If I’d known I was gonna live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself. Eubie Blake, on reaching 100, attributions and variations
When I was young, the old regarded me as an outrageous young fellow, and now that I’m old the young regard me as an outrageous old fellow. Fred Hoyle, cited Scientific America March 1995
What if I don’t want to go on, boy? What if I don’t want to sit shittering in my fluffy slippers, sucking on angina tablets and peering through my cataracts watching some stinking episode of Home & Away? Rab C Nesbitt, Test, BBC 1994
Why should he with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won
To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son. John Dryden 1631-1700, Absolom and Achitophel
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I’m sixty-four? John Lennon & Paul McCartney, song 1967
The older generation are leading this country to galloping ruin! John Lennon
83,934. Hope I die before I get old. The Who, My Generation
My lusts they do me leave,
My fancies all be fled,
And tract of time begins to weave
Grey hairs upon my head.
For age with stealing steps
Hath clawd me with his clutch,
And lusty life away she leaps,
As there had neen none such. Thomas Lord Vaux, 1510-56, The Aged Lover Renouncest Love, 1557
The good thing about getting older is that as you become less attractive so you have less desire to go out and conquer everyone you see. Julian Clary
In those days people confused old age with valour; they called here a great old warrior. This had the effect of inspiring her to grasp even more distressingly by way of proving them right and herself indomitable. Hugh Leonard, Home Before Night, 1979
I have liv’d long enough for others, like the Dog in the Wheel, and it is now the Season to begin for myself: I cannot change that Thing call’d Time, but I can alter its Posture and, as Boys do turn a looking-glass against the Sunne, so I will dazzle you all. Peter Ackroyd, Hawksmoor
I was at peace with a world which afforded so much bounty, and began to enjoy living at the very end of time. Peter Ackroyd, The House of Doctor Dee
The labouring poor, in spite of double pay,
Are saucy, mutinous, and beggarly;
So lavish of their money and their time,
That want of forecast is the nation’s crime.
Good drunken company is their delight;
And what they get by day they spend by night.
Dull thinking seldom does their heads engage,
But drink their youth away, and hurry on old age. Daniel Defoe, The True-Born Englishman
Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires; I have lost friends, some by death ... others through sheer inability to cross the street. Virginia Woolf, The Waves, 1931
As Ovid has sweetly in parable told,
We harden like trees, and like rivers grow cold. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Six Town Eclogues
Britain Neglects Her Old People: This System Must Go. Pathé News, 1947
This is the story of Britain’s old people: people too old to speak for themselves. With no-one to speak for them. If this were a scene from Charles Dickens we would shudder at it. Yet this is in Britain in 1947. ibid.
To me old age is always fifteen years older than I am. Bernard Baruch, 1870-1965, Newsweek 29th August 1955
Being an old maid is like death by drowning, a really delightful sensation after you cease to struggle. Edna Ferber
In these communities a group of scientists have dedicated their lives to try and uncover their secrets. Horizon has travelled the globe to meet the people who can show us all how to improve our chances of living longer, healthier lives. Horizon: How to Live to be 101, BBC 2008
The remote island of Okinawa is home to one of the longest-lived communities in the world ... The spotlight has fallen on one particular hormone: known as DHEA. But as Okinawans get older their levels of DHEA appear to decline at a much slower rate. ibid.
Okinawans have among the lowest rates of breast and prostate cancer in the world. Studies suggest that this could be to do with the levels of soya they consume over their lifetime. ibid.
It’s this ability to trick their bodies into starvation that may be keeping Okinawans physiologically so young. ibid.
Six and a half thousand miles away in the mountains of Sardinia there’s another place competing for the title of the world’s longest living community: Ovodda ... It’s the only region in the world where as many men as women live to be one hundred years of age. ibid.
The role G6PD may play in living longer remains a mystery. ibid.
In order to survive their conditions [Glasgow] the people living in the tenements at the time developed heightened immune defence to combat infections. ibid.
So how can you make it to 101 without trying? The answer is not only to look at your own life, but also to understand how your parents and grandparents lived theirs. ibid.
For centuries scientists have been attempting to come up with an elixir of youth. Horizon: Don’t Grow Old, BBC 2010
Results are confirming that oxidated stress doesn’t have a major impact on ageing ... Antioxidants do not hold the key to ageing. ibid.
The theory says that every time cells divide the tips of our chromosomes – called telomeres – become shorter. Eventually they become so short they stop our cells dividing. ibid.
There is one inevitability in life: as time passes we age ... Does it have to happen? Immortal? A Horizon Guide to Ageing, BBC 2012
How much has science discovered about why we age? And are we any closer to achieving the dream of immortality? ibid.
The early pioneers in age research were driven by a sense of this pressing social need. ibid.
The results revealed just how complex a process ageing was. ibid.
While antioxidants have become big business, other studies have found the theory less convincing. ibid.
One scientist discovered how calorie restriction worked ... The secret is in our genes. ibid.
Those key genes apparently overpower the effects of diet and lifestyle. ibid.
We can’t yet replace our minds. ibid.
The first thing to do is adopt the right attitude of mind to ageing. ibid.
Skin ... how it ages and what we can do about it. Horizon: The Truth About Looking Young, BBC 2012
Our skin defines us. ibid.
Collagen: this is what gives young skin its youthful plumpness. ibid.
You might think behind the safety of the windscreen the drivers are protected from the sun – but you’d be wrong. ibid.
A pill could be on the market within five years. ibid.
Oxygen: we breathe it in every day but it's highly toxic ... This small amount of oxygen – commonly known as free radicals – attacks our DNA. Over time the damage starts to accumulate and the classic signs of ageing show up in our skin. ibid.
On average, people with high blood sugar looked up to two years older. ibid.
I wanted to see if Science can offer a different way to stop the rot, slow the clock. Michael Mosley, Horizon: Eat, Fast and Live Longer, BBC 2012
It’s all a question of what you eat, or rather what you don’t eat. It’s about fasting. But fasting made easier. ibid.