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100 Years: Wisdom From Famous Writers on Every Year of Your Life

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An extraordinary literary journey, 100 Years celebrates every age from birth to 100 with quotations from the world’s greatest writers.

This literary tapestry of the human experience will delight readers of all backgrounds. Moving year by year through the words of our most beloved authors, the great sequence of life reveals itself—the wonders and confinements of childhood, the emancipations and frustrations of adolescence, the empowerments and millstones of adulthood, the recognitions and resignations of old age. This trove of wisdom—featuring immortal passages from Arthur Rimbaud, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, David Foster Wallace, William Shakespeare, Herman Melville, Jane Austen, and Maya Angelou, among many others—reminds us that the patterns of life transcend continents, cultures, and generations. As Thomas Mann wrote of our most shared human experience: "It will happen to me as to them." Designed by the legendary Milton Glaser, who created the I ♥ NY logo, 100 Years brings together color, type, and text to illuminate the ebb and flow of an entire life.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published May 2, 2016

77 people are currently reading
1915 people want to read

About the author

Joshua Prager

4 books60 followers
Joshua Prager writes for publications including Vanity Fair, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, where he was a senior writer for eight years. George Will has described his work as "exemplary journalistic sleuthing."
--from the author's website

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5 stars
113 (29%)
4 stars
98 (25%)
3 stars
136 (34%)
2 stars
35 (8%)
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7 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
Profile Image for Junta.
130 reviews248 followers
October 14, 2016
As someone who has spent hours researching (read: clicking my mouse, orchestrating the keyboard, traversing through pages) for some ideas I had for book reviews, I appreciated the author's what must have been a mammoth effort in achieving completeness, with a genuinely pleasing contribution from a graphic designer no less (lovely colours and design!), of compiling quotes for the ages 0-100.

A book that you can pick up time and time again, and ignite all sorts of discussions with a friend, a family member, a partner. I read through this pretty quickly this first time around; I was cruising through the first few decades, enjoying my own associations with these numbers ascribing meaning and interval to our existence; but I must admit that in the final few decades, my expression became gloomy, having been put face to face, though literarily rather than literally, for the first time in a while, with the finiteness of life; the inevitability of death.

In this review, I wanted to share the relevant entries to my dear Goodreads friends, well, those whose temporal position I was able to ascertain through some profile and even Google-stalking.

15
At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honourable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.

Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

21
I have come legally to man's estate. I have attained the dignity of twenty-one. But this is a sort of dignity that may be thrust upon one. Let me think what I have achieved.

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

23
One of the mixed blessings of being twenty and twenty-one and even twenty-three is the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, has ever happened to anyone before.

Joan Didion, Goodbye to All That

24
She was twenty-four years old. She wanted to inhabit facts, not dreams.

Salman Rushdie, Shalimar the Clown

25
At twenty-five I was dumbfounded afresh
By my ignorance of the simplest things.

Ted Hughes, Fulbright Scholars

26
I was twenty-six. I thought: this is maturity. This is civilisation.

Martin Amis, Experience

27
Twenty-seven!... It was a time of sudden revelations. "Heyyyy, know what? This thought came to me."

Joyce Carol Oates, Blonde

28
Physical identity meant a great deal to me when I was twenty-eight years old. I had almost the same
kind of relationship with my mirror that many of my contemporaries had with their analysts. When I began to wonder who I was, I took the simple step of lathering my face and shaving.

Don DeLillo, Americana

29
It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before; and, generally speaking, if there has been neither ill health nor anxiety, it is a time of life at which scarcely any charm is lost.

Jane Austen, Persuasion

31
No, life isn't over at the age of thirty-one, Prince. Prince Andre suddenly decided definitively, immutably. It's not enough that I know all that's in me, everyone else must know it, too.

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

32
He was not so old - thirty-two. His temperament might be said to be just at the point of maturity.

James Joyce, The Dubliners

35
My age - thirty five - shouted at me all the time, standing tall and wide in my head, and blocking access to what my life afforded. Thirty-five never sat down with its hands folded. Thirty-five had no composure. It was always humming mean, terse tunes on a piece of folded cellophane.

Carol Shields, Unless

58
Fifty-eight is the porter's golden age; he is used to his lodge, he and his room fit each other like the shell and the oyster, and "he is known in the neighborhood."

Honoré de Balzac, Cousin Pons





3.5 stars.

October 10, 2016
Profile Image for Am Y.
876 reviews37 followers
June 17, 2016
This book features a collection of quotes, each related to a different year of one's life, from birth (0 years) to, presumably, death (100 years). Each quote is taken from a literary work, and is printed on a page of its own, with the age mentioned in the quote printed opposite it. Every page is printed in a different colour, and the colours vary gradually in tone from start to end.

Reading through this book from start to end was a highly reflective, somewhat meditative, and on the whole, inspiring experience. The quotes in general reflect individual ponderings on the human condition at various points of life; as you read them, you feel compelled to either recall what you were doing at that age, or, if you haven't yet reached that age, think about whether you might feel what the quote suggests when - and if - you do.

The visual presentation greatly enhanced the reading process. As the age advances, colours change like a fading sunset, reflecting the start of the twilight years that finally end in darkness.

This was a poignant, spiritual read that will make a great coffee table book or gift for someone who is highly self-aware and would like to think more about life and existence.
Profile Image for John of Canada.
1,122 reviews64 followers
August 18, 2018
Basically a book of quotations,however the design by Milton Glaser is wonderful,how the page colours blend into each other.Glaser is one of my favourite people.Anything he writes or designs is very worthy.Hie description of toxic people is very instructive.
Profile Image for Danielle.
256 reviews13 followers
April 27, 2019
And me..."at thirty-nine, everybody's their own problem. " _John Updike, Rabbit Remembered
5 reviews
July 10, 2016
not really my cup of tea.. i am a slow reader and this took me 1 hour to finish. quotes seems random and arbritrary, but there were some good ones.

the book itself is pretty all the way through.
Profile Image for A. Allen.
Author 9 books86 followers
July 7, 2019
I was given a lovely book as a Christmas present entitled 100 Years by Joshua Prager and Milton Glaser. The book contains passages written by famous writers for every year of life from birth to 100. As I flipped through the book and noticed the opposing left- and right-justified colored pages, I realized that this was a book to hold and touch, not scroll through on a Kindle. I thought some of the passages related to the younger years were quite deep and thoughtful, and I laughed at many of the quotes related to years closer to my own fifty-nine. Given that there are one hundred short passages spanning a century of life, I hope my inclusion of six below will not be considered to be a spoiler! Here goes…

Insightful thoughts at the younger ages:

We do not, cannot, know the meanings of their words, for we are nine and ten years old. So we watch their faces, their hands, their feet, and listen for truth in timbre. Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

At sixteen the adolescent knows what it is to suffer, for he himself has suffered; but he hardly knows that others suffer too. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile


Some humorous, yet somewhat humbling thoughts when approaching middle age:

At thirty-nine, everybody’s their own problem. John Updike, Rabbit Remembered

When we are forty-one we all think it would be nice to have a fresh start. It’s the kind of thing we laugh at when we are forty-two. V.S. Naipaul, Guerrillas

Fifty-one was too old for dreams of the future. At fifty-one you had to keep running just to escape the avalanche of your past. Stephen King, Needful Things


Something listed for age eighty-seven, is great guidance at any age…

He’s what, eight-six, eighty-seven years old! It’s now or never. Tobias Wolff, Old School

A quick, interesting read. Certainly a great gift---my friend has good taste.
Profile Image for Michael Fredette.
536 reviews4 followers
Read
January 10, 2025
100 Years. Selections by Joshua Prager, Visualizations by Milton Glaser [Norton, 2016]

Brief excerpts from great literature reflecting on every year of life from birth to age 101. Authors include Tolstoy, Plato, Salinger, Vonnegut, Montressori, Amy Tan, Anne Frank, Stephen King, Hemingway, Updike, DeLilli, Melville, Rimbaud, Toni Morrison, Dickens, Maya Angelou, Joyce Carol Oates, Shakespeare & etc.

***
Joshua Prager is a journalist from New York City, who wrote The Family Roe, a biography of ‘Norma McCorvey known as ‘Jane Roe’ in the U.S. Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade.

***
Milton Glaser is a graphic artist known for the iconic
“I ❤️ NY” logo, as well as the cover art for the Signet Classic Shakespeare series.
Profile Image for melydia.
1,139 reviews20 followers
February 17, 2019
This book is very pretty. It's a collection of quotes from authors (novelists and otherwise) about every year of life from zero to one hundred. Some are stretching it a bit, and not all of them are actually about being said age, but it's an interesting undertaking nonetheless. Perhaps something worth bringing out on people's birthdays.
Profile Image for Jacquie.
102 reviews1 follower
September 16, 2022
This book is very beautiful and worth displaying. It was a “bathroom reader” for me and I slowly made my way through it. Enjoyed reading the quotes from many different pieces of literature and ended up looking lots of them up which was fun. My complaint though is that the majority of quotes from about 25 years on were negative! Surely the author could have given the reader something more positive to look forward to?? not just depress us further about aging??
Profile Image for Don Heiman.
1,076 reviews4 followers
July 18, 2017
Some books are owned but never read. They often are given by happenstance or inherited. Other books are borrowed and read --library books are a good example. They come my way by reference or passing interest. The salient books in my collection are most often gifted or purchased from bookstores to be read and then to populate the titles on my bookshelves. These books anchor the foundation of my experiences. "100 Years" is a compilation of quotes by Joshua Prager with illustrations by Milton Glaser. It came my way via happenstance, then arrived from my public library, and finally found a permanent home on my shelves through an online bookstore purchase. It is now a permanent treasure to be read often. (P)
16 reviews
May 4, 2016
Great collection of writings on each year of life. Interesting perspective. I've always been fascinated with time and life and there were some great thoughts in this book. My favorite was the idea that we are but renting this dust (body). Really puts life in perspective and "big" issues shrink to their proper proportion.

The only reason I didn't give it a 5 was because some selections were unfortunately short and I was hoping for more context to the age related thought.

Profile Image for Bett Correa-Bollhoefer.
Author 1 book20 followers
December 27, 2018
Almost perfect

This book is an great idea and well done. I just wish I could have the following changes:
1. Every quote needs to be from a person the actual age they are writing about. I know this is impossible for the first 5 or so years.
2. I wish that we had a few quotes for each age to get diversity in gender and economic status.
Profile Image for Tosca Wijns-Van Eeden.
826 reviews5 followers
April 5, 2018
Funtastic! Lot of fun also to write some of the quotes on birthday cards.
A book filled with a quote for every year of life. Every decade is marked by a general quote on that decade. Well done and lots of work in putting and assembling this book together
2 reviews
June 6, 2017
It's such a thoughtful, beautiful book. I leave it on my coffee table and it gets picked up by guests. It makes a great gift.
Profile Image for Birgit van Buiten.
133 reviews
June 5, 2018
Loved all the quotes and totally related to the ones of the ages I’ve already been.
Profile Image for Joseph F..
447 reviews15 followers
February 25, 2019
Hmmmm...didn't quite feel the wisdom with this. Maybe some bits here and there.
Nice paper though.
Profile Image for Lakota Grace.
Author 14 books11 followers
August 12, 2018
Imagine if you could ask the most famous authors in the world their views on your age today. What would they say? Better yet, what advice could they give you as you enter your next decade, and the next after that?

This is the delight that the book 100 YEARS by Joshua Prager provides. In collecting these quotes, he had very specific criteria that made the challenge all the more difficult: an author could be used only once, and the specific year must be included in the quote. What fun!

It was a slow slog: he went through 2700 pages of Thomas Mann and Leo Tolstoy to find only two quotes. Agatha Christie wrote over 80 books and didn't make the cut. He had to keep in mind the progression of history as well. Two authors used the phrase "yellow leaf" to describe their then current old age: Christopher Isherwood at 53 and Lord Byron at 36!

Often he will give a summary quote at the beginning of a decade. For example, for the Fortieth Decade he includes, "Men at forty learn to close softly the doors to rooms they will not be coming back to," by Donald Justice.

As I look ahead to an older age, I was curious about what might be said of seventy, or even the ninetieth decade. Prager doesn't disappoint. J.D. James says, "Will I be here at the end of the year? At seventy-seven, that is not an irrational question."

And May Sarton, that wonderful journalist laments, "Every person seventy-eight years old lives in a somewhat depeopled world. The trouble for me is that I often loved people older and wiser than I. So I'm left now in the lurch, being, trying to be, the old wise one and feeling like a great goose."

Whatever age you've been, are now, or hope to aspire to, you'll find it here.

An additional delight is that each page of the book is a different color, each specific number is set in a different type font by one of the most celebrated graphic designers in the world, Milton Glaser. The book becomes a feast for the eyes as well as for the mind.

Highly recommended
Profile Image for Christopher Dineson.
11 reviews3 followers
July 20, 2017
A close friend flipped through the pages, clapped it closed, and admonished my choice. "I'm stepping in here to say you're not allowed to read this - not in your place in time." His concern landed lightly for the tone and overstatement. But he meant it. My response is this: life fucking sucks, so choose the type of problems you want (they come with the territory), realize you're not that important, take responsibility for 150% of your consequences - even though you may not be to blame for your circumstances, accept that you're mostly wrong most of the time, and you usually can't confirm when you're right, and never figure out "who you are" because otherwise: you'll have problems you suffer from rather than those you enjoy solving everyday, you'll alienate yourself from opportunities by creating a false distance between you and all else, without deciding to respond to things that happen in your, and handle them without blaming others for WHY they happened, you'll never learn their value and grow, knowing everything blocks learning anything, and the moment you crystallize the illusion of your identity is when you isolate yourself from all else that you're "not" - which is...pretty much everything. This book doesn't go easy on the aging. The quotes are often rough reads and the messages may keep you up rather than lull you to sleep lol. The value in reading it is in its stark and sometimes cutting insight into what growing up, old, and older may actually feel like, may actually look like, and what you may have thought, now think, and if course feel about the course you have little control over. It's a sobering read that's refreshing non-bullshit quotes that could teach you something, rather than attempt to make you feel better about nothing. I told my friend he should read it; that he needs to read it.
104 reviews5 followers
September 13, 2018
Some quotes I liked:

"I was fond of the world at that age. Magic happened. When an adult explained the concept of hell to me at age four, I dug a hole in the backyard and saw naked people dancing underground." - Amy Tan, The Opposite of Fate

"When you are nine years old, what you remember seems forever; for you remember everything and everything is important and stands big and full and fills up Time and is so solid that you can walk around and around it like a tree and look at it. You are aware that time passes, that there is a movement in time, but that is not what Time is. Time is not a movement, a flowing, a wind then, but is, rather, a kind of climate in which things are, and when a thing happens it begins to live and keeps on living and stands solid in Time like the tree that you can walk around." - Robert Penn Warren, Blackberry Winter

"At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice." - Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

"She was twenty-four years old. She wanted to inhabit facts, not dreams." - Salman Rushdie, Shalimar the Clown

"Twenty-seven... It was a time of sudden revelations. 'Heyyyy, know what? This thought came to me.' " -Joyce Carol Oates, Blonde

"Physical identity meant a great deal to me when I was twenty-eight years old. I had almost the same kind of relationship with my mirror that many of my contemporaries had with their analysts. When I began to wonder who I was, I took the simple step of lathering my face and shaving." - Don DeLillo, Americana

"At thirty a man steps out of darkness and wasteland of preparation into active life; it is the time to show oneself, the time of fulfillment." - Thomas Mann, Joseph and his Brothers

"What is the sound of an eighty-nine-year-old heart breaking? It might not be much more than silence, and certainly a small slight sound." - Sebastian Barry, On Canaan's Side
Profile Image for Ashley Lhérisson.
87 reviews5 followers
May 21, 2019
Quick read - cool book of quotes for each year of life. My top four quotes were from ages 14, 16, 40, and 60.

14: "Even though I'm only fourteen, I know what I want, I know who's right and who's wrong, I have my own opinions, ideas, and principles, and though it may sound odd coming from a teenager, I feel I'm more of a person than a child -- I feel I'm completely independent of others." - Ann Frank, The Diary of Ann Frank

16: "At sixteen the adolescent knows what it is to suffer, for he himself has suffered; but he hardly knows that others suffer too." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile

40: "After the age of forty a man's flat gives a good indication of what he is and what he has deserved." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Cancer Ward

60: "It got harder and harder to feel indispensable at age sixty." - Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full
Profile Image for Bailey.
356 reviews11 followers
April 16, 2019
I was lucky enough to run into this gorgeous volume at the used book sale at my library and plucked it up on a whim. It features a quote about every year from 1 to 100 laid out beautifully on thick paper in gentle, luminous colors. It was a pleasure to read straight through, contemplating the slow but steady trudge we take through the years and the myriad revelations the passage of time brings, but I can tell it's a volume I'll keep taking off the shelf for birthdays and contemplations about loved ones on other parts of the path. A handy reference volume for the messy practice of being insistently alive.
Profile Image for Kristīne.
811 reviews1 follower
May 5, 2017
Piektā zvaigzne nost par pesimismu. Lielāko daļu no šiem dzimšanas dienas kartītēs rakstīt noteikti nedrīkst.

Bet vispār foršs sakārtojuma koncepts. 100 cilvēka gadi rakstnieku vārdos. Pēc citātu kvalitātes izskatās, ka rakstniekiem vairāk patīk skribelēt par 40+. Un 80 un 90 bija sakarīgāki par bērnības gadiem.
Profile Image for Brenna.
125 reviews
June 23, 2018
A quick, contemplative read. A wide variety of sources to cover what each year of life is like. Some I agree with and some I don't but interesting to think on nonetheless. The design and visualizations were soothing--although I had to laugh that the 90 years slowly turned blacker and darker.
Profile Image for Toni.
1,390 reviews6 followers
May 25, 2019
100 Years is a selection of quotes from authors works for each year of life from birth to year 100. Profound and enjoyable, most especially reading closest to my actual age, yet this is a book for all to enjoy. Delightful!
1 review
October 15, 2021
I’m intrigued. Now that I’ve come across such a beautiful but rational and objective approach on the 100 years of this temporary life. The challenges, sicknesses and eloquence of the ten decades are raptly covered! I’m in love. 10/10
Profile Image for Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance.
6,453 reviews336 followers
November 3, 2024
Joshua Prager searched books far and wide to find a good quote for each year of a life, from zero to one hundred.

I think I'd hoped to hear some hopeful and inspiring quotes. Most of these were pretty bleak. lol
Profile Image for Dano.
204 reviews1 follower
June 26, 2018
Makes you think about living your life and that’s good enough for me
Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews

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