When you get real old, honey, you realize there are certain things that just don't matter anymore. You lay it all on the table. There's a saying, 'Only little children and old folks tell the truth.'

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

In our dreams we are always young.

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.

[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.

When you get real old, honey, you realize there are certain things that just don't matter anymore. You lay it all on the table. There's a saying, 'Only little children and old folks tell the truth.'

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