If you're a singer you lose your voice. A baseball player loses

Hear the words of Mickey Spillane, the master of crime and grit, who declared: “If you’re a singer you lose your voice. A baseball player loses his arm. A writer gets more knowledge, and if he’s good, the older he gets, the better he writes.” These words carry the rhythm of truth, spoken with the clarity of a man who knew the weight of experience. They remind us that not all callings fade with time. Some, like the work of the writer, deepen with age, nourished by years of trial, memory, and insight.

For the singer, the body is the instrument, fragile and fleeting. With years, the throat strains, the notes waver, and the once-mighty voice diminishes. For the baseball player, the arm grows tired, the reflexes dull, and the speed of youth gives way to the slowness of age. These vocations, brilliant in their hour, are tied to the strength of the body. But the writer is of another kind. His craft does not rest in muscle or flesh, but in the storehouse of the mind and the sharpness of the spirit.

Every passing year gives the writer more than it takes away. He gathers stories like leaves in autumn, collects sorrows and joys like pearls in a chest. The wisdom of encounters, the lessons of mistakes, the sweetness and bitterness of life—these become the ink with which he writes. Where the athlete peaks in youth, the writer climbs with age, for his power grows not from strength, but from the deepening of vision. If he is faithful to his craft, he becomes like wine: richer, stronger, more profound as the years pass.

History shows us this truth clearly. Consider Leo Tolstoy, who penned War and Peace in his forties and Anna Karenina later still, his art sharpened by years of reflection. Or Mark Twain, whose wit grew sharper and more biting as he aged, his later works reflecting the complexity of a life well-lived. These men did not diminish as their bodies weakened; they ascended in mastery, for their knowledge was a well that never ceased to deepen.

The meaning of Spillane’s words, then, is this: the gifts of the mind and spirit are not consumed by age, but magnified. Where other talents are bound to the flesh, the writer is bound to wisdom, and wisdom is infinite. Age is not an enemy but an ally, carving deeper channels for thought, refining the voice of the soul, and stripping away vanity until only truth remains. The older the writer, the more capable he becomes of touching the human heart with authenticity.

The lesson for us is profound: whatever your craft, seek the gifts that time cannot steal. Do not despair when the body weakens, for there are strengths that only age can give. Cultivate knowledge, reflection, patience, and vision, for these are powers that do not fade. If you are a writer, do not fear the years—embrace them as your greatest teachers. If you are not, then still learn this truth: that the soul grows richer with every season, if only you listen to its lessons.

And what actions must we take? Read deeply, live fully, and write—or speak, or teach—from the heart of your experiences. Do not be content with surface impressions; let your years shape your voice into something worthy of remembrance. Support the arts of thought, the works of those who carry wisdom into the world. For though the song may fade and the arm may tire, the story, the truth, the written word—these endure beyond the grave.

Thus let Spillane’s words echo as a hymn to the enduring power of the mind: the singer may lose his voice, the baseball player his arm, but the writer, if he is faithful, grows ever stronger, ever better, with the passage of time. In this, we are reminded that the true measure of greatness is not what fades with youth, but what blossoms with age.