People
When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon.
— Kurt Vonnegut
Behind the line May contain spoilers.
Our reading
An editorial interpretation.
The passage uses punctuation to contrast a final ending with a continuation. The period represents the death it mentions, while the semicolon gives old age a less definite stopping point. The literary comparison makes the distinction vivid without explaining what that continuing part of life will contain.
Context reviewed