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Thursday, October 18, 2012

Martin Amis on Aging

Your youth evaporates in your early 40s when you look in the mirror. And then it becomes a full-time job pretending you’re not going to die, and then you accept that you’ll die. Then in your 50s everything is very thin. And then suddenly you’ve got this huge new territory inside you, which is the past, which wasn’t there before. A new source of strength. Then that may not be so gratifying to you as the 60s begin, but then I find that in your 60s, everything begins to look sort of slightly magical again. And it’s imbued with a kind of leave-taking resonance, that it’s not going to be around very long, this world, so it begins to look poignant and fascinating.

4 comments:

  1. For me youth was not an age but a frame of mind taken from me at a young age. I revert to it now as an adult. Its a rebuttal to time. I've never had enough infinite.

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  2. A quick unrelated question! Who are the people in the photo at the top of the blog? Is one of them Pablo Picasso?
    Thanks!

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  3. René Char and yes, Pablo Picasso.

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  4. someone wrote that 40 was the old age of youth, and 50 the youth of old age (victor hugo)


    and then i heard someone say that 50 is the new 40, and 53 is the new 48

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