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Florida Scott-Maxwell Quotes - Page 2

All Quotes Age Pain Solitude
We must find out for ourselves, otherwise it wouldn't be discovery.

We must find out for ourselves, otherwise it wouldn't be discovery.

Florida Scott-Maxwell
Discovery

Age puzzles me. I thought it was a quiet time. My seventies were interesting and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate. I grow more intense as I age.

Florida Scott-Maxwell
Interesting, Age, Passionate
Florida Scott-Maxwell (2013). “Measure of My Days”, p.11, Knopf

What fun it is to generalize in the privacy of a note book. It is as I imagine waltzing on ice might be. A great delicious sweep in one direction, taking you your full strength, and then with no trouble at all, an equally delicious sweep in the opposite direction. My note book does not help me think, but it eases my crabbed heart.

Florida Scott-Maxwell
Fun, Book, Heart

Is there any stab as deep as wondering where and how much you failed those you loved.

Florida Scott-Maxwell
Family, Pain, Wonder
Florida Scott-Maxwell (2013). “Measure of My Days”, p.40, Knopf

as we age we are more alive than seems likely, convenient, or even bearble. Too often our problem is the fervor of life within us. My dear fellow octogenarians, how are we to carry so much life, and what are we to do with it?

Florida Scott-Maxwell
Age, Alive, Problem

Our age is so gregarious that there is at present a marked prejudice against anyone being alone. It is looked down on, and a need to be alone is almost considered a fault, a weakness, as though if one cannot endure - more - enjoy being with other people every minute one is aloof, unreal, and somehow to be pitied.

Florida Scott-Maxwell
People, Solitude, Age

I grow more intense as I age.

Florida Scott-Maxwell
Age, Aging, Intense

love at any age takes everything you've got.

Florida Scott-Maxwell
Age
Florida Scott-Maxwell (2013). “Measure of My Days”, p.11, Knopf

In very truth the days are almost free, and if it is another way of saying that our lives are empty, well -- there are days when emptiness is spacious, and non-existence elevating . . .

Florida Scott-Maxwell
Way, Emptiness, Empty

Difference of opinion has never been sufficiently appreciated. It is the unexpected, the unknowable, the divine irrationality of life that saves us.

Florida Scott-Maxwell
Differences, Serious, Opinion

Order, cleanliness, seemliness make a structure that is half support, half ritual, and - if it does not create it - maintains decency.

Florida Scott-Maxwell
Order, Support, Doe
Florida Scott-Maxwell (2013). “Measure of My Days”, p.78, Knopf

As I do not live in an age when rustling black skirts billow about me, and I do not carry an ebony stick to strike the floor in sharp rebuke, as this is denied me, I rap out a sentence in my note book and feel better. If a grandmother wants to put her foot down, the only safe place to do it these days is in a note book.

Florida Scott-Maxwell
Book, Rap, Grandmother

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