"We're part of another world."

"He sipped his brandy and smiled sadly.  'She adores you, of course.  Any fool could see that.  I could see it in her eyes as soon as you walked into the house.  Never takes her eyes off you.  But she's just a child.  She has a life ahead of her.  How old are you? . . .  Over forty, right?'

'Yes,' I said.

'She's determined on this university business.  You'll not persuade her otherwise.  She'll go to college.  And there she'll meet brilliant people of her own age, and because they are at college they'll all end up sharing the same appalling tastes and the same half-baked opinions.  We're old fossils.  We're part of another world.  A world of the dinosaurs.'  He swigged his brandy and poured more.  There was a lot of spite in him.  His friendly advice was really a way of hurting me.  And it was a method difficult to counter.

I said, 'Yes, thanks a lot, Dodo.  But, the way I see it, you are indisputably an old tyrannosaurus, but I'm a young, dynamic, brilliant individual in the prime of life, and Gloria is an immature youngster.'

He laughed out loudly enough to rupture my eardrums, and he grabbed my shoulder to save himself from falling over.

'Zu, darling!' he shouted gleefully and loud enough for her to hear him from the kitchen.  'Where did you find this lunatic?'"

-- Len Deighton, Spy Hook