Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

Stoppard’s aphorism wryly reframes “maturity” as something purchased at an unavoidable cost: the passage of time. The line suggests that the wisdom, steadiness, and self-knowledge associated with maturity are not free gains but are paid for in lost youth, physical decline, and the narrowing of possibilities that comes with aging. Its humor depends on the mock-economic metaphor—“price to pay”—which also carries a faint sting: if maturity is desirable, it is nonetheless acquired through experiences that can be painful, irreversible, or simply expensive in years. The quote captures a characteristic Stoppardian blend of wit and melancholy about human development.