The successful midlifers I know all have one thing in common; they like to laugh. They don't take themselves nor their stage in life too seriously.

Midlife does have its funny moments. Throughout history comedians have written many of their best lines on aging. Following are some examples. Enjoy.

"Anyone can get old; all you have to do is live long enough."---Groucho Marx

"You know you're getting older when the candles cost more than the cake."---Bob Hope

"Middle age is a time of life that a man first notices in his wife."---Richard Armour

"Everyone around me is younger than I am. My doctor carries his stethoscope in a gym bag. My attorney has to shave only once a week. My son's math teacher is still wearing braces. I rode a plane the other day with training wheels on it. Good Lord, man don't you understand, I am older than Mickey Mouse!"---Erma Bombeck

"One should never trust a woman who tells her real age; a woman who would tell one that would tell one anything."---Oscar Wilde

"If you want to know how old a woman is, ask her sister-in-law."---Edgar W. Howe

"Middle age is when your age starts to show around the middle."---Bob Hope

"Do you know what I found yesterday? Hair in my ear. I'm losing hair where I want hair and getting hair where there shouldn't be hair. I found four big fat ones on my back; I'm starting to look like the fly."---Billy Crystal in City Slickers

"Young men want to be faithful and are not; old men want to be faithless and cannot."---Oscar Wilde

"I have my 87th birthday coming up, and people ask what I'd most appreciate getting. I'll tell you: a paternity suit."---George Burns

"I begin each day with coffee and obituaries. I open the morning paper, turn to the obituary page, and nervously check out the ages of those who've checked out, hoping to discover that all of them were at least a hundred.

"I do not mind, of course, if a few of them were ninety-five; but when I find ages close to mine, I get a chill in my aching bones and I search for comfort in the cause of death . . .I want to find death from a firing squad or from an attack by soldier ants or from accidentally going over Niagara Falls."---Bill Cosby

"I refuse to admit that I am more than 52, even if that does make my sons illegitimate."---Nancy Astor

"From middle age on everything of interest is either illegal, immoral or fattening."---Alexander Woolcott

"Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind it, it doesn't matter."---Mark Twain

Twain's comment brings an apt end to this column, for his words are both funny and insightful. Our minds really do affect the "matters" of midlife. And while laughter may not prevent aging, it certainly makes it more fun.