And I'm not as young as I once was. At my age, I don't have time to be bored.
Now, past middle age, with so many books written I still care about and only a few still in print, I know the feeling of being overlooked.
One of my grandfathers, actually, having gone out there as a minister, decided he would better serve the people as a doctor. So at a very late age - at the age of 38 in fact - he changed course and decided to become a doctor.
I grew up in Burbank - but not the Burbank of valet parking and TV studios. In the late 1950s, there was a small apartment complex on Elmwood Avenue that rented mostly to families on welfare. I lived there from age 3 to 11 and again from 14 to 18 with my mother, Shirley, and my younger sister, Toni.
Ultimately, criticism that 'The Real World' has devolved into a lesser enterprise comes from the viewers who came of age alongside it, not the teens of the moment that MTV has always existed for.
Eighteenth-century doctors prescribed sugar pills for nearly everything: heart problems, headache, consumption, labor pains, insanity, old age, and blindness. Hence, the French expression 'like an apothecary without sugar' meant someone in an utterly hopeless situation.
The trouble with our age is all signposts and no destination.
Of course, the ideal scenario for parenting is obviously two parents of a mature age.
No matter where you are, the root of you is designed from a young age. So if my confidence was taken as a child, you can gain back a lot of the confidence, but that root of the cavity will still be there.
I wanted to write a very simple story about a boy, a wolf, a girl, a bear and a forest, so I thought I might set it in the past. I didn't realise that it went back to when I was 10: I used to love the Stone Age when I was a kid and wanted to live in it, and I got rid of my bed and slept on the floor, but I didn't remember it.
When I'm playing 'Rock Band,' I'm like, 'Man, someday, later on in life when I'm a famous rock star...' Which gets a little harder to convince myself of as I reach middle age, but it still happens a lot.
What's changed is we now have good anatomical, geological, archaeological evidence that Neanderthals are not our ancestors. When I wrote 'Lucy,' I considered Neanderthals ancestors of modern humans. We have gone back twice the age of Lucy, six million years. And we see that upright bipedal walking goes back that far in time.
My brother Robert wanted to act from a very early age, and there was always a part of me that said we couldn't have two actors in the family because our parents would go mental. So I became a runner for the Robert Stigwood Organisation and, one way or another, worked my way up to movie publicist.
We are all shaped by where we grow up, though that shaping takes different forms. I don't think there's any doubt that coming of age in Winnipeg both opened my eyes and made me hungry - if I can subvert all claims to be a real writer by mixing metaphors like that.
Being young isn't about age, it's about being a free spirit. You can meet someone of 20 who's boring and old, or you can meet someone of 70 who's youthful and exciting. I met Fred Astaire when he was 72 and I was 21, and I fell in love with him. He certainly was a free spirit.
I had known that I'd wanted to be an actor from a very early age, but I had always known that I wanted to have a dual career. I wanted to be an actor, and I also at that time wanted to be a rock star.
At the age of 60, you see how short the runway is in front of you and how long the runway is behind you, and that you don't have much time left.
I've always been drawn to the Edwardian period in England. To me, it seems like such a fascinating time, when the British Empire was at the height of its powers and the strict mores of the Victorian age were dissipating into the decadence of King Edward's reign.
I was seeing kids my age playing shows at their parents' houses or the couple of all-ages venues that existed. I feel like I saw so many different kinds of music that I wouldn't have discovered on my own.
My childhood was defined by my father's absence. His presence looms so large. Up until the age of 18, he was a superstar for me.
Every human - especially the most vulnerable, the unborn, the infirm, those ravaged by age and those desperate in despair - should be protected in law, loved, and told repeatedly of their incredible beauty and worth.
I never get asked out by men my own age, as they all want to go out with 20-year-olds, and the men that do ask me out are too young.
I don't even know at what age I started, because it's always been there. Performing... creating... it's in my DNA.
I've been drawing my whole life. My mom says my sister and I were drawing by age 1. Animation seems a real, natural extension of drawing as a way of telling a story visually.
With age comes the understanding and appreciation of your most important asset, your health.
The biggest tragedy I had was the loss of my daughter from neuromuscular disease in 2000, at age 46.
One of the most startling events in my life was when my older son was about 16, and he blamed me for all the troubles of the world. So I, I felt like telling him, 'Oh no, I was just like you when I was your age; I wanted to change the world, too.'
From the age of five, I was organizing everybody's everything. If I didn't like the way it looked, I'd rearrange it. From a very early age, I saw life from my point of view.
At what age did Warren Buffett come into philanthropy? At 76. He gave a very good reason. He said his wife was considerably younger than him. And all Americans believe they would live till 80, and they do live till 80. He told his wife that when he is gone, she should take care of whatever they need to do.
Ultimately, the only people who are in any way edified by hanging with famous people are you at the age of 11 and your mom.
Think back to yourself at age 18. I know I was mighty different than the Patti I am today. As we grow up, we grow out of our haircuts, our apartments and - often times - our romantic decisions.
I definitely had a very religious upbringing. My father was just instilling good morals into us at a very young age, and it wasn't super-strict, but it was a loving, warm household.
The bottom line is that we have entered an age when local communities need to invest in themselves. Federal and state dollars are becoming more and more scarce for American cities. Political and civic leaders in local communities need to make a compelling case for this investment.
I don't like it when people say, 'You're 45, so you should be wearing X and never Y.' For me, dressing is about attitude, not age.
When I was a young boy, I preferred cats to dogs. From the age of seven or eight onwards I just felt more comfortable with cats. And I felt more comfortable with girls, I didn't really like hanging out with guys. When I was about ten or eleven, I was friendlier with the girls in my school than with the guys.
Cyrus was observed to have more docility than any of his years and to show more submission to those of an advanced age than any other children, though of a condition inferior to his own.