We who are old know that age is more than a disability. It is an intense and varied experience almost beyond our capacity at times but something to be carried high.

My kitchen linoleum is so black and shiny that I waltz while I wait for the kettle to boil. This pleasure is for the old who live alone.

Life does not acommodate you, it shatters you. It is meant to, and it couldn't do it better. Every seed destroys its container or else there would be no fruition.

No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.

Making those we love happy sounds innocent as a dove, but it can be as destructive as a lion.

Age puzzles me. I thought it was a quiet time. My seventies were interesting and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate. I grow more intense as I age.

life is a tragic mystery. We are pierced and driven by laws we only half understand, we find that the lesson we learn again and again is that of accepting heroic helplessness.

Difficulties are what makes it honorable and interesting to be alive.

I wonder if living alone makes one more alive. No precious energy goes in disagreement or compromise. No need to augment others, there is just yourself, just truth - a morsel - and you.

Is life a pregnancy? That would make death a birth.

Anger must be the energy that has not yet found its fight channel.

People were animals, and animals were nothing but teeth. You bit first, and you bit often, That was the only way to survive.

That little word 'we' I mistrust and here's why: No man of another can say, 'He is I.' Behind all agreement lies something amiss All seeming accord cloaks a lurking abyss.

There is scarcely an instance of a man who has made a fortune by speculation and kept it

You know, the bowling alley doesn‘t seem to be improving my game. That‘s the one thing I have noticed.

I just loved being divorced from my own wretchedness.

I consider myself a character actress, and that's working out. I'm getting chances to do things. I like the process - I don't want to pretend I'm something other than what I am.

People will tell you that I overcame obstacles? Maybe. But the truth is I was incredibly blessed in my life. More was given than was ever taken away.

Bravery escapes more dangers than cowardice.

Not that I'd really been planning on keeping the attack secret; it had just been an option I'd wanted to keep open if I could.

By contrast, China is a repressive regime that denies its citizens the essential freedoms of religion, political dissent and representative self-government.