Quotes about "Retirement & Later Life"

All my life I have lived and behaved very much like the sandpiper - just running down the edges of different countries and continents, 'looking for something'. ”

It is better not to sit on the grass after thirty when sprawling at all is difficult, let alone sprawling gracefully. ”

To others we are not ourselves but performers in their lives cast for a part we do not even know we are playing. ”

The only thing that matters is to have charm and expression. Then comes that horrible gnawing doubt of our own magnetism. Is it possible that, though we are not lovely, we are not irresistible either? That we will have to go through life belonging neither to the triumphantly beautiful nor to the triumphantly ugly? ”

Everybody complains about getting older, but I find it such a rich time of life. There are negative things about it, I suppose, but more than that, I'm finding it to be a very positive experience in which growth suggests itself in a much more alluring way than it did when I was young - isn't that funny? ”

I never meant to write about the experience of losing a good friend to breast cancer when I was going through it. But after it was over, I realized that although something deeply sad had happened, something truly beautiful also had. ”

Every book is its own experience, the writing of it. ”

I look to find the heart and soul of people, of my characters. I look for the truth of them and the truths about life that are presented through them. ”

Traditions insist upon themselves. Look around, and you will see them trying to exist everywhere, in everyone's life. ”

Ideas come from life: what happens in mine, what I see happening in others', mixed with a great deal of imagination. I might see a person in a grocery store and build a whole character and life out of what's in her basket. ”