“I’m from New Jersey. I was born in toxic sludge.”

“Wait." Clary was suddenly nervous. "The melted metal-it could be, like, toxic or something."Maia snorted. "I'm from New Jersey. I born in toxic sludge.”

“The way I see it, living in New Jersey is a challenge, what with the toxic waste and the eighteen wheelers and the armed schizophrenics."Connie Rosolli”

“Whenever I stumble over my own feet, or blurt out a thought that makes no sense at all, or leave the house wearing one pattern too many, I always think, It's okay, I'm from New Jersey. I love New Jersey, because it's not just an all-purpose punch line, but probably a handy legal defense, as in, "Yes, I shot my wife because I thought she was Bigfoot, but I'm from New Jersey.”

“For thousands of years, human beings had screwed up and trashed and crapped on this planet, and now history expected me to clean up after everyone. I have to wash out and flatten my soup cans. And account for every drop of used motor oil. And I have to foot the bill for nuclear waste and buried gasoline tanks and landfilled toxic sludge dumped a generation before I was born.”

“Damn, I thought everyone carried a gun in New Jersey!!!”