46 Nursing Home Quotes About the Twilight Years

By Norbert Juma

Master quote curator and editor on a mission to inspire

Published October 13, 2023

Navigating the journey through the world of nursing homes is imbued with a wide range of emotions, as you will learn from these nursing home quotes.

Nursing homes are rooted in the fundamental principle of providing care and support to our elderly population.

They are meant to provide a sanctuary where the twilight years are envisaged to be peaceful, secure, and dignified.

Nursing homes offer specialized care, social interaction, and medical support to those who have specific health needs or for whom living independently is not an option.

Yet, determining the appropriate facility, understanding diverse care options, and unraveling the tapestry of financial, ethical, and emotional facets of the decision-making process regarding nursing homes can be a labyrinthine journey.

This article seeks to illuminate the path by unfolding some aspects of nursing homes that must be considered, assisting individuals and their families in making informed, compassionate decisions about transitioning into this significant chapter of life.

Keep reading to discover our nursing home quotes below!

The Importance of Nursing Homes

Here are some essential elements to consider when choosing a nursing home:

Comprehensive Care
Safety and Security
End-of-Life Care
Social Engagement

Comprehensive Care

Nursing homes are known to offer comprehensive medical care services.

The trained staff is there to take good care of the patients and meet their complex health needs.

Some of the services offered by the nursing homes include:

Medication management
Assistance with daily activities
Physical therapy
Specialized treatments

Security and Safety

Nursing homes offer the required safety and security for the inhabitants.

Patients are kept in a monitored environment, which reduces the risk of accidents.

Medical assistance also offers immediate access to necessary medical assistance if required.

End-of-Life Care

Various nursing homes also offer services like end-of-life care.

The residents are offered emotional support and pain management services with dignity.

This helps the inhabitants to spend soothing time during their final days.

Residents can have the opportunity to socialize with each other.

They can participate in different activities and take part in recreational programs.

This helps combat the issue of isolation and loneliness.

Top 10 Nursing Home Quotes About Growing Old

Take a look at these top 10 quotes about living well and growing old.

1. “When our memories outweigh our dreams, we have grown old.” — Bill Clinton

2. “My worst job was working in the laundry of a nursing home.” — Rickie Lee Jones

3. “Someone has said the best nursing home is the U.S. Senate.” — Ernest Hollings

4. “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” — C.S. Lewis

5. “The closest thing to being cared for is to care for someone else.” — Carson McCullers

6. “Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life.” — Daniel François Esprit Auber

7. “What happens to a person is less significant than what happens within him.” — Louis L. Mann

8. “They may forget your name, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou

9. “I’d rather rot on my own floor than be found by a bunch of bingo players in a nursing home.” — Florence King

10. “Caring about others, running the risk of feeling, and leaving an impact on people, brings happiness.” — Harold Kushner

Quotes on Being In A Nursing Home

These quotes capture the atmosphere of nursing homes and the feelings people have about the prospect of living in one.

11. “I don’t want to hang around in a wheelchair in a nursing home. I don’t.” — Louis Walsh

12. “Just be good and kind to your children. Not only are they the future of the world, they’re the ones who can sign you into the nursing home.” — Dennis Miller

13. “In a hospital, they throw you out into the street before you are half cured, but in a nursing home, they don’t let you out till you are dead.” — George Bernard Shaw

14. “Sick people, particularly those with serious conditions, greatly prefer the company of their friends and family to a residence in a hospital or nursing home.” — David Mixner

15. “There is a certain moment in the film when the son is in the nursing home, and he goes to the television and turns it off because he sees himself in the image.” — Atom Egoyan

16. “I have interviewed so many people who are put into nursing homes or hospices and are just waiting to die. It’s a very lonely situation to just sit at a window and watch life go by.” — Misty Upham

17. “I’m in no hurry to get old. But when I do, I’ll be out to enjoy every last minute. I see myself at 90 in some nursing home, waving my walking stick about as I jive to Gene Vincent records.” — Imelda May

18. “At 99 and after a long stay in a nursing home, the death of legendary photographer Eve Arnold was hardly a surprise – though she may have been just a little annoyed to quit a few months short of 100.” — Beeban Kidron

19. “’Halo I wrote with my grandpa in his nursing home. When I went to visit him, he’d often comment on my halo. But of course, I couldn’t see. And he always – he had pictures of Jesus with these beautiful halos. And so I asked him if he’d write a song with me about Jesus’ halo.” — Abigail Washburn

20. “They usually have a piano in every nursing home, and I always wanted to perform for whoever would listen when I learned something. I grew to understand very early that a lot of these people who are in nursing homes are elderly and don’t have a lot of things that give them joy from day to day.” — Erykah Badu

Nursing Home Quotes that Reflect on Aging, Family, and Life

These quotes demonstrate how life reflections become stronger for people in nursing homes.

21. “Combine nursing homes with nursery schools. Bring very old and very young together: they interest one another.” — John Cage

22. “My mum was a nurse, and her passion was geriatric care. I used to love listening to the old people’s stories in her nursing home and picturing myself in their place.” — Olivia Colman

23. “When does life start? When does it end? Who makes these decisions?… Every day, in hospitals and homes and hospices… people are struggling with those profound issues.” — Hillary Clinton

24. “Faith will get in the ditch with you, faith will go in the prison with you, faith will go into divorce court with you, faith will go in the hospital with you, faith will go in the nursing home with you.” — T. D. Jakes

25. “They say ‘life is precious’. To who? To you, when you’re young, and you’ve got a few dollars in your pocket. Tell that to the 90-year-old lying awake at the graveyard shift in the nursing home, groaning with dementia.” — Doug Stanhope

26. “Why the increasing emphasis by professional age experts and the media on – and public acceptance of – the nursing home as the locus of age when, in fact, more than ninety percent of those over sixty-five continue to live in the community?” — Betty Friedan

27. “The deep, personal material of the latter half of your life is your children. You can write about your parents when they’re gone, but your children are still going to be here, and you’re going to want them to come and visit you in the nursing home.” — Alice Munro

28. “When you are old and facing oblivion in a nursing home or a hospital or on a golf course in winter, you are not going to wish you had spent more time at the office making a sales call or watching a show. You will wish you had spent more time with your family.” — Ben Stein

29. “And the elders of the family are the honored guardians of our country’s history. Unfortunately, in America, we, you know, lock those elders away out of view in nursing homes and go about our little lives. It’s a great national shame and an irredeemable tragedy.” — Christopher Titus

30. “At times, it seems as if arranging to have no commitment of any kind to anyone would be a special freedom. But in fact, the whole idea works in reverse. The most deadly commitment of all is to be committed only to one’s self. Some come to realize this after they are in the nursing home.” — John D. MacDonald

Working in Nursing Homes Quotes

The below quotes give deep insights into the experience of working in nursing homes.

31. “To care for those who once cared for us is one of the highest honors.” — Tia Walker

32. “Obtaining a certificate in nursing assistant trains students to provide quality care to residents in nursing homes.” — Cassie Brode

33. “My first job was washing dishes in the basement of a nursing home for $2.10 an hour, and I learned as much about the value of hard work there as I ever did later.” — Douglas Preston

34. “These are folks that keep people out of hospitals, out of emergency rooms, out of nursing homes. And not only that, they help people achieve more fulfilling lives.” — Atul Gawande

35. “I miss the hot spots. I miss the hospital calls. I miss the nursing homes. I miss the really intimate human contact with other people, which I did nothing to earn.” — Barbara Brown Taylor

36. “I worked at a nursing home through high school… There’s a lost appreciation for a generation that has so much to tell us when we’re so full of self-help books and doctors on TV.” — Bonnie Hunt

37. “I’m Latino, progressive, and I have deep roots in the working class – my father was a bracero, a guest farmworker and cook, and my mom worked as a nursing home laundry attendant.” — Jimmy Gomez

38. “I was raised to volunteer: in nursing homes, clinics, church nurseries, schools, and everywhere that could use help. It’s such an intrinsic part of me to use my life to help improve the quality of others.” — Debby Ryan

39. “My first job was in a nursing home – a terrible place in retrospect. It was in an old house, and the residents were so lonely. People rarely visited them. I only stayed there a couple of months, but it made a strong impression on me.” — Kim Edwards

40. “My mother was an administrator at a nursing home, and my first job was working at a nursing home as an activities assistant. She wanted me to do it because it forces you out of your shell, and it’s about giving back.” — Tony Gonzalez

More Nursing Home Quotes

Here are some more nursing home quotes to round out our list.

41. “The Medicaid system currently steers people toward nursing home care. Far more people can be covered in community-based care programs for significantly less.” — Ed Rendell

42. “It is common for rural hospitals and nursing homes to operate as a single unit in order to take advantage of savings related to cost-sharing of some services and staff.” — Rick Renzi

43. “If America does not wish to end her days in the same nursing home as Britannia, she had best end this geo-babble about new world orders. Our war, the Cold War, is over.” — Pat Buchanan

44. “Most Americans have some experience with nursing homes or other long-term care settings, and nearly half have had a family member or close friend in a home in the past three years.” — Michael C. Burgess

45. “My work as a doula also extends all the way to the end of life. I sit at the bedsides of people who are passing on in hospices or nursing homes, for the people and families who want that kind of thing.” — Erykah Badu

46. “The ukulele totally fits that whole hipster community or whatever you want to call it, but then at the same time, it works great in nursing homes where senior citizens get together and play, and then as the traditional Hawaiian instrument with people doing the Hula and strumming the ukulele and singing.” — Jake Shimabukuro

Hopefully, These Nursing Home Quotes Made You Think

Nursing homes are an essential part of life for people who are in need of consistent care.

Despite that, most people would prefer to ‘age in place’ and spend their last years in their own homes, or with their friends and family.

Think about what it would be like for you to enter a nursing home when you get older, and what changes you could make today to avoid having to ever be in one.