"Unless everyone grasps the importance of having only two children per couple, wars won't be over just oil anymore, they will be over water and food"
About this Quote
Her specific intent reads as activist triage. Oil wars are a familiar script; by naming water and food, she updates the villain for a climate-stressed century. The subtext is blunt: the world is approaching ecological carrying capacity, and moral arguments about choice or tradition will look quaint when scarcity hits. "Unless everyone grasps" also places the burden on collective consciousness, not just policy. It's a call to normalize a norm, to make two children feel like civic common sense rather than personal sacrifice.
As an actress, Paul leans into clear, high-stakes language instead of technocratic nuance. That choice is strategic: celebrities trade in narrative, and this is a tight one - overcrowding leads to depletion, depletion leads to violence. The quote also carries a risky undertone, because population talk can slide into coercion, inequality, and who gets policed. By saying "per couple" rather than targeting regions or classes, she tries to universalize responsibility, even as the politics of consumption and power remain the unspoken complication.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Paul, Alexandra. (2026, January 16). Unless everyone grasps the importance of having only two children per couple, wars won't be over just oil anymore, they will be over water and food. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/unless-everyone-grasps-the-importance-of-having-108604/
Chicago Style
Paul, Alexandra. "Unless everyone grasps the importance of having only two children per couple, wars won't be over just oil anymore, they will be over water and food." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/unless-everyone-grasps-the-importance-of-having-108604/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Unless everyone grasps the importance of having only two children per couple, wars won't be over just oil anymore, they will be over water and food." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/unless-everyone-grasps-the-importance-of-having-108604/. Accessed 25 Feb. 2026.







