“I'm fifty-one years old, but I'm not through yet. I have lived a full life, and intend packing in quite a lot more.”

“I intend to live as a happy man, though I am not quite ready to live as one, which means I'm not quite ready to die; whatever it is, I'm working on it, trust me”

“And do you know a funny thing? I'm almost fifty years old and I've never understood anything in my whole life.”

“I'm going to end up like one of those old weirdos who lives in a network of tunnels burrowed through trash - yet I do not fear this.”

“I'm a fifty-three-year-old writer who can remember being a ten-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an eighty-year-old writer.”

“If I open this envelope fifty years from now, I will be again as I am now and there will be no being old for me. There's a long, long time yet before fifty years...millions of hours of time. But one hour has gone already since I sat here...one hour less to live...one hour gone away from all the hours of my life.”