Aging & Wisdom Quote by Louis Kronenberger

Outrage, in Kronenberger's hands, isn’t a tantrum; it’s a late-life aesthetic and a tactic. As a critic, he treats “old age” not as a winding down but as a loosening of social gravity, a phase when reputation is already spent and the usual penalties for candor stop working. The line is funny because it flips the sentimental script: instead of wisdom mellowing into serenity, he proposes a weekly quota of scandal. It’s the language of self-improvement repurposed for misbehavior, as if outrage were a vitamin regimen.

The subtext is professional as much as personal. Critics live by making judgments that bother someone. Youth often learns the trade while still craving approval; age, Kronenberger suggests, offers a cleaner instrument: the freedom to be disliked. “Excellent time” reads like a knowing shrug at the culture’s tendency to sideline older people. If society won’t grant you relevance, he’ll manufacture it through provocation. Outrage becomes a way to stay legible.

Context matters: Kronenberger wrote in a 20th-century critical world that prized the pointed review and the cultivated jab. Before hot takes became an algorithmic reflex, outrage could still be a chosen posture, not a monetized compulsion. The weekly cadence signals discipline, not drift: he’s advocating for intentional friction. It’s less “get angry” than “stay sharp.” Aging, he implies, is when you’re finally licensed to tell the truth with teeth.