“At a certain age men began to shrink, and yet it was precisely at that age that their trousers became too short for them.”

“The problem with aging was not that death was near, for death was always near. The problem with aging was that a woman began to carry too many memories within her.”

“Boys and men are the same people, in different clothes. Boys wear short trousers and men wear long trousers. But they are just the same if you take their trousers off.”

“Too many men have died in the name of old age. I know, because my grandmother was one of them.”

“There’s no two ways about it, Tolkien fans are a funny bunch. I should know, for I was one of them. Been there, done that, read the book, gone mad. I first took on The Lord of the Rings at the age of eleven or twelve; to be precise, I began it at the age of eleven and finished at the age of twelve. It was, and remains, not a book that you happen to read, like any other, but a book that happens to you: a chunk bitten out of your life.”

“I'm a man of a certain age - old enough to have been every kind of fool- and I find to my surprise that the only counsel I have to pass on is this: Never let your name be found in a dead man's trousers.”