37 Quotes About Midlife

This landscape consists of Pablo Casals' cello and four turkey vultures riding the ribbon of warm air rising from the highway. Concrete forms for abstractions my mind can only grope at: the wings and blood, the blue and black and float and soar, the aching beauty.

Relationships, the ones that last anyway, are really an extended game of Let's Make A Deal.

Making friends in your forties is hard. Keeping friends in your forties is hard. Basically, friendship in your forties is just hard.

You might be chatting sociably with friends, and suddenly you notice that they're all flapping their hands at at their faces. You're all sitting there like a bunch of chickens - all flapping away. You hardly notice that you're doing it because it's such a habit. All clutching at your clothes to try and flap some cool air in, And all of you are bright red in the face." Sally, 58

Sometimes the menopause is a nuisance, but on the whole I quite like it. I feel like I'm being 'rounded off.' I just like the feeling of completing a whole area of my life. And then - well, who knows what I might do next? - Benni, 50

The very best way that you can help yourself is to develop and sustain a positive attitude. The way you think and feel about everything will make all the difference to your experience.

Decide to smile and keep upbeat. A scowling, bad-tempered face is far less attractive than a smiling, accepting one.

When my daughter was 10 she pointed at my face and said accusingly, 'Er - yuk! Witches have those.' I rushed to the mirror. There, sprouting determinedly from a mole on my chin, was a single sprout of hair. I was 45. Caroline, 53

I'm not knocking choices, just saying that having so many of them with so little support has led to a great deal of shame. Being a full and equal partner both at work and at home, having a rich social life, contributing to society, staying in shape - doing all that is exponentially harder than doing any one thing. We asked for more, and did we ever get it. I firmly believe it's fairer. Easier? No.