The hardest part of ageing is not always time. Sometimes it is losing the quiet proof that somebody still needs your judgement.

Retirement does not remove judgement. It merely removes the meetings where people were forced to listen to it.

A small social ambush in a barber's chair, and the retired man's answer that sounded too small.

The awkward money anxiety of later life is not always visible from the pavement.

The room was tidy because older people had stayed behind.

A machine asked me to prove I was alive.

The difficult thing is that retirement ends the demand before it ends the ability.