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"The big fifty is something.  Once you get there you can handle most anything.  After fifty, it's like each year is a free one to play with.  It's a great feeling.  The older you get the more you learn how to duck shit you wouldn't have ducked before.  It gives you more time for the essentials.  And one of the essentials is not letting other people waste your life."

--charles bukowski [as quoted in The Holy Grail: Charles Bukowski and the Second Coming Revolution by a.d. winans (dustbooks, 2002)]