The question

What scares you about getting older?

Originally asked

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Kurt Vonnegut

Novelist and essayist

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
Yes, well, that’s the reason that I don’t want to be in New York any longer. I don’t want to go to parties any more. There are no familiar faces anymore. You know, you go to a party and you hone in on the couple people you know. There are none of those people for me at parties any more. I’ve lost my sister, my brother, my editor, my publisher. It’s a whole generation gone by. Old war buddies of mine, my colleagues, my family.

J. Rentilly, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, 17 September 2002 source ↗

Others on this question

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Erin Doherty
I am genuinely buzzed about it! I think we just keep getting better, smarter, wiser, truer, happier.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 March 2025 source ↗
Neil Gaiman Author of fiction, comics and screenplays
Mostly the pain. I don’t want to be trapped in a body that hurts.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 October 2023 source ↗

More from Kurt Vonnegut

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Question What did you want to be when you were growing up? Identity & self
I was going to be a journalist. But after the war I studied anthropology, just in order to become educated. I thought it was worth knowing the science of man. I still intended to become a journalist, but there were no jobs, because the reporters who had gone to war were coming back and were entitled to their jobs, and the women who had replaced them were damned if they’d leave, and they shouldn’t have left.
Recorded Frank Houston, Salon, 8 October 1999 source ↗

More on time & hindsight

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