We are an online community made by and for women over 40. We celebrate beauty with a positive outlook on aging. These 15 amazing women embody everything we stand for, especially their thoughts on the journey of aging.
Diane Keaton
It is commonly thought that time is the particular enemy of women. Because we supposedly have so much to lose: our ‘looks’, our fertility, our cultural capital… But there are other ways of looking at it. That women have timepieces built into their bodies – ‘primarily biological clocks’ and the menopause – signs that must eventually be heeded, signs that are, finally, impossible to ignore, seems to me as much a gift as a curse…It strikes me that one consequence of this bodily awareness of time is that adulthood – with all its complex responsibilities and demands – often seems to come as less of a surprise to women than it does to men (there’s a reason our folk tales are full of ‘wise old women’).
Yoko Ono
Fifty was a shock, because it was the end of the center period of life. But once I got over that, 60 was great. Seventy was great. And I loved, I seriously loved aging. I found myself thinking things like: ‘I don’t want anything I don’t have.’…80 is about mortality, not aging. Or not just aging.
Whoopi Goldberg
I am convinced that most people do not grow up … We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias.
Maya Angelou
You have to keep yourself youthful. And I don’t mean looking 22 and going to plastic surgery and looking like a caricature of yourself, a stranger that nobody recognizes so that you can’t even get a table at a restaurant because you really don’t look like Stevie Nicks anymore. I wear the right clothes, age-appropriate clothes. But I can still do some of the things I could do when I was really young and pull it off as a 65-year-old chick … But when I’m 90 years old and sitting in a gloriously beautiful beach house somewhere on this planet with five or six Chinese Crested Yorkies, surrounded by all my goddaughters who will at that point be middle-aged, I’ll be just as happy.
Cate Blanchett
I haven’t done any [cosmetic surgery], but who knows … When you’ve had children, your body changes; there’s history to it. I like the evolution of that history; I’m fortunate to be with somebody who likes the evolution of that history. I think it’s important to not eradicate it. I look at someone’s face and I see the work before I see the person. I personally don’t think people look better when they do it; they just look different … And if you’re doing it out of fear, that fear’s still going to be seen through your eyes.
Diane von Furstenberg
There is a saying that with age, you look outside what you are inside. If you are someone who never smiles your face gets saggy. If you’re a person who smiles a lot, you will have more smile lines. Your wrinkles reflect the roads you have taken; they form the map of your life.
Isabella Rossellini
In interviews, the first question I get in America is always: ‘What do you do to stay young?’ I do nothing. I don’t think aging is a problem. What irritates me a little is growing fatter. It irritates me that if I eat what I want to eat, it shows. Yes, my face has wrinkles. But I don’t find it monstrous. I’m so surprised that the emphasis on aging here is on physical decay when aging brings such incredible freedom. Now what I want most is laughs. I don’t want to hurt anybody by laughing — there is no meanness to it. I just want to laugh.
Iris Apfel
Aging gracefully is about no heavy makeup, and not too much powder because it gets into the wrinkles, and you know, to not get turtle eyelids, and to not try to look young. You don’t have to look like an old fuddy-duddy, but I believe it was Chanel who said, ‘Nothing makes a woman look so old as trying desperately hard to look young’. I think you can be attractive at any age. I think trying to look like a spring chicken when you’re not makes you look ridiculous.
Helen Mirren
The best thing about being over 70 is being over 70. Certainly, when I was 45, the idea of being 70 was like, ‘Arghhh!’ But you only have two options in life: Die young or get old. There is nothing else. The idea of dying young when you’re 25 is kind of cool — a bit romantic, like James Dean. But then you realize that life is too much fun to do that. It’s fascinating and wonderful and emotional. So you just have to find a way of negotiating getting old psychologically and physically.
Sharon Stone
You have to sit down and take a good look at yourself, particularly as you grow older and your face changes. People are afraid of changing; that they’re losing something. They don’t understand that they are also gaining something … As I lost the fullness in my face, I got in these great cheekbones. I can’t tell you how many doctors try to sell me a facelift. I’ve even gone as far as having someone talk me into it, but when I went over and looked at pictures of myself, I thought, What are they going to lift? Yes, I have come close — but, frankly, I think that in the art of aging well there’s this sexuality to having those imperfections. It’s sensual.
Emma Thompson
If you look after yourself and you’re healthy, then you’ll have the energy to do things. But not to recognize getting older for what it is? I do think the infantilization of our generation is one of the huge issues of our time. People wanting to be 35 when they’re 50 makes me think: Why? Why don’t you be 50 and be good at that? And also embody the kinds of choices that are sustainable at that age.
Sigourney Weaver
When you’re young, there’s so much now that you can’t take it in. It’s pouring over you like a waterfall. When you’re older, it’s less intense, but you’re able to reach out and drink it. I love being older.
Naomi Wolf
The exhausting effort to control time by altering the effects of age doesn’t bring happiness.
Jodie Foster
Listen, the best advice on aging is this: What’s the alternative? The alternative, of course, is death. And that’s a lot of shit to deal with. So I’m happy to deal with menopause. I’ll take it.
