Bel Kaufman Quotes

If you survive long enough, you're revered - rather like an old building.

You know, you don't get to survive that long without making some compromises.

I'm maybe not so much an exception, maybe because I've lived so long that more is coming, more is there.

When you've lived as long as I have, nothing much surprises you.

I'm the last guy left. That's what happens when you live to 84.

I have a strong preference for being alive.

I've played Big Bird for over half my life, and now I'm in my 80s. It does feel older than 79. Someone said it's just a number, and I said, 'No, I genuinely feel older.'

You have to struggle to stay alive and be of use as long as you can.

Old age is not a disease - it is strength and survivorship, triumph over all kinds of vicissitudes and disappointments, trials and illnesses.

I shall not die young, for I am already near seventy: I may die old.

I never expected to live this long.

I never thought I would live this long.

You reach a certain age, and you're so proud that you're walking and breathing and loving and working and all of that at 90.

The old school in me knows how to get over and get other guys over. I'm going to continue to do it.

I have lived long enough to be battered by the realities of life, and not too long to be downed by them.

I can't say that I deserve longlife; I don't. I've just been around long enough. They say, "My God, she's still here."

Old places and old persons in their turn, when spirit dwells in them, have an intrinsic vitality of which youth is incapable, precisely, the balance and wisdom that come from long perspectives and broad foundations

Old cranks have practiced all their lives, just as old saints have likewise practiced all their lives. They just practiced different life principles.

I been through living for years. I just ain't dead yet.

I'm a legend because I've survived over a long period of time and still seem to be master of my fate - I'm still paddling the goddamned boat myself.

You don't realize what fine fighting material there is in age. ... You show me any one who's lived to over seventy and you show me a fighter - some one who's got the will to live.

As long as there shall be stones, the seeds of fire will not die.

If life is to be sustained, hope must remain.

As long as we don't die, this is gonna be one hell of a story.

Don’t call it a comeback, I’ve been here for years.