Notes from the Underground

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

I am forty years old now, and you know forty years is a whole lifetime; you know it is extreme old age.

To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly I will tell you who do: fools and worthless fellows.

. Ech, I have talked a lot of nonsense, but what have I explained?