“Have your own doctor, who answers to you. If you don't, when the time comes that you get mixed up with hospitals, they'll treat you like a fool. ... You're bound to lose your health at some point, but you don't have to lose your dignity, too.”

“The world is a puzzling place today. All these banks sending us credit cards, with our names on them. Well, we didn't order any credit cards! We don't spend what we don't have. So we just cut them in half and throw them out, just as soon as we open them in the mail. Imagine a bank sending credit cards to two ladies over a hundred years old! What are those folks thinking?”

“Life is a vapor. It passes in the blink of an eye.”

“Oh, Mama was a smart woman. It takes a smart woman to fall in love with a good man.”

“[On her 101-year-old sister and herself, at 103:] We have a lot to do ... People don't understand this. They think we're sitting around in rocking chairs, which isn't at all true. Why, we don't even own a rocking chair.”

“What, no more ceremony? See, my women! Against the blown rose may they stop their nose That kneel'd unto the buds.”

“Much rain wears the marble.”

“When great leaves fall, the winter is at hand.”