What scares you about getting older?

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Recorded Mark Steel said elsewhere, not written here
Younger people being amazed that I know what song they’re listening to.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 February 2025 source ↗

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Warren Buffett Chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, 1970–2025
I go in every day to the office. I don't accomplish hardly anything. I mean, in terms of – it just takes me way longer to do things. And Greg is so good. It was kind of embarrassing how good he is, because he has covered – you know, we've got about 200 businesses within Berkshire, you know, that came about, and I can't name the manager's names or their wives names, or – and I haven't seen them, you know, in a long time. It's easier just to write the letter once a year and kind of do my own thing. Greg covers more ground in a day than I would in a week, even when I was at my peak, let alone my present condition.
Recorded Becky Quick, CNBC “Squawk Box”, recorded in Omaha; CNBC's own transcript of its own broadcast, 31 March 2026 source ↗
When my father was in his terminal year, I discussed death with him. I recall very clearly his relief that the cancer that was taking him was at least allowing him "all his marbles". Dementia in its varied forms is not like cancer. Dad saw the cancer in his pancreas as an invader. But Alzheimer's is me, unwinding, losing trust in myself, a butt of my own jokes and on bad days capable of playing hunt the slipper by myself and losing. You can't battle it, you can't be a plucky "survivor". It steals you from yourself. And I'm 60; that's supposed to be the new 40.
Recorded Written for the Alzheimer's Society in 2008; reprinted by the Observer in the week of his death, The Guardian, 2008 source ↗
Diana Athill Editor and memoirist
I saw them recently on their morning walk, and they caused me a pang. I have always wanted a pug and now I can't have one, because buying a puppy when you are too old to take it for walks is unfair. There are dog-walkers, of course; but the best part of owning a dog is walking with it, enjoying its delight when it detects the signs that a walk is imminent, and its glee when its lead is unsnapped and it can bound off over the grass, casting cheerful looks back at you from time to time to make sure that you are still in touch.
Recorded NPR, 14 December 2009 source ↗

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