Donald Hall on old age

I feel the circles grow smaller, and old age is a ceremony of losses, which is on the whole preferable to dying at forty-seven or fifty-two. When I lament and darken over my diminishments, I accomplish nothing. It's better to sit at the window all day, pleased to watch birds, barns, and flowers. It is a pleasure to write about what I do.

"When we turn eighty, we understand that we are extraterrestrial....People's response to our separateness can be callous, can be good-natured, and is always condescending."

The New Yorker, January 23, 2012