Mid Life Crisis Quotes

“By the age of twenty, you know you're not going to be a rock star. By twenty-five, you know you're not going to be a dentist or any kind of professional. And by thirty, darkness starts moving in- you wonder if you're ever going to be fulfilled, let alone wealthy and successful. By thirty-five, you know, basically, what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life, and you become resigned to your fate...

...I mean, why do people live so long? What could be the difference between death at fifty-five and death at sixty-five or seventy-five or eighty-five? Those extra years... what benefit could they possibly have? Why do we go on living even though nothing new happens, nothing new is learned, and nothing new is transmitted? At fifty-five, your story's pretty much over.”
― Douglas Coupland, Player One: What Is to Become of Us

“Just as in the second part of a verse bad poets seek a thought to fit their rhyme, so in the second half of their lives people tend to become more anxious about finding actions, positions, relationships that fit those of their earlier lives, so that everything harmonizes quite well on the surface: but their lives are no longer ruled by a strong thought, and instead, in its place, comes the intention of finding a rhyme.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits

“Evelyn stared into the empty ice cream carton and wondered where the smiling girl in the school pictures had gone.”
― Fannie Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

“Everyone I meet now is at least ten years younger than me. I feel like Rip van Winkle with a bald spot.”
― Jaffe Cohen, The King of Kings and I: The Greatest Story Ever Kvetched!

“This is the way it goes. In your mid-forties you have your first crisis of mortality (death will not ignore me); and ten years later you have your first crisis of age (my body whispers that death is already intrigued by me). But something very interesting happens to you in between.

As the fiftieth birthday approaches, you get the sense that your life is thinning out, and will continue to thin out, until it thins out into nothing. And you sometimes say to yourself: That went a bit quick. That went a bit quick. In certain moods, you may want to put it rather more forcefully. As in: OY!! THAT went a BIT FUCKING QUICK!!! ... Then fifty comes and goes, and fifty-one, and fifty-two. And life thickens out again. Because there is now an enormous and unsuspected presence within your being, like an undiscovered continent. This is the past.”
― Martin Amis, The Pregnant Widow

“when true purpose calls, double mindedness, confusion and frustration come along.”
― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

“Life itself had become disembodied. My family, the spine of my days, had crumbled. I was lost in invertebrate time.”
― Joseph O'Neill, Netherland

“There comes a time in one’s life, perhaps in middle age, when we stop and assess who we are, and the life we have.”
― Fennel Hudson, Fine Things: Fennel's Journal No. 8

“Screw the mid-life crisis
Go have a mid-life spa day
A mid-life quickie
A midlife tiramisu
But whatever you do
DON'T give in to mid-life blues!”
― Sanjo Jendayi

“You can see it as a mid-life crisis or you can see it as a mid-life awakening.”
― Dan Pearce

“I am not alone. Existing in this melancholic world causes numerous individuals to feel remorseful and even harbor resentment. Contemplating the world fills me with melancholy. I sense a profound disconnection from the world. Feeling completely drained by my internal and external despair and indifference. I find myself filled with regret and eagerly await the conclusion. I believe my overwhelming anxiety has transformed into anhedonia and depression. Feelings of emptiness and not fitting in are common to all people. Feeling like an outsider hinders connection with others. Once quite the extrovert. I have always experienced a deep sense of disconnection, but at this stage of my life, numerous things have gone awry, making it almost unbearable.”
― Jonathan Harnisch

“An utter success,' her stepdaughters confided to
Margaret as they prepared to take their leave. 'The handsome king! That spoof!' Still the rain persisted, and the bishop had lost his hat. Maids danced in and out. Where was the bishop's hat? Alone at the window, Margaret didn't hear. The reflection of the parlor was yellow and warm. She watched it empty out. Then, an interruption. A voice came at her side: 'What do you look at with such interest, Lady Cavendish?' What did she see in the glass? She saw the Marchioness of Newcastle. She saw the aging wife of an aged marquess, without even any children to dignify her life.”
― Danielle Dutton, Margaret the First

“As I approach mid-life, I feel like the old boot that lands on Mayfair after an eight-hour game of Monopoly.”
― Fennel Hudson, Fine Things: Fennel's Journal No. 8

“Even during a mid-life crisis do not deviate from your goal. History remembers only those who succeed.”
― Hockson Floin

“The one think i don't glean any information about is her husband, so I let my imagination go to town. I imagine he's called Hugo, works at an art college and specialises in multimedia (whatever that is). At the weekend he plays football and squash and is currently in training for the London Marathon. In addition to this he plays the saxophone, is younger than me, and permanently smells of cinnamon. Make no mistake, Hugo is a right tosser.”
― Mike Gayle, Turning Forty

“The one thing I don't glean any information about is her husband, so I let my imagination go to town. I imagine he's called Hugo, works at an art college and specialises in multimedia (whatever that is). At the weekend he plays football and squash and is currently in training for the London Marathon. In addition to this he plays the saxophone, is younger than me, and permanently smells of cinnamon. Make no mistake, Hugo is a right tosser.”
― Mike Gayle, Turning Forty

“As it turns out, the whole place was a purgatory for gray-haired widows and divorced men, content to eat frozen dinners and watch Deep Space Nine until they fell asleep alone and covered in potato chip crumbs.”
― Samantha Bee, I Know I Am, But What Are You?

“I don’t know,” Mom kept saying tearfully. “I don’t know, I just feel like it’s over.”

“Our marriage?” Dad had asked after a long pause.

“My life,” she’d told him. “I’m nothing but your wife. January’s mother. I’m nothing else, and I don’t think you can imagine how that feels. To be forty-two and feel like you’ve done everything you’re going to do.”
― Emily Henry, Beach Read

“She hadn’t understood loss until it had laid her to waste, and she feared what would become of her when she was again without purpose, left to the mercy of her own grief.”
― Molly Collier, The Paragon

“Roy Scheider was mad because it was all about the kids”
― Michael A. Smith, Jaws 2: The Making of the Hollywood Sequel