We Are Fortunate Enough to Be Over 70

Interviews with prominent figures about what they’ve learned

Youth is considered a virtue in a world constantly searching for the new and the next, so the perspectives of older people—even very famous ones—are often overlooked. It turns out that when you ask them, they have a lot to share. On Pineapple Street Media’s podcast 70 Over 70, conversations focus not on death or the pains of old age, but on “making the most of the time we’ve got left.” Producer and director Norman Lear says he feels as creative as ever at age ninety-nine because he lives in the moment; poet and activist Nikki Giovanni says that at seventy-seven, her role in social justice movements is to provide support, not lead marches. These are just a few of the Year in Search team’s favorite quotes from the show; listen to the full interviews at pineapple.fm/70-over-70.

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Dr. Michio Kaku, 74

I think it’s good to be pissed off because you want a better world and you’re not satisfied with the world as it is. First, you have to recognize the problems of the old world and then lay out an agenda for the next world. For every negative, there has to be someone with a positive program. I mean, what’s your solution? What’s your policy? What’s the answer? That’s what people want to hear.

André De Shields, 75

Every time you get up in the morning, your ego is standing at your bed like this, “Why are you thinking of getting out of bed? Ain’t nothing for you to do. You think you deserve something in this world?… You’re too tall. You’re too short. You’re too fat. You’re too skinny. You’re too Black. You’re too white. You’re not worthy.” The ego is a virus, and there is no inoculation against it; however, it does have an opponent that can take it down. And that is the small voice that lives at the core of our being. And by small, I don’t mean ineffectual. Because it tells us only the truth. It is on us to get rid of the distractions and hear what the voice is telling us.

Joycelyn Elders, 88

My mom says, “Always speak the truth.” She said, “The day you see the truth and cease to speak, is the day you begin to die.” And everybody knows I’m going to live a long time.… I want everybody to know I have no regrets. I want them to know that I did the very best I knew how. And I was always trying to do the right thing in regard to gender, sexual health, HIV/AIDS, and if I had it all to do over again, knowing that I would get fired, I would do it the same way. I did it right the first time.

Raffi, 73

What our human essence is all about is love, of course. And these days I’ve been calling it infinite love because if you think about it, we are born with it. We are innately filled with infinite love. And then we get to play that love out as we grow and as we age. That’s who we are. The whole idea is to grow into the person who actively feels that infinite love and can wield it respectfully to both self and others.

Norman Lear, 99

I believe there are two little words that we don't pay enough attention to. They are “over” and “next.” When something is over, it's over, and we're on to next. If there was a hammock in the middle of those two words, that would be the best description I could find of living in the moment. That moment between over and next.

Sister Helen Prejean, 82

You know how they say rest in peace? I’m not so sure there’s rest, where all you do is get in a hammock, and you get to sip an eternal lemonade for the rest of your life or play a harp. Sounds really passive. What if it’s a vibrant energy, that love-energy that we experience on this side continues, and somehow we can stay connected in the good love-energy that is flowing in and out of the world. What if fire is just love?

Diana Nyad, 72

I’ve learned that the universe is bigger than we are, and bad luck does factor into everything we do as well as good luck. So I’m at a space now in life that if something absolutely beyond my control happens…I would just say, take a deep breath and say this is reality. Let’s get with it. You know, heroism and tremendous, deep resilience aren’t born because you want those to be your characteristics. They’re born because of unexpected events and how you react to them.

Nikki Giovanni, 78

We are fortunate enough to be seventy-seven [at the time of the interview]. And I recommend not thinking that my generation is the only generation that knows what to do. We don’t. We did what we knew what to do, and now it’s somebody else. We got rid of segregation. There’s no white room, colored room. That’s gone. But we also know the next generation understands that a nonsegregated world does not mean a nonracist world. So somehow they’re going to have to deal with it. I’m on their side. I’m with the people, but the people are going to have to figure out how to do that because we did what we knew how to do.

Dan Rather, 90

What I’ve been through in these most recent years—I’ve felt as good about it as I have about anything I’ve done in my career. I’ve never considered myself a particularly courageous person. I’ve always wanted to have courage, and it may be I hope it’s true, and I actually think it is true. I may be closer to having some guts, if you will, now than I ever was.