It is time for us to let go of both our fantasies of eternal youth and our fears of getting older, and to find the beauty of what it means to age well. It is time to understand that the last phase of life is not non-life; it is a new stage of life. These older years — reasonably active, mentally alert, experienced and curious, socially important and spiritually significant — are meant to be good years.
— Joan Chittister, The Gift of Years