Skip to main content

Aging & Wisdom Quote by John Glenn

"You know, old folks can have dreams, too, as well as young folks, and then work toward them. And to have a dream like this come true for me is just a terrific experience"

About this Quote

Glenn’s line isn’t just sentimental uplift; it’s a quiet rebuke to a culture that treats ambition like it has an expiration date. Spoken with the plainspoken cadence that made him legible to the public, the quote uses “old folks” on purpose: it’s self-deprecating, yes, but also strategic. He lowers the stakes linguistically so the stakes can rise emotionally. If even “old folks” can dream, then the country’s story about who gets to keep reinventing themselves gets bigger.

The subtext is about legitimacy. Glenn wasn’t asking for inspiration points; he was arguing that desire and discipline still count when your body is no longer the default template for heroism. “Work toward them” is the key clause. He refuses the passive language of destiny or nostalgia and replaces it with effort, the moral currency Americans like to believe in. That framing matters because his late-career return to space was inevitably going to be read as spectacle, vanity, or political theater. He preempts the cynicism by anchoring the moment in labor and continuity: the dream didn’t appear late; it endured.

Context does a lot of the heavy lifting. Glenn is both astronaut and national symbol, a Cold War-era avatar of competence and nerve. When he talks about a dream “like this” coming true, he’s also talking about public permission: a society letting an older person do something audacious and risky again. The “terrific experience” lands as understatement, the kind that signals awe without begging for applause.

Quote Details

TopicAging
SourceHelp us find the source
CiteCite this Quote

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Glenn, John. (2026, January 15). You know, old folks can have dreams, too, as well as young folks, and then work toward them. And to have a dream like this come true for me is just a terrific experience. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-know-old-folks-can-have-dreams-too-as-well-as-173468/

Chicago Style
Glenn, John. "You know, old folks can have dreams, too, as well as young folks, and then work toward them. And to have a dream like this come true for me is just a terrific experience." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-know-old-folks-can-have-dreams-too-as-well-as-173468/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"You know, old folks can have dreams, too, as well as young folks, and then work toward them. And to have a dream like this come true for me is just a terrific experience." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-know-old-folks-can-have-dreams-too-as-well-as-173468/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by John Add to List
John Glenn on Aging: Dreams, Work, and Possibility
Click to enlarge Portrait | Landscape

About the Author

John Glenn

John Glenn (July 18, 1921 - December 8, 2016) was a Astronaut from USA.

25 more quotes available

View Profile

Similar Quotes