“If at eighty you're not a cripple or an invalid, if you have your health, if you still enjoy a good walk, a good meal…, if you can sleep without first taking a pill, if birds and flowers, mountains and sea still inspire you, you are a most fortunate individual and you should get down on your knees morning and night and thank the good Lord for his savin' and keepin' power…if you can be turned on by a fetching bottom or a lovely pair of teats, if you can fall in love again and

Letizia Mowinckel was an American diplomat’s wife who served as her friend Jacqueline Kennedy’s fashion scout in Paris and who procured the pink Chanel suit that came to symbolize the first lady’s resolve in the wake of her husband’s assassination  Letizia Mowinckel died on Feb. 14 in Rome. She was 105.  Though she never played style adviser for anyone else but Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Mowinckel maintained her own streamlined elegance well into her 100s, even after she moved into a

​ This is one of my very favorite quotes: “Even after the worst storm the birds sing and so should we.  God wants us to be happy.”                      Rose Kennedy was quoted as saying this.  She died at 104. A lovely poem by E.B. White:           Youth and Age This is what youth must figure out: Girls, love, and living The having, the not having, The spending and giving, And the melancholy time of not knowing., This is what age must learn about: The ABC of dying. The going,

Virginia Woolfe: “The compensation of growing old [is] that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained — at last! — the power which adds the supreme flavour to existence, — the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it around, slowly, in the light.”

She thinks of herself taller, younger, thinner, and still a beginner, a doer, desiring to play parts that are risque, even a wee bit...

Meditation teacher,  Light Watkins,  on acting your age: "The advice shouldn't be to act your age. It should be to act your spirit. Your age may try to prohibit you from dancing like that, or starting over, or trying something new. But your spirit would never do such a thing. If something feels aligned, your spirit wants you to go for it, whether you're 15 or 85. Acting your age makes you fit in more, while acting your spirit will indeed cause you to stand out—in a bad way to

Dervla Murphy, Irish travel writer who died …….April 2022, she spoke at her home to an interviewer from The Financial Times, who was "instructed by her publisher to bring along some 'really good cheddar'. And beer." ​ During the conversation Murphy "claim[ed] to have no time to dwell on the past because she finds so much in current events to worry about, following the news on the BBC World Service radio and Al Jazeera on her computer because she has no desire for — indeed, h

Maybe that's what it takes to live to ninety-nine.  In reading her recent obituary in The NY Times, it was that quote that I loved:  "In  2010, she gave The Chicago Tribune a terse assessment of her work. 'I am tenacious,' she said. 'And I love to eat.”  Diana Kennedy, author of Mexican cookbooks who died at 99." She was considered the Julia Child of authentic Mexican cuisine, although she would have disdained the comparison, as she did much of the foodie scene.  Yet another

“The advice of the old is like the winter sun:  it sheds light but does not warm us.”                                                      Julian Barnes, Nothing to Be Frightened Of                          ​If you are wondering why your advice gets a chilly reception.

"At 30, I exercised to look good. In my 50s, I exercised to stay fit. In my 70s, to stay ambulatory. In my 80s, to avoid assisted living. Now, in my 90s, I’m just doing it out of pure defiance."                                                                                        Dick VanDyke at ninety-nine

Keep active in body and mind.  Be positive. Don’t stop working. Go to church (or at least kneel at  something–hug a crystal if you want).  Get a dog. Don’t whinge. Wear gloves if you like.

“The world is made to be pounced on and enjoyed...There is absolutely no reason at all to hold back.”                French novelist, Annie Erneaux, 82, winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature

"I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to live the width of it as well." ​                                                                  Poet and naturalist Diane Ackerman

“The trouble with this job is that you can watch yourself & your friends growing older in full colour, close up.” ​                                        Alan Rickman, Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman

"When she was 90, she declined the gift of a beautiful shawl, saying it would 'Make her look too old.'  When she was 95, six weeks before she died, her photograph appeared in the newspaper; her comment was 'A bad reproduction.  It makes me look a hundred.'"  qtd. in  Age and Its Discontents.  Freud and Other Fictions

Aim to die broke. Give to your beneficiaries before you die; it’s more fun and useful. Spend it all. Your last check should go to the funeral home and it should bounce.                                                         June Jordan, Some of Us Did Not Die

​She was known to be a gourmet. For her 117th birthday, she ate foie gras, roasted capon, cheese and a dessert similar to a baked alaska. She said in several interviews that she enjoyed a daily diet of wine and chocolate. ​  “Sister Andre, World’s Oldest Known Person, Dies at 118 in France” NYT, Jan 18, 2023

In the end, loving yourself is about enjoying your life, trusting your own feelings, taking chances, losing and finding happiness, cherishing the memories, and learning from the past. Sometimes you have to stop worrying, wondering, and doubting. Have faith that things will work out, maybe not exactly how you planned, but just how it’s meant to be…just keep doing your best, and don't force what's not yet supposed to fit into your life. It will happen when it’s time. Your situa

​We’re often led to believe that getting older is in itself somehow a betrayal of our idealistic younger self, but sometimes I think it might be the other way around. Maybe the younger self finds it difficult to inhabit its true potential because it has no idea what that potential is. It is a kind of unformed thing running scared most of the time, frantically trying to build its sense of self — This is me! Here I am! — in any way that it can. But then time and life come along

"… in folklore, the hag, while appearing to be the epitome of people’s fears about aging, is actually a positive archetype. 'The hag is a woman, from menopause onwards, who is not defined by their relationship to anyone else.   They are not someone’s mother or daughter or wife; they have their own power, their own way of being in the world. There is a freedom to not belonging to anyone that allows them to come to fruition in the world.'”                 Anita Chaudhuri, “What