"I think people deceive themselves about themselves, particularly as they get older"
About this Quote
Aging, for Winterson, isn’t a slide into wisdom; it’s a rehearsal of selective memory. The line lands with the quiet menace of a novelist who’s spent her career poking at the stories people tell to survive. “Deceive themselves about themselves” is a double mirror: it’s not just lying, it’s self-authoring. Identity becomes less a discovered truth than a curated narrative, edited for coherence, dignity, and blame control.
The sting is in “particularly as they get older.” We like to imagine time as a solvent that strips away illusion. Winterson flips it: time is an accomplice. The longer you live, the more evidence you accumulate - not only of what you did, but of what you can plausibly claim you meant. With age comes a social permission to mythologize: to call old cowardice “prudence,” past cruelty “hardness learned,” abandoned dreams “choices.” The deception isn’t always cynical; it can be protective, even necessary. But it’s still a deformation.
Winterson’s context matters: her work circles sexuality, class, religion, family rupture - zones where “who I am” is contested, punished, revised. In that terrain, self-deception is less a quirky flaw than a political and emotional technology. The quote suggests a late-life danger: once your private myth calcifies, you stop being a person in motion and become your own press release. It’s a warning delivered in plain clothes: watch the stories you’re proudest of. They’re often the ones doing the most damage.
The sting is in “particularly as they get older.” We like to imagine time as a solvent that strips away illusion. Winterson flips it: time is an accomplice. The longer you live, the more evidence you accumulate - not only of what you did, but of what you can plausibly claim you meant. With age comes a social permission to mythologize: to call old cowardice “prudence,” past cruelty “hardness learned,” abandoned dreams “choices.” The deception isn’t always cynical; it can be protective, even necessary. But it’s still a deformation.
Winterson’s context matters: her work circles sexuality, class, religion, family rupture - zones where “who I am” is contested, punished, revised. In that terrain, self-deception is less a quirky flaw than a political and emotional technology. The quote suggests a late-life danger: once your private myth calcifies, you stop being a person in motion and become your own press release. It’s a warning delivered in plain clothes: watch the stories you’re proudest of. They’re often the ones doing the most damage.
Quote Details
| Topic | Aging |
|---|
More Quotes by Jeanette
Add to List
