Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The ageing process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.
John MortimerRead
The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over, and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Aging can be a sudden and jarring experience, often leaving one feeling unprepared for its challenges.
In this quote, John Mortimer reflects on the abrupt and often humorous nature of aging. He suggests that the process of growing old is not a slow, manageable transition, but rather a forceful event that can catch people off guard, provoking feelings of absurdity and the need for a light-hearted perspective. Mortimer's words encourage acceptance of the ridiculousness that can accompany aging and imply that one should embrace this stage of life with an open mind rather than resistance.
Themes
AgingAcceptanceHumorLifeRidiculousness
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of embracing life at all ages.
More from John Mortimer
All quotes βWriting about the indignities of old age: the daunting stairway to the restaurant restroom, the benefits of a wheelchair in airports and its disadvantages at cocktail parties, giving the user what he described as a child's-eye view of the party and a crotch-level view of the guests. Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.
John MortimerRead
I'd been told of all the things you're meant to feel when your father dies. Sudden freedom, growing up, the end of dependence, the step into the sunlight when no one is taller than you and you're in no one's shadow. I know what I felt. Lonely.
John MortimerRead
There are lots of similarities between being a writer and a lawyer: to tell a story to a jury, hold their attention, make them laugh, make them like you. But what makes being a barrister less satisfying than being a writer is, finally, that it's about what someone else wants you to say.
John MortimerRead
I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth foregoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward.
John MortimerRead
Similar quotes
You can't find the right roads when the streets are paved.
Bob MarleyRead
Man is a wonder to himself; he can neither govern nor know himself.
Benjamin WhichcoteRead
We must remember that the people of all the States are entitled to all the privileges and immunities of the citizen of the several States. We should bear this in mind, and act in such a way as to say nothing insulting or irritating. I would inculcate this idea, so that we may not, like Pharisees, set ourselves up to be better than other people.
Abraham LincolnRead
Anything's possible in Human Nature," Chacko said in his Reading Aloud voice. Talking to the darkness now, suddenly insensitive to his little fountain-haired niece. "Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite joy." Of the four things that were Possible in Human Nature, Rahel thought that Infinnate Joy sounded the saddest. Perhaps because of the way Chacko said it. Infinnate Joy. With a church sound to it. Like a sad fish with fins all over.
Arundhati RoyRead
If we esteem them too highly, good works can become the greatest idolatry.
Martin LutherRead
The real secrets of Masonry are never told, not even from mouth to ear. For the real secret of Masonry is spoken to your heart and from it to the heart of your brother. Never the language made for tongue may speak it, it is uttered only in the eye in those manifestations of that love which a man has for his friend, which passeth all other loves.
William Howard TaftRead