Top 2109 Age Quotes

When I was younger, my whole sense of self-worth was based on whether or not I was working, which was awful. And I had a baby at 20 years old, so it wasn't just about me. At around the age of 30 there was a stretch where I wasn't working - certainly not on anything I liked, anyway - and I started to do other things.

In the two-room flat where I live in Japan, I try to take time every day to step away from the bombardment of e-mails and opportunities and papers around my desk, for an hour, and just sit on our 30-inch terrace in the sun, reading something sustaining, whether 'The Age of Innocence' or the latest by Colm Toibin.

I'd really like to show women my age - who've had children grow up or lost husbands or retired after working all their lives - that there are options. There are choices. We don't have to just sit around and be invisible.

Women have been brought up to be passive, accepting, not come forward and play a major role in life. And with age, there's a tendency to revert to that - to pull back, recede. I don't think it's advisable or admirable.

Doing what we can to repair the world was instilled in me from an early age. I will never forget my siblings and me knitting squares for blankets to be sent to the troops during World War II. This was an inspiration from my mother.