sure. "My name is Myron Bolitar. I'd like to ask you a few questions." The smile fled completely. "What about?" Her diction was different now. Less suburban civil. More street suspicious. — Harlan Coben

He gave me a timid smile. "The trouble is," he said, "that nobody paints our times. Nobody paints the age we live in." I murmured something about Benton, and John Steuart Curry. "No," he said, "we'll never find out what the age is like, by peering in a landscape." I — Robert Nathan

Little Bit.
The loathsome nickname proved just how hopeless her situation had been, how pathetic, but neither the name nor the glaring age difference had deterred her heart, because with one playful wink and one slow smile, young Arabella had been a goner.
Sadly, twenty-two-year-old Ella wasn't that much better. — Rachel Harris

I have a fetish," Kami claimed. "For scars," she added, and Jared's mouth quirked. His smile still looked incredulous, but in a different way. "Obviously my first choice would be Mr. Stearn, who was in World War II and is by all reports absolutely covered in scars. Hot, am I right? But alas, our love can never be."
"That's tragic," said Jared.
"He's like a hundred years old, I'd kill him with my enthusiasm," said Kami. "I couldn't live with myself. He's a hero who fought for our country. You'll have to do."
"I'm a little reassured," Jared told her. He laughed, a slow, wonderful sound, warm as the line of his body against hers. "But I'm mostly appalled. I had no idea of the massive age range my competition apparently fits into. Anyone from the age of thirteen to a hundred? — Sarah Rees Brennan

I'll remember you, your smile and your lie. — Randolph Randy Camp

I'm at that age where I watch such things with two minds, one that cackles at these capers and another that never gets much beyond a rather jaded and self-conscious smile, like the Mona Lisa. — Alan Bradley

I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror as we glided p. I looked as eroded as the groaning lift. What had happened to the fresh-faced belle from Boston, Mass.? The woman who stared back at me was at the dreaded age between forty-five and fifty, that no-man's land of sag, oncoming wrinkle, and stealthy approach of menopause.
"I hate this elevator, too," I said grimly.
Zoe grinned and pinched my cheek.
"Mom, even Gwyneth Paltrow would look like hell in that mirror."
I had to smile. That was such a Zoe-like remark. — Tatiana De Rosnay

I hadn't seen him in quite a while and he'd grown at least four inches in the months between our visits. With his perfect teeth and constant huge smile I found myself looking at him in a whole new way. Gone was the skinny kid whose birthday was the day before my own and loved saying we were the same age for that twenty four hour period before I officially turned a year older than him. He wasn't that twelve year old who'd yanked on my hair and put baby oil in the sunblock so I got a nasty burn when we visited a theme park together. Suddenly I saw Jim wasn't a little kid anymore. He was a guy - a hot guy at that. A hot guy who spent the entire day glued to my side. — Melissa Simmons

Uriah looked better than he did an hour ago
he washed the blood from his mouth, and some of the color returned to his face. I'm struck, suddenly, by how handsome he is
all his features are proportionate, his eyes dark and lively, his skin bronze-brown. And he has probably always been handsome. Only boys who have been handsome from a young age have that arrogance in their smile. Not like Tobias, who is almost shy when he smiles like he is surprised you bothered to look at him from the first place. — Veronica Roth

Coffee?" Isabelle finger-combed her hair and tied a cotton scarf around her head. "No, merci, it is too precious." The old woman gave her a smile. "No one suspects a woman my age of anything. It makes me good at trading. Here." She offered Isabelle a cracked porcelain mug full of steaming black coffee. Real coffee. Isabelle wrapped her hands around the mug and breathed deeply of the familiar, never-again-to-be-taken-for-granted aroma. Madame — Kristin Hannah