Quotes & Sayings About Being Above Average

I saw a woman who physically and spiritually blocked out the definition of being celestial, and replaced it with her own divine beauty. She was transcendent. She was beyond astonishing in her presence. But what she truly did, which was beyond the scope of an average woman's power, was step above the barriers of reality and illusion with her pure, majestic, and omnipotent beauty. — Lionel Suggs

When we criticize the suicidal for being selfish, we are actually criticizing them for not enduring their pain with grace and good manners. These are nice qualities; we may be correct to reproach average citizens for not having them. But to expect everyone in pain to have them is unrealistic. Bearing pain quietly is what moralists call a supererogatory act--an act that is above the call of duty. Expecting everyone to who is suicidal to behave in a way that is morally above average is simply abusive. — David L. Conroy

Good tennis players are those who beat other tennis players, and a good shot during play is one the opponent can't return. But that's not a truth about life or excellence -- it's a truth about tennis. We've created an artificial structure in which one person can't succeed without doing so at someone else's expense, and then we accuse anyone who prefers other kinds of activities of being naive because "there can be only one best -- you're it or you're not," as the teacher who delivered that much-admired you're-not-special commencement speech declared. You see the sleight of hand here? The question isn't whether everyone playing a competitive game can win or whether every student can be above average. Of course they can't. The question that we're discouraged from asking is why our games are competitive -- or our students are compulsively ranked against one another -- in the first place. — Alfie Kohn

Until 2008 the mosquitoes on Cape Hatteras were the worst I'd ever experienced. That would all change once we stepped foot into Sky Lakes Wilderness in southern Oregon during my second thru-hike of the PCT. The Oregon snowpack during the previous winter had been well above average, which left lingering snow in the high country that summer. P.O.D. and I had been on a faster pace than I had in 2004 on the PCT and we ended up being in Sky Lakes Wilderness about 3 weeks earlier which was theoretically about six weeks earlier considering the timeframe of the snow melt. Long story short, we showed up during the peak of the mosquito season. The mosquitoes in Sky Lakes made those in Cape Hatteras look like lazy houseflies. It was beyond brutal. We were lucky to escape without requiring a transfusion. — Lawton Grinter

This was all an excuse, I think. I was doing fine. I had a 93 average and I was holding my head above water. I had good friends and a loving family. And because I needed to be the center of attention, because I needed something more, I ended up here, wallowing in myself, trying to convince everybody around me that I have some kind of ... disease. I don't have any disease. I keep pacing. Depression isn't a disease. It's a pretext for being a prima donna. Everybody knows that. My friends know it; my principal knows it. The sweating has started again. I can feel the Cycling roaring up in my brain. I haven't done anything right. What have I done, made a bunch of little pictures? That doesn't count as anything. I'm finished. My principal just called me and I hung up on him and didn't call back. I'm finished. I'm expelled. I'm finished. — Ned Vizzini