Many count on their disadvantages to cover for them.
The language of pornography is abusive, that of romance adoring. Both are addressed to a fetish.
Language is the friendliest of the things from which we cannot escape.
The best propaganda omits rather than invents
The wisdom of age: don't stop walking.
The sage belongs to the same obsolete repertory as the virtuous maiden and the enlightened monarch.
Staid middle age loves the hurricane passions of opera.
Consensus is usually made possible by vague language and shallow commitments.
Antagonistic cooperation is the principle of all markets and many marriages.
Age: I go slower as time goes faster.
Middle-aged adolescents are a libel on the real thing.
People who behave at forty as they did at twenty must sometimes wonder why their charm is not working.
In middle age, going naked contributes little to public enjoyment.
Some eras worship infancy; some, the aged. None as yet has adored middle age.
Thank God for the passing of the discomforts and vile cuisine of the age of chivalry!
After ages of bombast, the rhetoric of virtue has become ironic and shy.
Old age learns about less after a lifetime of more.
Living too long exacts a painful price.
As a youth, I sought out decadence; as an elder, I try to avoid decay.
Old men feel a slightly reluctant affection for one another.
Old age likes indecency. It's a sign of life.
An old man drinks tea and reads the newspaper--forgetting age for a moment.
The squabbles of philandering Zeus and shrewish Hera are the Greeks' comment on married life.
Some marriages depend on domestic arguments the way the courts depend on litigation.
Age must give way to youth, no doubt. But not yet, not yet.
The young break rules for fun. The old for profit.
In youth, love and art. In age, investments and antiques.
An illicit love affair seems sweetly old-fashioned in the age of one night stands and orgies.
Rage against the world, if you like, but quietly, or the Guardians will awake.
In the present age, a man with harmonious ideas is regarded as out of touch.
Reversing a proposition rearranges its terms, but still keeps out new terms.
Language cannot say everything, fortunately.
The nature of language may determine what most people say, but I always speak my own meaning.
Unlike the ambiguity of life, the ambiguity of language does reach a limit.
English has borrowed from everywhere and now goes everywhere.
Was there a little time between the invention of language and the coming of true and false?
Sleepy-head is no longer aroused by tragic imaginings.
Comedy defends the commonplace; tragedy explodes it.
When death comes too near, comedy and tragedy fall silent.
Courage overrides self-doubt, but does not end it.
Bravery despite defeat is praiseworthy. Victory despite cowardice is beyond praise.
With age, I have become both more pious and more shameless.
After sixty, the self-questioning of middle age is obsolete.
Growth provides novel experiences for youth; decay the same, alas, for age.
The noisy vacancy of youth, the quiet vacancy of age.
Youth demands more than ordinary life. Age clings to it.
With age, the mind grows slower and more wily.
With age, comfort becomes more seductive than beauty.
My mentors grow old and foolish. I am afraid.
As an elder I mistrust the wisdom of age.
The dignified catastrophes of tragedy bear little resemblance to the slow ruin inflicted by life.
Jargon: any technical language we do not understand.
My taking a seat on the Council of the Fathers caused a desperate fluttering among my ghosts.
The time I kill is killing me.
Human society sustains itself by transforming nature into garbage.
Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.
The children of childish parents age quickly.