Mom

“...the thought crossed her mind that a bed was really a very strange thing-a human nest, really, where our human fragility made its nightly demands for comfort and cosseting”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Careful Use of Compliments

“This was a freedom essential to the health even of a character so little susceptible of morbid influences as that of Phoebe. The old house [with dry rot in its structure and perhaps also in its inhabitants];...it was not good to breathe no other atmosphere that that.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorn

“Nothing gives a sadder sense of decay than this loss or suspension of the power to deal with unaccustomed things, and to keep up with the swiftness of the passing moment. [Speaking of self-posed isolation in old age.]”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”
― Robert A. Heinlein