“I don't know how long I've been sitting on this park bench. The light is almost all gone, but when there was light I was able to admire the statuary. A bear, a hippo, something with cloven hooves I took to be a goat. On my way I passed a fountain. The basin was dry. I looked to see if there were any pennies at the bottom. But there were only dead leaves. They're everywhere now, falling and falling, turning the world back into earth. Sometimes I forget that the world is not on the same schedule as I. That everything is not dying, or that if it is dying it will return to life, what with a little sun and the usual encouragement. Sometimes I think: I am older than this tree, older than this bench, older than the rain. And yet. I'm not older than the rain. It's been falling for years and after I go it will keep on falling.”

“Sometimes I forget that the world is not on the same schedule as I. That everything is not dying, or that if it is dying it will return to life, what with a little sun and the usual encouragement. Sometimes I think: I am older than this tree, older than this bench, older than the rain. And yet. I'm not older than the rain. It's been falling for years and after I go it will keep on falling.”

“It's funny, I don't feel any older than I did when I was twenty. But I know I am, because recently some twenty-year-old called me 'sir.' Sometimes the only way you know you are getting older is by the way others treat you.”

“I've been playing the game of life for over 52 years now and I don't feel one day younger or older than I am. Maybe its I just don't feel”

“The world is being run by people my age, men my age, with falling-out hair and health worries, and it frightens me. When the leaders were older than me I could believe in their wisdom, I could believe they had transcended rage and malice and the need to be loved. Now I know better. I look at the faces in newspapers, in magazines, and wonder: what greeds, what furies drive them on?”

“The maester smiled...Hush now, child, I'm much older than you. I can....die as I please.”