“Isn't it sad, growing up? You start off like my Charlie. You start off thinking you can kill all the baddies and save the world. Then you get a little bit older, maybe Little Bee's age, and you realize that some of the world's badness is inside you, that maybe you're a part of it. And then you get a bit older still, and a bit more comfortable, and you start wondering whether that badness you've seen in yourself is really all that bad at all. You start talking about ten per cent."Maybe that's just developing as a person, Sarah."I sighed and looked out at Little Bee Well," I said, "maybe this is a developing world.”

“Compromise, eh?..You start off thinking you can kill all the baddies and save the world. Then you get a little bit older..and you realize that some of the world's badness is inside you..And then you get a little bit older.., and a bit more comfortable, and you start wondering whether that badness you've seen in yourself is really all that bad at all. You start talking about ten percent.”

“You may think that's funny Osama but you never can squeeze every last bit of pride out of a human being. It's like a tube of toothpaste. You can twist it and you can crush it but there's always a tiny bit left isn't there?”

“Lucky Charms are like the vampires of breakfast cereal. They're magical, they're delicious, they're a little bit dangerous and bad for you. They initially make you feel great, but then over time you realize that maybe your relationship with Lucky Charms is just a little bit unhealthy and you start to think, 'Maybe I don't want to be in a long-term relationship with a breakfast cereal that tastes delicious but damages my health.' But then the Lucky Charms gets all stalker on you and for some reason you kind of like that. It makes you feel special. So yeah, you spend your life with Lucky Charms. That's awesome. That's a great way to... get diabetes.”

“Even for a girl like me, then, there comes a day when she can stop surviving and start living. To survive, you have to look good or talk good. But to end your story well-- here is the truth-- you have to talk yourself out of it.”

“Maybe the truth is there's a little bit of loser in all of us you know, being happy isn't having everything in your life being perfect. Maybe it's about stringing together all the little things. Making those count more then the bad stuff. Maybe we just get through it and that's all we can ask for.”

“You live that long, things start happening to you. You get too impressed with yourself. Ends up, you think you’re God. Suddenly the little people, thirty, maybe forty years old, well, they don’t really matter anymore. You’ve seen whole societies rise and fall, and you start to feel you’re standing outside it all, and none of it really matters to you. And maybe you’ll start snuffing those little people, just like picking daisies, if they get under your feet.”