Quote of the day

"The forties is the first decade we try to recapture our youth, for it is the first decade we are sure it has gone".

Author and Observer journalist Simon Garfield, writing for a feature entitled "The time of our lives".

Links to reflections on other decades of life are at the bottom of the article. What with something of a milestone birthday looming increasingly large on the horizon, the pull-out quote from Gaby Wood's piece on the thirties particularly hit home - "Oh dear, the days of 'potential' are over"...