I don't want to die without a few scars.

Our generation has had no Great Depression, no Great War. Our war is spiritual. Our depression is our lives.

The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person.

We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.

Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave.

Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?

You know, the condom is the glass slipper of our generation. You slip it on when you meet a stranger. You dance all night, then you throw it away.

If you love something set it free, but don't be surprised if it comes back with herpes.

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known.

The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up.

It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.

The resources of Africa are greater than the amount of aid it can ever get. Hence, Africa needs to manage its resources prudently and efficiently to minimise its dependence on aid.

one day my best friend said to me 'Jess, you rock a lot of polka dots' and that was the deal breaker, now we're mortal enemies

Some of the greatest survivors have been women. Look at the courage so many women have shown after surviving earthquakes in the rubble for days on end.

I wanted to write about the Korean War, but I had no entry into it that made the kind of sense it needs to make for a novelist.

Grace is not opposed to effort; it's opposed to earning.

Development develops inequality.

To maken vertue of necessite.

Nothing is more curious than the almost savage hostility that Humour excites in those who lack it.

How great, therefore, the wickedness of human nature is! How many girls there are who prevent conception and kill and expel tender fetuses, although procreation is the work of God.

We should remember it wasn't so long ago that confidence in New York was in short supply.