96-Year-Old June Squibb's Aging Advice Is Just 7 Words — And Belongs On A T-Shirt

Broadway star June Squibb is perhaps best known in the acting world for her quick wit, followed only by her unflinching mission to quash any preconceived notions about aging and what she and people her age can or cannot do. "There are no rules when you stop and think about it," she told Prevention in 2024. "Everything should be forgotten, I think, except: Go out and have a good time! Live the life you want to live," she added before uttering the legendary seven-word quip: "To hell with how old you are!" she declared. Aaand mic drop. (Consider this our formal petition to get that quote printed on t-shirts everywhere, ASAP.)

Squibb later expounded on that notion during a sit-down with Female Quotient in May 2026. "I wish more people understood that older people still want to accomplish things," she lamented. "No matter whether it's something very simple or whether it's something very difficult, we all want to feel that we can still do these things." And because of that, she's very selective of what work she will and will not take on. "I can't take something that laughs at age," she said unapologetically during an appearance on the "Still Here Hollywood" podcast. 

June Squibb is among a growing list of celebrities over 50 who absolutely love the process of aging, which also includes Jamie Lee Curtis. "I am pro-aging. I want to age with intelligence, and grace, and dignity, and verve, and energy," Curtis declared at the Radically Reframing Aging Summit in 2022. "I don't want to hide from it."

Research shows that your attitude toward aging really can influence your health as you get older. A 2022 study in JAMA Network Open found that out of 14,000 participants above the age of 50, those who were the most satisfied with aging had a 43% less chance of dying for any reason over a four-year period. Another 2022 study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found that females over 50 who scored the highest in optimism generally lived 5% longer than their less enthusiastic counterparts.

"When people repeatedly imagine the future as limited or declining, which a lot of people aging do, the brain begins to kind of reinforce those expectations," Dr. Deepika Chopra, a health psychologist and author of "The Power of Real Optimism," told the New York Times about how depression can affect aging. According to Chopra, "if we can consciously direct attention toward even something small, a small positive future moment every day," it can essentially reprogram the brain to work from a place of positive expectancy that good times are still to come. "To hell with how old you are," indeed.