Life & Mortality Quote by William Proxmire

It lands like a quiet rebuke to the culture of “aging gracefully” as a euphemism for disappearing. Proxmire, a politician best known for weaponizing attention (the Golden Fleece Awards) and moral urgency (his role in pushing the Genocide Convention), turns that same combative clarity inward: old age, he insists, is not an automatic slide into decline. The line about “the years that most people are blue and sad and waiting to die” isn’t just personal testimony; it’s a critique of a social script that treats later life as a waiting room.

The rhetoric works because it’s plainspoken and slightly provocative. He doesn’t claim wisdom or serenity; he claims happiness, almost defiantly, and he frames it as a choice available even when the surrounding narrative is bleak. That’s politician language at its most effective: not policy, but permission. By attributing so much to “smiling,” Proxmire offers a homespun behavioral hack that sounds almost too simple, which is precisely its strategic charm. It bypasses ideology and goes straight for agency.

Subtext: this is an argument for self-authorship in a period when institutions (work, status, even the body) start writing your story for you. Context matters too. Proxmire’s brand was frugality and discipline; the “smile” fits as a low-cost, high-yield tool. It’s optimistic without being sentimental, a small act of resistance against the idea that the best years are only ever behind you.