“I am a very old man. How old I do not know. It is possible I am a hundred, maybe more. I cannot tell because I have never aged as other men do.”

“He tells me that the best man I will ever find will be attracted to other women. I hear this as another fact I am too old not to know. More proof of how unprepared I am to love anyone.”

“How am I going to tell the kids? How do I tell the man that I love, the man that I swore I’d grow old with that we won’t have that happy ending that he and I have worked so hard for? How do I say goodbye to all of you? How do I let go?”

“I will never be an old man. To me old age is always 15 years older than I am.”

“I am forty years old now, and you know forty years is a whole lifetime; you know it is extreme old age. To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly. I will tell you who do: fools and worthless fellows. I tell all old men that to their face, all these venerable old men, all these silver-haired and reverend seniors! I tell the whole world that to its face! I have a right to say so, for I shall go on living to sixty myself. To seventy! To eighty!”

“I am not a cowboy with a ranch and cattle, but I have this stable with some of the most beautiful horses in the world. I am not a farmer with a hundred-year-old farmhouse and acres of crops, but I have an island with acres of fertile land. I am not a mechanic with grease under my fingernails, but I know how to fix a flat tire. I am not your everyday average guy. I do not know if I can be one. But if you marry me, I will do my best to make your life as ordinary as you'd like.”