Things were different when I was growing up.

It was a very difficult time

Getting old is fun when you're young. But getting old isn't so much fun when you're old.

What I have suffered you cannot imagine. But what I'm going through [circa 1878] now is even worse, much more so than when I was young.. ..because now I feel as if I have no future. Even so, if I had to do it again, I still think I wouldn't hesitate.

I remember, when I was young, How easily my mood changed from sad to gay. ... But now that age comes, A moment of joy is harder and harder to get.

If I had to speak about anything that was difficult in my life now looking back at it, I would say the most difficult part was how the world made you feel about being poor, about being a girl. And, later, how painful it was navigating the world as a young woman. A lot of times I found myself in disastrous situations because I was such an innocent/idiot. It left me damaged as a human being for decades. I think having been beautiful was a cross, and I’m grateful I’m no longer young and no longer beautiful in that same way.

When I was a little bit younger The strain I was under could make me cry. Now I’m a little bit older, A little bit bolder, Never so shy

The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.

I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year.
Scout

We were accused of having been doomstruck the other day. And in a way we should be, why shouldn't we be? Things are rotten. I'm sixty-one and three-quarters years old and I've seen terrible times during the Depression, and I do think the life of the people was worse during the McCarthy period. I just want to throw that in extra. That is to say the everyday life, the fearful life, of Americans was harder in that time than this. But the objective facts of world events right now are worse than at any other time. And we all know that, we can't deny it, and it's also true that it's very hard to look in the faces of our children, and terrifying to look into the faces of our grandchildren. And I cannot look at my granddaughter's face, really, without shading my eyes a little bit and saying, "Well, listen, Grandma's not going to let that happen." But we have to face it, and they have to face it, just as we had to face what was much less frightening.

Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

In youth, we run into difficulties. In old age, difficulties run into us.

It's terrible to be young. It's terrible.

The problem I see for younger activists is that today it’s harder to get a good job. It’s harder to make the money you need. I mean, we lived so simply. I watch my students and the tuition is so much higher and they’re working two or three jobs trying to support themselves. I think it is harder for people to have the time to be able to do the kinds of work we did, just because we didn’t have as many other demands on us as people who are of college age and a little bit older do.