"My kitchen linoleum is so black and shiny that I waltz while I wait for the kettle to boil. This pleasure is for the old who live alone." -- Florida Scott-Maxwell
Florida Pier Scott-Maxwell (14 September 1883 - 6 March 1979) was a playwright, author and psychologist. She was born in Orange Park, Florida, grew up in Pittsburgh, then moved to New York at age 15 to become an actress. In 1910 she married and moved to her husband's native Scotland, where she worked for women's suffrage and as a playwright. The couple divorced in 1929 and she moved to London. In the 1930s, she studied Jungian psychology under Carl Jung. She died in Exeter, England. Her most famous book is The Measure of My Days (1968).
"Age puzzles me. I thought it was a quiet time. My seventies were interesting and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate. I grow more intense as I age.""It is not easy to be sure that being yourself is worth the trouble, but we do know it is our sacred duty.""Life does not accommodate you, it shatters you. It is meant to, and it couldn't do it better. Every seed destroys its container or else there would be no fruition.""No matter how old a mother is she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.""The crucial task of old age is balance: keeping just well enough, just brave enough, just gay and interested and starkly honest enough to remain a sentient human being."