Aging is a natural life process that all humans must go through. Still, many individuals have managed to grow older with their wit and their humor intact. Read on for our 100 funny quotes about aging and getting older.
The Funny Irony of Aging Revealed
1. “Children are a great comfort in your old age, and they help you reach it faster, too.” – Lionel Kauffman
2. “You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old.” – George Burns
3. “Men do not quit playing because they grow old – they grow old because they quit playing.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
4. “I want to die young at a ripe old age.” – Ashley Montagu
5. “Today is the oldest You've ever been, and the youngest you'll ever be again.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
6. “It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone.” – Andy Rooney
7. “You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.” – Bob Hope
8. “You can live to be a hundred if you give up all things that make you want to live to be a hundred.” – Woody Allen
9. “Old age comes at a bad time.” – San Banducci
10. “At age 20, we worry about what others think of us. At age 40, we don't care what they think of us. At age 60, we discover they haven't been thinking of us at all.” – Ann Landers
Humorous but Wise Words on Parenting and Dealing with Life as You Mature
11. “Age is something that doesn't matter unless you are a cheese.” – Billie Burke
12. “At my age I've heard it all; I've seen it all; and I've done it all. I just can't remember it all.” – Author Unknown
13. “Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.” – George Bernard Shaw
14. “Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.” – Phyllis Diller
15. “Never have children, only grandchildren.” – Gore Vidal
16. “I am not young enough to know everything.” – Oscar Wilde
17. “Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young. – Theodore Roosevelt
18. “Middle age is when a narrow waist and a broad mind begin to change places.” – Author Unknown
19. “Don't let aging get you down. It's too hard to get back up.” – John Wagner
20. “The key to successful aging is to pay as little attention to it as possible.” – Judith Regan
Meeting the Common Experiences of Getting Older with Humor
21. “Getting older is no problem. You just have to live long enough.” – Groucho Marx
22. “I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity.” – Tom Stoppard
23. “Middle age is when you're sitting at home on a Saturday night and the telephone rings, and you hope it isn't for you.” – Ogden Nash
24. “Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened.” – Jennifer Yane
25. “There is still no cure for the common birthday.” – John Glenn
26. “Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.” – Larry Lorenzoni
27. “Middle age is when a guy starts turning off lights for economic rather than romantic reasons.” – Eli Cass
28. “Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.” – Chili Davis
29. “It is better to wear out than to rust out.” – Bishop Richard Cumberland
30. “Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.” – Author Unknown
How to Turn the Negatives of Aging into Positive Life Lessons That Will Make You Smile
31. “Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.” – Mark Twain
32. “No man is ever old enough to know better.” – Holbrook Jackson
33. “As you get older, the pickings get slimmer, but the people don't.” – Carrie Fisher
34. “I'm like old wine. They don't bring me out very often, but I'm well preserved.” – Rose Kennedy
35. “We are young only once, after than we need some other excuse.” – Author Unknown
36. “The really frightening thing about middle age is that you know you'll grow out of it.” – Doris Day
37. “Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.” – Author Unknown
38. “I don't do drink or drugs. At my age, get the same effect just standing up too fast.” – Author Unknown
39. “Old age is not so bad when you consider the alternative.” – Maurice Chevalier
40. “An archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have: the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.” – Agatha Christie
Examples of How Aging Plays Funny Tricks on the Mind and Body
41. “You know you're getting old when everything hurts. And what doesn't hurt doesn't work.” – Hy Gardner
42. “As you get older three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can't remember the other two.” – Sir Norman Wisdom
43. “First you forget names, then you forget faces, then you forget to pull your zipper up, then you forget to pull your zipper down.” – Leo Rosenberg
44. “Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.” – Victor Hugo
45. “At my age, “getting lucky” means walking into a room and remembering what I came in for.” Author Unknown
46. “Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.” – Truman Capote
47. “Years ago, we discovered the exact point, the dead center of middle age. It occurs when you are too young to take up golf and too old to rush to the net.” – Franklin Adams
48. “The first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to the left.” Jerry M. Wright
49. “I stay away from natural foods. At my age, I need all the preservatives I can get.” – George Burns
50. “Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart.” – Caryn Leschen
Humorous Ways Famous People Have Dealt with Getting Older
51. “Old age is always fifteen years older than I am.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
52. “Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life.” – Kitty O'Neill Collins
53. “I don't feel old. I don't feel anything until noon. Then it's time for my nap.” – Bob Hope
54. “Some guy said to me: ‘Don't you think you're too old to sing rock n roll?' I said: ‘You'd better check with Mick Jagger.'” – Cher
55. “The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly and lie about your age.” – Lucille Ball
56. “I refuse to admit I'm more than fifty-two, even if that does make my sons illegitimate.” – Nancy Astor
57. “Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle.” – Bob Hope
58. “You know you're getting older when your childhood toys become collectibles and antiques.” – Author Unknown
59. “You know you're getting old when you can pinch an inch on your forehead.” – John Mendoza
60. “There is absolutely nothing to be said in favor of growing old. There ought to be legislation against it.” – Patrick Moore
Hilarious Advice on Getting Older
61. “People say that age is just a state of mind. I say it's more about the state of your body. – Geoffrey Parfitt
62. “My midlife crisis in two sentences: Where am I going to park? Where did I park?” – Author Unknown
63. “I don't let my age define me, but the side effects are getting harder to ignore.” – Author Unknown
64. “As we grow older, our bodies get shorter and our anecdotes longer.” – Robert Quillen
65. “I'm fifty-nine, and people call me middle-aged. How many 118-year-old men do you know?” – Barry Cryer
66. “Middle age is having a choice between two temptations and choosing the one that'll get you home earlier.” – Dan Bennett
67. “At my age, the only pole dancing I do is to hold onto the safety bar in my bathroom.” – Author Unknown
68. “Life's tragedy is that we get too old soon and wise too late.” – Benjamin Franklin
69. “I suppose real old age begins when one looks backward rather than forward.” – Mary Sarton
70. “Old age is an excellent time for outrage. My goal is to say or do at least one outrageous thing every week.” – Maggie Kuhn
How to Use Humor to Age Better Through the Years
71. “Getting old is like climbing a mountain; you get a little out of breath, but the view is much better! – Ingrid Bergman
72. “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.” – Mark Twain
73. “Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
74. “I was brought up to respect my elders, so now I don't have to respect anybody.” – George Burns
75. “You know you're getting old when all the names in your black book have M.D. after them.” – Harrison Ford
76. “A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.” – Robert Frost
77. “About the only thing that comes to us without effort is old age.” – Gloria Pitzer
78. “If you're not getting older, you're dead.” – Tom Petty
79. “True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.” – Kurt Vonnegut
80. “The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fun Facts Related to Aging Everyone Should Ponder
81. “I'm at an age when my back goes out more than I do.” – Phyllis Diller
82. “I don't plan to grow old gracefully. I plan to have face-lifts until my ears meet.” – Rita Rudner
83. “People ask me what I'd most appreciate getting for my eighty-seventh birthday. I tell them, a paternity suit.” – George Burns
84. “A man who correctly guesses a woman's age may be smart, but he's not very bright.” – Lucille Ball
85. “At my age, flowers scare me.” – George Burns
86. “I'm so old that my blood type is discontinued.” – Bill Dane
87. “Like all good ruins, I look better by moonlight.” – Phyllis Diller
88. “As you get older, you don't get wiser, you get irritable.” – Doris Lessing
89. “The older we get; the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.” – Will Rogers
90. “There's one advantage to being 102, there's no peer pressure. – Dennis Wolfberg
Hysterical Ways to Determine if You Are Truly Old
91. “There are three ages of man: youth, middle age and you're looking well.” – Red Skelton
92. “Middle age is having a choice between two temptations and choosing the one that'll get you home earlier.” – Dan Bennett
93. “When I was young, I was called a rugged individualist. When I was in my fifties, I was considered eccentric. Here I am doing and saying the same things I did then, and I'm labeled senile.” – George Burns
94. “The most important thing to remember is that I'm probably going to forget.” – Author Unknown
95. “For the first half of your life, people tell you what you should do; for the second half, they tell you what you should have done.” – Richard J. Needham
96. “Middle age: When you begin to exchange your emotions for symptoms.” – Georges Clemenceau
97. “I've finally reached the age where my brain went from ‘You probably shouldn't say that' to ‘What the hell, let's see what happens.'” – Author Unknown
98. “You know that you are getting old when you sink your teeth into an apple, and they stay there.” – Author Unknown
99. “Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.” – Mark Twain
100. “How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?” – Satchel Paige
A Few Final Thoughts About Finding the Humor in Aging
Until people discover the secrets of staying young or find the Fountain of Youth, everyone must deal with aging and its symptoms. Hopefully these funny quotes related to aging will give you a chuckle and a warm feeling in your heart. If you enjoyed reading through them, make sure to visit our retirement quotes pages.
On the same topic, we recommend you read our top tips to stay happy during retirement.