Three Score & Ten

I was sixteen then…and sometimes I act like I’m about thirteen. It’s really ironical because I’m six-foot-two-and-a-half and I have grey hair. I really do. The one side of my head – the right side – is full of millions of grey hairs. I’ve had them ever since I was a kid. And yet I still act sometimes like I was only about twelve. Everybody says that, especially my father. It’s partly true, too, but it isn’t all true. People always think something’s all true. I don’t give a damn, except that I get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am – I really do – but people never notice it. People never notice anything.

 J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

‘Do you skate?’ Mrs Heccomb said suddenly.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know how to.’

Mrs Heccomb relieved, said: ‘Perhaps that is just as well. You need not go to the rink. Are you fond of reading?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘You are quite right,’ said Mrs Heccomb, ‘there is plenty of time to read when you are older, like I am. At one time, Anna read too much. Fortunately she loved gaiety, too: she always had so many invitations. In fact, she still enjoys herself like a young girl. How old are you, Portia, if I may ask?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘That makes such a difference,’ said Mrs Heccomb. ‘I mean, it’s not as though you were eighteen.’

‘I do quite enjoy myself, even now.’

‘Oh yes, I’m sure you do,’ said Mrs Heccomb.

Elizabeth Bowen, Death of the Heart