51 Funny Retirement Quotes That Will Have Everyone In Stitches

Retirement is an exciting time, and ringing in this season of someone’s life with funny quotes about retirement is a much-beloved tradition.

So to help you fete the retiree in your life, we’ve cobbled together this list of humorous retirement quotes.

Since you can’t please everyone all of the time, some may not be to your taste. Still, we hope you find a few that tickle your funny bone.

Great Ways To Use a Funny Retirement Quote

You love some of the retirement sayings on our list, but you’re wondering how to use them. We’ve got a few ideas.

  • Sign-In Board or Book: Is there a retirement party? Why not make a sign-in board or book where people can write messages of congratulations? Decorate the board with a few funny selections. If you go the book route, have one personalized with a quote at the top or back of each page. It makes for a lovely keepsake.
  • In a Card: If you want to keep it simple, scribble one of the quotes inside a card.
  • Make Merch: These days, getting customized retirement t-shirts, mugs, and other paraphernalia is a snap. Dozens of companies specialize in personalized merch; you can order one or one hundred, depending on your plans and budget.
  • Make Art: Get a poster made of your favorite funny retirement quote, frame it, then proudly hang it as a work of art in the office…or living room — whichever the spouse allows. 

51 Funny Retirement Quotes

1. “I am so busy since I have retired, I may have to go back to work to get a rest.” — Uncle Dude

2. “We have no porch, no rocking chair – and no time. My biggest need is a calendar because there are so many things to do.” — Maurice Musholt

3. “I’m not retiring. I am graduating. Today is my graduation day. Retirement means that you’ll just go ahead and live on your laurels and surf all day in Oceanside. It ain’t going to happen.” — Junior Seau

funny retirement quotes
4. “I have never liked working. To me a job is an invasion of privacy.” — Danny McGoorty

5. “If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there’d be a shortage of fishing poles.” — Doug Larson

6. “You can compare a person’s retirement partly to that of an automobile or any other device. There comes a time when you have to slow down or completely stop doing what you’ve been doing for the past 20 or 30 years and take a well-deserved break.” — Adrian J.Williams

7. “The old notion of retirement is dead. It is no longer a day in the distant future when, on reaching your sixty-fifth birthday, you hang up your suit and never return to the office again.” — Martin Bamford

8. “There is no need to be bound by convention, push the envelope, do it weird, do it different, but most of all do it fun! Be that cigar-chomping rock”n’roll granny if it takes your fancy.” — Stella Rheingold

funny retirement quotes
9. “A lot of our friends complain about their retirement. We tell ’em to get a life.” — Larry Laser

10. “Retirement is still a perfectly good word, but we need to rein in its usage now that its original meaning is no longer all that relevant because people are living longer, healthier, more active lives.” — Mike Drak

11. “You’re retired – goodbye tension, hello pension!” — Author Unknown

12. “What do you call someone who’s happy on Mondays? Retired! — Anon

13. “Retirement is when you switch bosses from the one who hired you to the one who married you.” — Gene Perret

funny retirement quotes
14. “Except for an occasional heart attack, I feel as young as I ever did.” — Robert Benchley

15. “Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had pimples.” — George Burns

16. “I never had the sense that there was an end: that there was a retirement or that there was a jackpot.” — Leonard Cohen

17. “Something pretty… that’s just the surface. People worry so much about aging, but you look younger if you don’t worry about it.” — Jeanne Moreau

18. “I have long been of the opinion that if work were such a splendid thing the rich would have kept more of it for themselves.” — Bruce Grocott

19. “You have to put off being young until you can retire.” — Unknown

20. “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” – Vince Lombardi

21. “There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.” – Sophia Loren

22. “Retirement’s the most wonderful thing. I get to enjoy all the things I never stopped to notice on the way up. After an extraordinary life, it’s time to enjoy my retirement.” – Patrick Macnee

23. “I found out retirement means playing golf, or I don’t know what the hell it means. But to me, retirement means doing what you have fun doing.” – Dick Van Dyke

24. “We work all our lives so we can retire – so we can do what we want with our time – and the way we define or spend our time defines who we are and what we value.” – Bruce Linton

25. “The joy of retirement comes in those everyday pursuits that embrace the joy of life; to experience daily the freedom to invest one’s life-long knowledge for the betterment of others; and, to allocate time to pursuits that only received, in years of working, a fleeting moment.” – Byron Pulsifer


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26. “A thriving new beginning can be and should be a time for amazing engagement, growth, connections, contributions, and amazing possibilities.” – Lee M. Brower

27. “As your life changes, it takes time to recalibrate, to find your values again. You might also find that retirement is the time when you stretch out and find your potential.” – Sid Miramontes

funny retirement quotes
28. “For retirement brings repose, and repose allows a kindly judgment of all things.” – John Sharp Williams

29. “For many, retirement is a time for personal growth, which becomes the path to greater freedom.” – Robert Delamontague

30. “Retirement: That’s when you return from work one day and say, “Hi, Honey, I’m home — forever.” – Gene Perret

31. “Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.” – Fred Rogers

32. “Golf is played by 20 million mature American men whose wives think they are out having fun.” – Jim Bishop

33. “You don’t stop laughing when you grow old. You grow old when you stop laughing.” – George Bernard Shaw 

34. “Retirement: that’s when you return home from work one day and say, ‘Hi honey, I’m home forever.” – Gene Perret 

35. “Don’t act your age in retirement. Act like the inner young person you have always been.” – J.A. West

36. “You can never have the comeback if you don’t have the retirement.” – Chael Sonnen 

37. “I see retirement as just another of these reinventions, another chance to do new things and be a new version of myself.” – Walt Mossberg

38. “A lot of friends complain about their retirement. We tell ’em to get a life.” – Vince Lombardi 

39. “Money is something you got to make in case you don’t die.” – Max Asnas 

40. “I don’t feel old. I don’t feel anything until noon. Then it’s time for my nap.” – Bob Hope 

funny retirement quotes
41. “I work harder now that I have retired from corporate life, than when I actually worked, but I love it.” – Catherine Pulsifer 

42. “The best thing about retirement is not having to wear pants.” – Mark Hewer

43. “Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life.” Kitty O’Neill Collins

44. “As for me, except for the occasional heart attack, I feel as young as I ever did.” – Robert Benchley 

45. “The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off.” – Abe Lemons

46. “There is a whole new kind of life ahead, full of experiences just waiting to happen. Some call it retirement; I call it bliss.” – Betty Sullivan 

47. “It’s paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn’t appeal to anyone.” – Andy Rooney

48. “When a man retires, his wife gets twice the husband but only half the income.” Chi Chi Rodriguez 

49. “I always likened retirement to falling off a cliff, and then you have to kind of brush yourself off.” Steve Young 

50. “A retired husband is often a wife’s full-time job. Ella Harris 

51. “Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.” Will Rogers

Final Thoughts

Using funny retirement quotes for coworkers or loved ones is an inexpensive and thoughtful way to celebrate the milestone. 

Retirement is not a sad occasion instead a happy and memorable one. Make it fun with these funny retirement quotes you can say to colleagues and friends.