The Princess and the Goblin

"I am very old indeed. It is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs."

The little princess then said to her grandmother,

"I wish I were as old as you, grandmother. I don't think you are ever afraid of anything. 'Not for long, at least, my child. Perhaps by the time I am two thousand years of age, I shall, indeed, never be afraid of anything.....'"