"We spend our lives talking about this mystery. Our life."

“If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie.”

“We don't need sugar to live, and we don't need it as a society.”

“I see no point in being despondent. We might as well enjoy ourselves during our brief tenure of this life.”

Source : "National Book Festival: 'No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency' Novelist Alexander McCall Smith". Live Q&A, www.washingtonpost.com. September 19, 2008.

“The biological clock and the career clock are in total conflict with each other.”

Source : "Why Aren't Men Asked If They Can 'Have It All'?". "Tell Me More" with Michel Martin, www.npr.org. July 8, 2014.

“My ego is really good. I don't need to watch myself on TV, like some others.”

“Old carts can be repainted but they still keep moving in the same old ruts”

Source : Mongo Beti (1978). “Perpetua and the Habit of Unhappiness”, Heinemann Educational Books

“I Don't Want To Live Long. I Would Rather Get The Death Penalty Than Spend The Rest Of My Life In Prison”

“You who look at everything through your perpetually open eyes, is your lucidity never bathed in tears?”

Source : Michel Serres (2016). “The Five Senses: A Philosophy of Mingled Bodies”, p.52, Bloomsbury Publishing