All my friends' mothers were appalling women....

The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion.

For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating, rejuvenating, exciting and satisfying.

There is only one real sin and that is to persuade oneself that the second best is anything but second best.

The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.

I think women should start to embrace their age. What's the alternative to getting older? You die. I can't change the day I was born. But I can take care of my skin, my body, my mind, and try to live my life and be happy.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.