It is at moments of such quiet consciousness that it is important to come face-to-face with what it means to age, to be older, to be old, to become an elder in society. It is important that age be no impediment to the magnet for life in us. But life is not about breathing only. Life is about becoming more than we are, about being all that we can be. Whatever we are doing, however old we are, wherever we fall on the social-economic scale.
— Joan Chittister, The Gift of Years