A Worn Path Old Age Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Paragraph

Quote #1

She was very old and small and she walked slowly in the dark pine shadows, moving a little from side to side in her steps, with the balanced heaviness and lightness of a pendulum in a grandfather clock. (1)

There is no mistaking that Phoenix is old. It's the first adjective used to describe her and then it's repeated again two sentences later.

Quote #2

Her eyes were blue with age. (2)

Medical lesson of the day: Eyes lose pigment as people age, leaving most super old people with grey or blue eyes.

Quote #3

Her skin had a pattern all its own of numberless branching wrinkles and as though a whole little tree stood in the middle of her forehead, but a golden color ran underneath, and the two knobs of her cheeks were illumined by a yellow burning under the dark. Under the red rag her hair came down on her neck in the frailest of ringlets, still black, and with an odor like copper. (2)

Like her eyes, Phoenix's skin shows signs of wear, namely wrinkles. Her wrinkles aren't sending her running to the plastic surgeon, though. Instead they are likened to a tree (check out what we've got to say about trees in the "Symbols" section) and are blazing gold, a valuable color linked to wealth and life.