"You are invisible as an old person. It helps to accept that. I like to be invisible."

"I was in India with my son and some friends, about seven years ago. And I was often alone in the dining room, since my son and the others would go off. And there was a loneliness that was interesting to me. People didn’t strike up conversations with you. Or they try to flee. Maybe they think you’ll latch on to them and bore them. I think the old woman sitting alone at the restaurant or the cafe table is in some sort of strange bubble of her own. Invisibility is a form of freedom that I do cherish most of the time."

Said Judith Thuman, quoted in "Fluent in the Language of Style/For over three decades, Judith Thurman has captured the often ineffable pull of fashion and beauty like few others" by Rhonda Garelick (NYT).