Midlife Crisis Quotes

Bad things happen in life, but we must learn to deal with them and move on ~ Sid Mittra

Encased in an elaborate illusion of unlimited power and progress, each of us subscribes, at least until one's midlife crisis, to the belief that existence consists of an eternal, upward spiral of achievement, dependent on will alone.
This comforting illusion may be shattered by some urgent irreversible experience ... None more potently confronts us with finiteness and contingency than the imminence of our own death. ~ Irvin D. Yalom

Adam and Eve had their midlife Crisis when they realized that they were older than sin! ~ Jonathan Edward Caldwell

You know, let a few years go by until I hit my midlife crisis. Then that can be documented on film. ~ Claire Danes

I figure if Doc is right about the time I have left,I should wrap up my adolescence in the next few days, get into my early productive stages about the third week of school, go through my midlife crisis during Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, redouble my efforts at productivity and think about my legacy, say, Easter, and start cashing in my 401(k)s a couple weeks before Memorial Day. ~ Chris Crutcher

Perhaps this is the solution to medicine's midlife crisis, too: doctors focusing on their noble craft, their relationships with patients, the stuff over which we have some control. Ultimately, this may be the best hope for our professional salvation. ~ Sandeep Jauhar

You look like you're having a midlife crisis."
"It's not a midlife crisis. It's just a life crisis. ~ Alice Oseman

Most men bought a flashy sports car, had an affair or hooked up with a girl barely out of school in their midlife crisis. Apparently he did bizarre things like fall in love and throw away a multimillion-dollar deal. ~ Maya Banks

I'd say imagine that you wake up one morning when you're going through a midlife crisis. You're getting divorced. Your kids won't speak to you. Their faces are covered with acne, and you have to decide why you should get out of bed. That's the career you should pick. The one that keeps you going no matter what, even if your life is falling apart. That's how I feel about my career. ~ Henry Louis Gates

You know that you have officially HIT at total midlife crisis when you get acne on your wrinkles. ~ Tanya Masse

Havin lunch and debatin Ferrari prices. 23 and goin through a midlife crisis. ~ Drake

Semiotic was the form Zipperstein`s midlife crisis had taken... Instead of buying sports car, he'd bought deconstrution. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

To come across as younger than they are: Women buy creams that promise to slow aging; men buy fast cars. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Are you having a midlife crisis?"

"You'll be having an end of life crisis if you say that again," he threatened. ~ Nicole Castle

Midlife crisis begins sometime in your 40s, when you look at your life and think, 'Is this all?' And it ends about 10 years later, when you look at your life again and think, 'Actually, this is pretty good.' ~ Donald Richie

Spiritual crises happen to us every day. Most of them are sufficiently low grade, devoid of enduring consequences, so we pay no attention and keep on rolling. A spiritual crisis occurs when our identity, our roles, our values, or our road map are substantially called into question, prove ineffective, or are overwhelmed by experience that cannot be contained by our understandings of self and world. ~ James Hollis

If you're in the midst of a midlife crisis, you could buy a convertible, have an affair, or upgrade your cup size. But you'll probably be happiest if you save a dog's life. ~ Jen Lancaster

There is a Western phenomenon called the male midlife crisis. Very often it is heralded by divorce. What history might have done to you, you bring about on purpose: separation from woman and child. Don't tell me that such men aren't tasting the ancient flavors of death and defeat.
In America, with divorce achieved, the midlifer can expect to be more recreational, more discretionary. He can almost design the sort of crisis he is going to have: motorbike, teenage girlfriend, vegetarianism, jogging, sports car, mature boyfriend, cocaine, crash diet, powerboat, new baby, religion, hair transplant.
Over here, now, there's no angling around for your male midlife crisis. It is brought to you and it is always the same thing. It is death. ~ Martin Amis

The sequence is suffering, insight, will, action, change. ~ Allen Wheelis

A man in the midst of a midlife crisis is an abomination on society. [This is my own quote. And it's true.] ~ Ross Bonander

Women's liberation and the male midlife crisis were the same search
for personal fulfillment, common values, mutual respect, love. But while women's liberation was thought of as promoting identity, the male midlife crisis was thought of as an identity crisis. ~ Warren Farrell

People who aren't addicts want to know why I became one. They ask whether I had a midlife crisis. I'm only speaking for myself now, but I've stopped asking why and how. It's all about surrender and acceptance. It doesn't matter why I am an addict. ~ Kevin Sessums

I don't believe the United States is going through a midlife crisis. The United States is going through an adolescent crisis. ~ Marianne Williamson

The midlife crisis you're having at 30 is indulgent, but the midlife crisis you have at 45 is to an extent thrust upon you. ~ Moby

While the Dark Night of the Soul is a process of death, the Spiritual Awakening Process is the rebirth. ~ Mateo Sol

All three are hip-deep in midlife, when the eyes go and the waistline spreads and the city on the hill that shone so brightly in youth turns out to be more like a semi-incorporated town in the middle of a garbage strike. An age when a person can feel not so much himself as an inexplicably inferior version of himself. ~ Mary McNamara

But what the measured prose of psychiatrists and the carefully calculated statistics of social scientists rarely capture is the experience of inner struggle. These "significant changes" do not occur automatically. In fact, they must often fight against our resistance. In this sense, midlife is a drama more worthy of a playwright than a scholar. We are characters in the play, caught at the opening of the second act, and we do not know what will happen next. ~ Mark Gerzon

Was he hitting some type of werewolf midlife crisis? First, he'd left Wolf Town, and now he was envisioning a mate. What next? Bird watching? Board games? Retirement homes? ~ Rose Wynters

I turned fifty and decided to take a break. After twenty-five years of working, it seemed like a good idea. Honestly, I was feeling depleted. I still cared about my career and realized, amid a worsening economic climate, that I was lucky to have one. But that appreciation felt more lodged in my head than my heart. One day, United Airlines sent me a card, along with some new luggage tags, offering congratulations on having flown 2 million miles. Quick arithmetic translated all those zeroes into the equivalent of flying from one side of the country to the other every single day - Sundays, holidays, birthdays, sick or well - for more than two years. Maybe the card from United should have offered condolences. It all added up to an abiding fatigue. And a question: Did I want to fly 2 million more miles over the next twenty-five years of my life? Was I having a low-grade midlife crisis? I had no red sports car, reckless affair, ~ Marc Freedman

Could I be having a midlife crisis? Ahead of schedule. God, I'd just turned thirty-four. How batty would I be by fourty? ~ Noreen Wald

From Oleg Cassini's memoirs... I learned that Cassini had also suffered from insomnia. One night, he woke from uneasy dreams with the opening of Dante's Inferno setting off 'a clamorous tumult in [his] subconscious: "Midway the journey of our life, I found myself in a dark forest."' When I read these terrible words, chills ran up my arms. I knew 'midway the journey' was supposed to mean midlife crisis. But it seemed to me one had always been midway the journey of our life, and would be maybe right up until the moment of death. ~ Elif Batuman

My generation is having its midlife crisis in its 20s. ~ Edward Norton

Udden attack of culture snobbery is a common affliction among policemen of a certain rank and age; it's like a normal midlife crisis only with more chandeliers and foreign languages. ~ Ben Aaronovitch

The meaning of the midlife affair is the imperative to go back and pick up what was left behind in one's development. Since what was undeveloped agitates from below consciousness, it is still unknown. ~ James Hollis

I'm 51. So I'm just saying, 30 years from now you're going to have a different outlook. That's what a midlife crisis is. ~ Kelly Reichardt

If you wish to succeed, you must believe in yourself and look at everything positively ~ Sid Mittra

what was rational about a midlife crisis? Weren't they always a little absurd? They were beginning the next phase of their lives together. She was not afraid of it. Let it come, she thought. He'll be in good hands. ~ Matthew Thomas

My career started young and I was really ambitious, and then I had success and I hung out with people who were much older. I think I might have been temporally misplaced, so I thought I was 40. It was a premature midlife crisis. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Men are much simpler mechanisms than women. Nothing changes them ... even when they have a midlife crisis, they do it in a mindless way ... that's why I think we should let men go off and have affairs and drive fast cars and dream of being virile - and we should run the world. ~ Goldie Hawn

I found myself thinking a lot about my own spirituality. What it means to be Jewish, what it means to forgive, what it means to sacrifice, but mostly what it means to be alive, how to be a better person, how not to make the mistakes my parents had made. I guess that's what one might typically call a midlife crisis. ~ Tod Goldberg

I'm in politics to change things - if possible, for the better. I was a journalist for a long time, but I had a kind of midlife crisis, and I decided I needed to do something to get on the pitch and stop endlessly kicking over other peoples' sandcastles. ~ Boris Johnson

Forget the midlife crisis," I say. "It's all about the sixth-life crisis. ~ Ned Vizzini

You are trapped by nothing more than a poor attitude ~ Sid Mittra

It's kind of like a midlife crisis kind of thing. When you turn 40, you have to run the marathon, while all the parts still work properly. ~ Joe Bastianich

On my fortieth birthday, rather than merely bore my friends by having anything as mundane as a midlife crisis I decided it might be more interesting to actually terrify them by going completely mad and declaring myself to be a magician. ~ Alan Moore

There was a time in my 40s where I thought, oh, it's all over - not just work, but I'm never going to feel young again, I'm always going to feel like I know what's going to happen, I'll know what to expect. Looking back I don't know if that was a midlife crisis, I don't know - but I don't feel that now. There's possibilities. It gets better. ~ Paul Weller

Hollywood actresses age in dog years. I'm 25 in the rest of the world, but I'm about 48 in actress years. I'm just around the corner from my midlife crisis. ~ Amber Heard

Are you having a midlife crisis?" Miriam asked.
"I'm eighteen."
"I know. But you've always been advanced. ~ J.C. Geiger

The place has had a super-conflicted relationship to its mission. In 1956, it opened as the Museum of Contemporary Crafts. Then in 1986 it had a midlife crisis and changed its name to the American Craft Museum. Then in 2002 the name changed again, this time to the Museum of Arts and Design. Maybe in 2025 the place will be called the Designatorium. The big problem with a museum of craft and design is that all art has craft and design. ~ Jerry Saltz

Thinking of only the worse of yourself will eventually destroy you ~ Sid Mittra

In my early fifties, I was going through a phase where few things felt right and I was trying to figure out those that did. It was not uncommon. In your twenties, you pursue your dreams. By your late thirties and early forties, you hit a certain stride. Then you hit your fifties, you get your first annoying thoughts of mortality, you begin more serious questioning of not just the meaning of your life but of what's working, what's not working, and what you still want, and all of a sudden you don't know which way is up. You thought you knew but don't. You just want to get to where life feels okay again. ~ Dick Van Dyke

There are no atheists in foxholes, they say, and I was a foxhole atheist for a long time. But after going through a midlife crisis and having many things change very quickly, it made me realize my mortality. And when you start to think about death, you start to think about what's after it. And then you start hoping there is a God. ~ Peter Steele

You know you've officially hit a midlife crisis when you finally start feeling like you have your life together and your body starts falling apart! ~ Tanya Masse

Change is superficial. Transformation is deep. It alters our perception of reality and therefore causes everything in our life to shift. Transformation is what happens when we live our life rather than analyze it. ~ Frank Natale

Neurotic suffering indicates inner conflict. Each side of the conflict is likely to be a composite of many partial forces, each one of which has been structured into behavior, attitude, perception, value. Each component asserts itself, claims priority, insists that something else yield, accommodates. The conflict therefore is fixed, stubborn, enduring. It may be impugned and dismissed without effect, imprecations and remorse are of no avail, strenuous acts of will may be futile; it causes - yet survives and continues to cause - the most intense suffering, humiliation, rending of flesh.
Such a conflict is not to be uprooted or excised. It is not an ailment, it is the patient himself. The suffering will not disappear without a change in the conflict, and a change in the conflict amounts to a change in what one is and how one lives, feels, reacts. ~ Allen Wheelis

People may indeed be treated as objects and may be profoundly affected thereby. Kick a dog often enough and he will become cowardly or vicious. People who are kicked undergo similar changes; their view of the world and of themselves is transformed ... People may indeed be brainwashed, for benign or exploitative reasons ...
If one's destiny is shaped by manipulation one has become more of an object, less of a subject, has lost freedom ...
If, however, one's destiny is shaped from within then one has become more of a creator, has gained freedom. This is self-transcendence, a process of change that originates in one's heart and expands outward ... begins with a vision of freedom, with an "I want to become ... ", with a sense of the potentiality to become what one is not. One gropes toward this vision in the dark, with no guide, no map, and no guarantee. Here one acts as subject, author, creator. ~ Allen Wheelis

It's not that other people seduce us. It's that we so desperately crave the destruction of our own lives. ~ Katerina Stoykova-Klemer

Everything I read about hitting a midlife crisis was true. I had such a struggle letting go of youthful things and learning how to exist and have enthusiasm while settling into the comfort of an older age. ~ David Bowie

Are you turning into a cougar? Is this some sort of midlife crisis I need to be concerned about? ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

I've been having a midlife crisis since I was four years old. ~ Moby

Don't waste time worrying about work/life balance, or looking for your best self, sham "secrets" or any other snake oil being pushed by sloppy hippies who have never built a business, let alone a bankroll, or you will wake up 20 years from now poor, pissed off and primed for a midlife crisis. ~ Ari Gold

If we realize that the assumptions by which the person has lived his or her life are collapsing, that the assembled strategies of the provisional personality are decompensating, that a world-view is falling apart, than the thrashing about is understandable. In fact, one might even conclude that there is no such thing as a crazy act if one understands the emotional context. Emotions are not chosen they choose us and have a logic of their own. ~ James Hollis

Simply thinking creatively is not the same as being innovative, and only those who risk breaking out of their comfort zone by putting thought into action will discover the profusion of opportunity that exists. ~ Michael Lum

MIDLIFE is that pivotal moment when you can FINALLY say that you basically have all your shit together and then your body starts falling apart! ~ Tanya Masse

Turn your midlife crisis to your own advantage by making it a time for renewal of your body and mind, rather than stand by helplessly and watch them decline. ~ Jane Brody

During my completely soul-shredding midlife crisis at the age of twenty-eight, I felt sure I had peaked too soon. ~ Jennifer Harrison

We must examine what we envy or dislike in others and acknowledge those very things in ourselves. This helps to prevent our blaming or envying others for what we have not done ourselves. ~ James Hollis

I've known plenty of couples who choose to ignore budding problems or dissatisfactions because it's easier in the moment. But too much of that for long enough, and you all of a sudden have a huge problem on your hands, or a midlife crisis, or a broken marriage. ~ Fawn Weaver

Midlife crisis, it turns out, is much less about a loss of flesh and far more about a loss of innocence, the stripping-away of the illusion of choice and order. ~ Steve Ochs

You really must stop acting
Like a 20-year-old, gold plated
In a midlife crisis
You just graduated
Happy 60th ~ John Walter Bratton

In the second half of life, our old compasses no longer work. The magnetic fields alter. The new compass that we need cannot be held in our hand, only in our heart. We read it not with our mind alone, but with our soul.

Now we yearn for wholeness. We yearn to remember the parts of ourselves that we have forgotten, to nourish those that we have starved, to express those we have silenced, and to bring into the light those we have cast into the shadows. On this quest for wholeness, we must let go of cliches of adult life, both positive and negative . . . Using the best information available , each of us must find his own way.

To varying degrees, all of us are trying to break out of . . . the "life structure" that we have built during the first part of our lives. ~ Mark Gerzon

Middle age is not the beginning of decline, but a time to reach for the highest in our selves. Middle age is a pause to re-examine what we have done and what we will do in the future. This is the time to give birth to our power. ~ Frank Natale

their own grandchildren. Parents like Kate's are so intent on protecting their kids from their brand of the midlife crisis - their regret over settling down too soon - that these parents fail to see an entirely new midlife crisis is afoot. The postmillennial midlife crisis is figuring out that while we were busy making ~ Meg Jay

Sooner or later comes a crisis in our affairs, and how we meet it determines our future happiness and success. Since the beginning of time, every form of life has been called upon to meet such crisis. ~ Robert Collier

I don't feel brave. I feel like a galloping idiot, stumbling from crisis to crisis, barely able to speak to any normal person ~ Jordan Sonnenblick

There is a crisis in America. That crisis is divorce. It is easier to get out of a marriage than (to get out of a) contract to buy a used car. ~ Mike Huckabee

Data that did not fit the commonly accepted assumptions of a discipline would either be discounted or explained away for as long as possible. The more contradictions accumulated, the more convoluted the rationalizations became. 'In science, as in the playing card experiment, novelty emerges only with difficulty,' Kuhn wrote. But then, finally, someone came along who was willing to call a red spade a red spade. Crisis led to insight, and the old framework gave way to a new one. This is how great scientific discoveries or, to use the term Kuhn made so popular, 'paradigm shifts' took place. ~ Elizabeth Kolbert

We're in luck… they have 5-Hour Energy."
"What's that?"
"Energy shots… never heard of it?"
"…one of those bullshit herbal supplements?"
"Not bullshit… remember how when we did plays at the Mass we'd pound a ton of high-caffeine soda?"
"Of course…"
"Fifty times better… trust me; I've tried everything on the market."
"Shame they won't be around to see the profit windfall… if we make it through this, you can be their spokesperson… 'When I'm trying to ward off the pangs of sleep in the midst of a Zombie crisis, I turn to 5-Hour Energy… ~ Bryan Way

I always tell people there's nothing greater than a crisis to create a breakthrough. Because that's when we breakthrough usually - most people don't proactively breakthrough - they breakthrough because they have to. And the beauty of crisis is it doesn't feel beautiful, is it melts us down. And when you're melted down you can recast your life in a new way. ~ Tony Robbins

Why should a change of paradigm be called a revolution? In the face of the vast and essential differences between political and scientific development, what parallelism can justify the metaphor that finds revolutions in both?

One aspect of the parallelism must already be apparent. Political revolutions are inaugurated by a growing sense, often restricted to a segment of the political community, that existing institutions have ceased adequately to meet the problems posed by an environment that they have in part created. In much the same way, scientific revolutions are inaugurated by a growing sense, again often restricted to a narrow subdivision of the scientific community, that an existing paradigm has ceased to function adequately in the exploration of an aspect of nature to which that paradigm itself had previously led the way. In both political and scientific development the sense of malfunction that can lead to crisis is prerequisite to revolution. ~ Thomas S. Kuhn

asking small questions to dispel fear and inspire creativity thinking small thoughts to develop new skills and habits - without moving a muscle taking small actions that guarantee success solving small problems, even when you're faced with an overwhelming crisis bestowing small rewards to yourself or others to produce the best results recognizing the small but crucial moments that everyone else ignores ~ Robert Maurer

I saw the government really using the excuse of a weak economy and a financial crisis to create more government and to push onto the American entrepreneurial society more and more restraints and government activity. ~ Rob Portman

The frequency of divorce is extremely high after airplane hijackings. They're like crisis situations where suddenly you see a side of your partner that makes you think, "I don't want to continue living with this person anymore." ~ Ruben Ostlund

In moments of spiritual crisis we naturally fall back upon what worked for us, or seemed to work, heretofore. Sometimes this shows up through the reassertion of our old values in belligerent, testy ways. Regression of any kind is just such a return to old presumptions, often after they have been shown to be insufficient for the complexity of larger questions. The virtue of the old presumptions is that they once worked, or seemed to work, and therein lies if not certainty, then nostalgia for a previous, presumptive security. In our private lives, we frequently fall back upon our old roles. ~ James Hollis

I'm not studying the heroes who lead navies - and armies - and win wars. I'm studying ordinary people who you wouldn't expect to be heroic, but who, when there's a crisis, show extraordinary bravery and self-sacrifice. Like Jenna Geidel, who gave her life vaccinating people during the Pandemic. And the fishermen and retired boat owners and weekend sailors who rescued the British Army from Dunkirk. And Wells Crowther, the twenty-four-year-old equities trader who worked in the World Trade Center. When it was hit by terrorists, he could have gotten out, but instead he went back and saved ten people, and died. I'm going to observe six different sets of heroes in six different situations to try to determine what qualities they have in common. ~ Connie Willis

Really, people are not a school of fish. Finding the leaders of the future is a question of recognizing those people who give leadership in a crisis. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

Where are you going to put the other one?" asked Daniella.
"Wherever you like," said Ms. Terwilliger. "I can't take him with me. The guards saw me come in with one cat. They'll see me leave with one."
"What?" My mother-in-law's voice came out extra shrill to my ears. "That creature's staying?" It figured. Her daughter-in-law transforming into an animal? No problem. Having to take care of a cat? Crisis. ~ Richelle Mead

An attribute of Rosa Hubermann, she was a good woman for a crisis. ~ Markus Zusak

The American people are fed up ... with political posturing.' True, but also an example of political posturing. ~ James Taranto

Although we amplify our cognitive degree of awareness and enhance our appreciation for life experiences by maturing, it also brings us death. Facing a certain death forces a person to examine the worthiness of continuing to live. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

What the world calls sanity has led us to the present planetary crisis ... and insanity is the only viable alternative. ~ Robert Anton Wilson

What doesn't kill you can be ignored until the immediate crisis has passed. ~ Andrea Speed

It is the lord's duty to his domain to provide adequate defense for his folk during a time of war or crisis. ~ Terry Mancour

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer. ~ Abraham Lincoln

A lot of people would say, to be truthful is to tell all, every dalliance, every crisis. They might be right on paper, but in practice, it's not a great way to go. ~ Adam Carolla

Our state is in crisis. Our people are hurting. Now is the time when we all must resist the traditional, selfish call to protect your own turf at the cost of our state. It is time to leave the corner, join the sacrifice, come to the center of the room and be part of the solution. ~ Chris Christie

It had been bright day, for hours, when Oliver opened his eyes; he felt cheerful and happy. The crisis of the disease was safely past. He belonged to the world again. ~ Charles Dickens

He sits in his tomb up top of the Newport hotel. It contains a crunchy armchair, a floppy bed, several arrogant spiders, a mattress with stains the shapes of planets and an existential crisis. But he wouldn't want to sound too French about it. ~ Kevin Barry

I was in New York City for September 11th, and I was there for the 2003 blackout. I think in hindsight, you get a real perspective as to how unique those moments of crisis are in a place like New York City. ~ Casey Neistat

Travelling, he'd always thought, was where he'd meet his other self. Somewhere in a foreign place, he would bump into the bit of himself which was lost. ~ Monique Roffey