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Can somebody explain the meaning behind this comparison? :

You never think you're as old as you're ever going to get.

I end up here:

  • you're as old = your current age
  • as you're ever going to get = you maximum age

So it would mean "You never think your current age is your maximum age" or "You never think you're dying this year."

. . . but I'm not sure that is correct. I simply can't find the meaning of this sentence explained anywhere online.

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    You have it right — just change dying this year to dying this second. Get it?
    – Tinfoil Hat
    Commented Jan 17 at 3:21
  • Got it. Thanks. In the original comparison, there are no numbers or years involved. I wasn't sure if I was going into right direction, so I stopped there. So it can be interpreted as 'this moment' (to leave the time measurement units uninvolved).
    – Cornelius
    Commented Jan 17 at 4:03

2 Answers 2

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Your interpretation is mostly right, but it's more specific: it's not just that you never think you'll die soon, it's that you always expect to get older. Logically those might be equivalent, but humans aren't perfectly logical; it's quite possible to have a reaction to a specific aspect of a fact. Many years ago, a friend of mine had been dating his girlfriend for a while, when suddenly he realized that he was her boyfriend; logically that's the same, but it was an aspect of it that hadn't occurred to him. (They're happily married now, with two kids. Hopefully by now he's realized that he's her husband.)

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My interpretation is that it refers to the (hypothetical) fact that one never thought one would be taken out by an unexpected yet irreversible event at your current age. People who work in dangerous professions are probably familiar with this sentence or phrase.

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