I had always said to myself that forty was the cut off point of my apprenticeship which may for some people sound like a very long one, but the novel as art is a middle-aged art.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Forty is brilliant and I love it. I'm happier now than when I was 20.
Forty is when you actually begin even deserving to be on stage telling people what you think.
Forty is the line of demarcation that says you're an adult now. You're an adult, so don't pretend you're a kid anymore.
Now, I don't actually know the exact cut-off age where beautiful ceases and 'must have-once-been-beautiful' begins. It's true it's not forty-five. I can still get attention when I try really hard, even if it's greatly reduced.
The lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate twenty-five-year-old men more.
I decided at 40 I was wasting entire chunks of my brain and didn't want to blow my one chance on Earth. I'm glad I made that decision. Writing is largely about time, while visual art is largely about space. Sometimes, as with film, you can hybridize, but I think it's basically the space part of my brain wanting equal footing with the time part.
One tends to overlook the fact that all during the 30's and actually during the late 40's I was a highly successful writer and a great many properties accumulated during that period of time.
Forty is the old age of youth, fifty is the youth of old age.
The whole concept behind 'Forty Chances' is really a mindset: If everybody thought they had to put themselves out of business in 40 years, you had 40 chances to succeed in what your primary goals are, you would probably be more urgent and you would be forced to change quicker.
Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age.