Gail Sheehy Quotes

All diseases run into one, old age.

After 60, it's just patch, patch, patch.

Your age is your No. 1 risk factor for almost every disease, but it's not a disease itself.

The biggest myth about aging is that we can't do anything about it. That it's a road to being decrepit, frail, and sick.

My parents were fine at 85. So 85's nothing. 100 is another thing. I have a friend whose mother is about to turn 101, and it's not great.

When you get older, your health becomes important to you, things start breaking down, you've always got a different ache or pain.

Just because you live longer doesn't necessarily give you a greater edge in quality.

Longevity is a big deal.

Nobody expects to trust his body overmuch after the age of fifty.

In the sixties, you're still thinking you could do something about this slow disintegration of the body.

Health care does not worry me a great deal. I've been impressed by some wonderful old people.

Age is the single largest risk factor for an enormous number of diseases. So if you can essentially postpone aging, then you can have beneficial effects on a whole wide range of disease.

People use so much more health care when they live longer.

Things are old. Parts are old. I'm talking about 'us' parts. AARP-parts. Some of us were born with stronger parts than others.

Each day it's like: 'How many more days am I going to feel young and vibrant? I feel young and vibrant now, but I also feel the aches and pains a little bit.

I think I've become more aware of aging in the last couple of years because of friends dying of cancer or friends' parents dying and myself - I'm still healthy, but I'm aging, and that's something that I think about more, even though I shouldn't be too concerned.

I'd be happy to live till 80 as long as I was comfortable and in good health. Mind you, ask me again on the eve of my 80th birthday. Even so, I hope we don't all start living to be 120. I'm not sure I'd cope with another 60 years.

When you hit your 40s, you begin to take notice of the effects of aging because people that you know begin to die of heart attacks and tumors, so we take notice of the effects of aging.

As I go to sleep I remember what my father said-that one can never be sure if one will awake. The way my health is now, this is becoming more and more real.

I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial.

You never think about your own mortality. At least not until your back gives way when you're 40.

One of the jokes among our family was that whenever Dad went to the movies, he insisted on getting his senior citizen's discount. It was laughable to view him as a traditional senior citizen; he was one of the most robust people I ever knew. Until, very suddenly, he wasn't.

So aging is really just the way we deteriorate over time. Lifespan on the other hand is how long we live. We typically refer to that as longevity.

I understand that I'm not 20 anymore, but I feel great, like in my 20s. I don't know what it is, but in our generation, people last longer.

With decrepitude, longevity has overshot the mark.