Quotes & Sayings About Normalcy

It seems that nonsense is the only sensible recourse to remedy the nonsense of society's accepted normalcy — Natasha Tsakos

Our pets are the kids who never leave home, and that's absolutely fine by us because these kids don't ask for the keys to the car, don't turn up drunk at two in the morning, and don't complain if you turn their bedroom into a home gym. Their presence in times of upheaval and transition acts as a touchstone, a reminder of normalcy, of comfort, and the certainty of a love that can get you through. — Nick Trout

So at family gatherings ... I try to stick to the acceptable script. Indeed, I discover that the less I say, the happier everyone seems to be with me. I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't have been better off as a paraplegic or afflicted by some tragic form of cancer. The invisibility and periodicity of my disorder, along with how often I border on normalcy, allows them to evade my need for their understanding. And because our most enduring family heirloom is avoidance and denial of pain and suffering, I don't need much prompting to shut myself down in their presence. — Kiera Van Gelder

You mean,' Captain Penderton said, 'that any fulfilment obtained at the expense of normalcy is wrong, and should not be allowed to bring happiness. In short, it is better, because it is morally honourable, for the square peg to keep scraping around the round hole rather than to discover and use the unorthodox square that would fit?' ... 'I don't agree — Carson McCullers

For that to happen, growth has to be very strong. To get back to normalcy, we will have to have extended growth of more than 3 percent. That's not in the cards. — Joseph Stiglitz

I enjoy my crazy, thank you very much. I noticed a long time ago that those who value normalcy to the point of making someone else feel like shit for being different were assholes. I stopped caring about what people thought of me after that. — Alanea Alder

The normalcy of it almost kills me. Even in a world turned upside down, a world of war and insanity, people hang their clothing; they fold their pants; they make their beds.
It is the only way. — Lauren Oliver

Landing on the shores of normalcy is wonderful, especially after being tossed around in the sea of sickness. — Khang Kijarro Nguyen

Sexual normalcy and abnormality are personal and subjective concepts. What is unnatural to one [person] is natural to another. What is abnormal under certain conditions may be completely normal under others. And, in any event, to be different is not necessarily to be wrong, or to be sick. — Victor J. Banis

How could this have happened when everything was normal? — Joan Didion

I can be a stupid girl inside of a crazy woman at times over you. If I weren't, you should be worried! We all do stupid shit. I might as well be a fool for someone worth it. — Crystal Woods

I sometimes like to daydream that if we were all somehow simultaneously outed as lechers and perverts and sentimental slobs, it might be, after the initial shock of disillusionment, liberating. It might be a relief to quit maintaining the rigid pose of normalcy and own up to the outlaws and monsters we are. — Tim Kreider

I want people to think about movies and how we watch them. Let them know it's okay to question the structure or how we're sometimes duped into a false sense of normalcy. Most of all, I want people to question the old standard practices of, 'This is how the structure of something should work,' or, 'This is how a character must behave.' — Tim Heidecker

The main problem with mass media is that it makes it impossible to fall in love without any acumen of normalcy. There is no "normal," because everyone is being twisted by the same sources simultaneously. You can't compare your relationship with the playful couple who lives next door because they're probably modeling themselves after Chandler Bing and Monica Geller. — Chuck Klosterman

Normal is the Holy Grail
and only those without it
know its value. — Sarah Crossan

You know what's given me the greatest pleasure in my life? It's been our bungalow, the normalcy of it, the ordinariness of my waking, Almaz rattling in the kitchen, my work, my classes, my rounds with the senior students. Seeing you and Shiva at dinner, then going to sleep with my wife ... I want my days to be that way. — Abraham Verghese

Is deviation from the locally approved norms always and everywhere to be taken as disease? — Bernard Wolfe

Believe it or not, a normal human being is one who can have an orgasm and is adjusted to his society. — Aldous Huxley

The odor of frying bacon, sausage links, and ham tiptoed on little pig feet all the way to the north end of the second floor. Inevitably, the odor made her simultaneously ravenous and nauseated. She hated the sensation. It reminded her of pregnancy. Every Sunday morning, Leigh-Cheri awoke to a pan of fried fear. — Tom Robbins

Most people take long breaks after Olympics. I needed some normalcy back in my life, so I came back to the pool. — Eric Shanteau

I glimpse again that biblical rhythm of expansion-and-contraction, assertion-and-subversion. As that rhythm becomes ever clearer as the very heartbeat of the biblical tradition, we will see the basic solution for How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian. Read it all carefully and thoughtfully, recognize radicality's assertion, expect normalcy's subversion, and respect the honesty of a story that tells the truth. — John Dominic Crossan

Normalcy doesn't exist it's a fantasy, we all try to play out in reality. — Angel M.B. Chadwick

Estrogen was one mean bitch. It caused zits and weight gain on the way in, weight gain and lethargy on the way out, and in between, there were twenty-one days of normalcy before the week of bitchiness, bloating, and bouts of insanity. She shrugged. The alternative was testosterone, and that made people stupid. Crazy beat the heck out of stupid any day. — Katie Graykowski

This is Daniela with an energy like the first time we met fifteen years ago, before years of life-the normalcy, the elation, the depression, the compromise-transformed her into the woman who now shares my bed: amazing mother, amazing wife, but fighting always against the whispers of what might have been. — Blake Crouch

We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all. — John Hughes

I think that most people who are just artists, who are getting famous, would trade a lot of their fame back for some normalcy, pretty much immediately. — Ansel Elgort

...being average, being normal. That my friend is an Impossibility — Reshma Valliappan

As soon as Mr. Prosser realized that he was substantially the loser after all, it was as if a weight lifted itself off his shoulders: this was more like the world as he knew it. — Douglas Adams

Palestinian children deserve the same right to be free in their own land as Israeli children in their land. A two-state solution will finally bring Israelis the security and normalcy to which they are entitled, and Palestinians the sovereignty and dignity they deserve. — Denis McDonough

I'm so sorry, Brody. I won't bullshit you and feed you a line about how it will get easier, because I know it won't. You don't get over losing someone you love. You just learn to live through the pain every day as you try to have some kind of normalcy in your life. — Danielle Jamie

The stigmatized individual is asked to act so as to imply neither that his burden is heavy nor that bearing it has made him different from us; at the same time he must keep himself at that remove from us which assures our painlessly being able to confirm this belief about him. Put differently, he is advised to reciprocate naturally with an acceptance of himself and us, an acceptance of him that we have not quite extended to him in the first place. A PHANTOM ACCEPTANCE is thus allowed to provide the base for a PHANTOM NORMALCY. — Erving Goffman

We have no idea, but its not like we're going to win any awards for normalcy anytime soon. So you get into people's heads? The two of us can throw people around like toys. Zu once blew up an AC unit, and all she did was walk by it. — Alexandra Bracken

My parents and their world represented a return to sanity and predictability, something I was longing for after all this madness. — Ransom Riggs

I don't know if they're really like everybody else, or if they're able to pretend they are. — Madeleine L'Engle

Stay in the middle of the bell-curve of social norms and follow along, or you will find out the about freedom you never had. — Bryant McGill

I watch soap operas. I bake brownies. Normalcy is coursing through my veins. — Parker Posey

In the months and years after 9/11 it appeared likewise as if things had returned to some state of normalcy. As time passed, as the initial shock wore off and the trauma lessened, there was a growing temptation to go on almost as if it had never happened, as if the nation were still somehow immune to destruction. So it was in the last days of ancient Israel. But it was all an illusion." There was a long silence after that ... broken only by the sound of the seagulls. Then he continued as if there had been no break. "It was all a fatal illusion. So then ... what of America? — Jonathan Cahn

The "pathology of normalcy" rarely deteriorates to graver forms of mental illness because society produces the antidote against such deterioration. When pathological processes become socially patterned, they lose their individual character. On the contrary, the sick individual finds himself at home with all other similarly sick individuals. The whole culture is geared to this kind of pathology and arranged the means to give satisfactions which fit the pathology. The result is that the average individual does not experience the separateness and isolation the fully schizophrenic person feels. He feels at ease among those who suffer from the same deformation, in fact, it is the fully sane person who feels isolated in the insane society - and he may suffer so much from the incapacity to communicate that it is he who may become psychotic. — Erich Fromm

[T]he world needs us to be as flawed as we are. Everyone here needs to know that to get better. To know that they don't need to be fixed. — Tabitha Freeman

I discovered that normalcy can be like an extra layer of clothing that you put on in the morning. — Autumn Doughton

Normalcy to me is enjoying the simple things in life. — Atticus Shaffer

One of the things he loved about Clary was how easily caught up in her imagination she was, how easily she could wall herself away in illusory worlds of curses and princes and destiny and magic. Once he had been able to do the same ... Now that the real and the imagined had collided, he wondered if she, like he, longed for the past, for the normal. He wondered if normalcy was something, like a vision or silence, you didn't realize it was precious until you lost it. — Cassandra Clare

It wasn't just pretending everything was fine or grasping at normalcy, but grabbing it by the ears and making it my bitch. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Most actors make themselves unhappy by searching for their sanity, by insisting on their normalcy; it's a grave mistake. — Michael Shurtleff

Designers can create normalcy out of chaos; they can clearly communicate ideas through the organising and manipulating of words and pictures. — Jeffrey Veen

Conventions are, indeed, all that shield us from the shivering void, though often they do so but poorly and desperately. — Robert Aickman

Ever wonder why people are so determined to reach for white picket fences, supposed normalcy, a nuclear family? Well, try growing up without one. — Chuck Eddy

There are those whose own vulgar normality is so apparent and stultifying that they strive to escape it. They affect flamboyant behavior and claim originality according to the fashionable eccentricities of their time. They claim brains or talent or indifference to mores in desperate attempts to deny their own mediocrity. These are frequently artists and performers, adventurers and wide-life devotees.
Then there are those who feel their own strangeness and are terrified by it. They struggle toward normalcy. They suffer to exactly that degree that they are unable to appear normal to others, or to convince themselves that their aberration does not exist. These are true freaks, who appear, almost always, conventional and dull. — Katherine Dunn

The ordinary lunatic is generally a harmless, isolated case; since everyone sees that something is wrong with him, he is quickly taken care of. But the unconscious infections of groups of so-called normal people are more subtle and far more dangerous. — C. G. Jung

It was surreal to see such normalcy in the midst of my personal crisis. The horses still raced. The vendors still served food. The world did not stop because I had a brain tumor. — Sally Stap

The current of normalcy will pull you away from God at every opportunity if you let it. — Craig Groeschel

Life goes on with fragile normalcy. — Sara Gruen

My 30 year attempt (and subsequent failure) to reach "normal" has brought me to ponder whether "normal" even exists, or if it is nothing more than delusional grandeur based in the sounds of those sweet sirens drawing my ship in all the wrong directions. — Dan Pearce

I don't deny that I had a very privileged upbringing, but my parents and that town maintained a sense of normalcy that I think many people find hard to achieve, and I am so grateful for that. — Dylan Penn

The problem of living is at bottom an economic one. And this alone is bad enough, even in a period of so-called "normalcy." But living has been considerably complicated of late in various ways - by war, by questions of personal liberty, and by "menaces" of one kind or another. — Benton MacKaye

My characters' addictions are what makes them a bit stylized or "grotesque" - not just in appearance but through what drives them. Addiction is what threatens stability and normalcy and yet it seems very much a part of being human - at least we are all a bit obsessive and compulsive. Aren't all humans driven by mad desires for one thing or another? — Porochista Khakpour

( ... )normalcy is an illusion. Each person is utterly unique. A standard of normalcy is something that most people of the world simply will never access. — Colleen Houck

In the business of war, the role of women is really to maintain normalcy and ensure that there is cultural continuity. — Lynn Nottage

Everyone has problems. Everyone has a shitty life. But people who embrace that and do something with the misery are seen as the abnormal ones. And the people who apply normalcy like a camouflage suit are seen as the normal ones. — Andersen Prunty

I fought the idea of having security for a very long time, because I really value normalcy. I really do. I like to be able to take a drive by myself. — Taylor Swift

Some things happen to us from which we never recover, and they disrupt the normalcy of our lives. That's how life is. Human nature has a tendency to try to reconstruct old ways and pick up where we left off. If we're wise, we won't continue to go back to the way things were (we can't anyway). We must instead forget the old standard and accept a 'new normal. — Don Piper

My childhood was so inconsistent that I never expected normalcy, and it's enough for me to be able to have time and space to be good to myself and the people around me. Children are nice, but I decided to save myself instead. — Meghan Daum

Normalcy is the antithesis of evolution. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

I struggle to conceive of the "resilience" I've developed in my job as a good thing - this hardening inside me, this distance I've put between myself and the world, my determination to delude myself into normalcy. From the cockpit, it feels like much more of a loss than a triumph. It's like the world's most not-worth-it game show: Well, you've destroyed your capacity for unbridled happiness and human connection, but don't worry - we've replaced it with this prison of anxiety and pathological inability to relax! — Lindy West

As I've gotten older, I have taught myself to act "normal." I can do it well enough to fool the average person for a whole evening, maybe longer. But it all falls apart if I hear something that elicits a strong emotional reaction from me that is different from what people expect. In an instant, in their eyes, I turn into the sociopathic killer I was believed to be forty years ago. — John Elder Robison

To be something abnormal meant that you were to serve the normal. And if you refused, they hated you ... and often the normal hated you even when you did serve them. — Nnedi Okorafor

Her tragedy, if she had one, was to be as normal and average as any child ever born. — Holly Black

Noc knew that his girlfriend was better as he got to the door of Kay's living room. This he could tell by the sound of her screaming at Turney for some infraction on the Son of Time's part. He opened it to see her soaking wet, cornering Turney by the stereo and holding a ball of Hellfire. Noc burst out laughing at the normalcy of the whole thing. — Brian Fatah Steele

If you can't, or won't, think of Seymour, then you go right ahead and call in some ignorant psychoanalyst. You just do that. You just call in some analyst who's experienced in adjusting people to the joys of television, and Life magazine every Wednesday, and European travel, and the H-bomb, and Presidential elections, and the front page of the Times, and God knows what else that's gloriously normal. — J.D. Salinger

The sun flickers. Like a flame hit by a sudden gust of wind. Like the lights of a bomb shelter during an air raid. Even the sun flickers. That's what she kept telling herself. A gust, a bomb, a small explosion. Then the disruption passed - everything calm again. Everything returning to normalcy. Except that she felt herself trembling. Except she knew that this was the beginning. It was her body that had flickered. — Benjamin Alire Saenz

Where are we going?" Thomas asked, still feeling the weight of seeing those walls close, thinking about the maze, the confusion, the fear. He hold himself to stop or he'd drive himself crazy. Trying to grasp a sense of normalcy, he made a weak attempt at a joke. "If you're looking for a goodnight kiss, forget it. — James Dashner

Yeah. She'd manipulated the second most powerful vampire in town into taking her side against a psycho bitch-queen sorority girl. She'd talked rationally about putting people's brains into computers. This was a normal day. No wonder she was screwed up. — Rachel Caine

NEVER FORGET YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. STRIVE TO BE WORTHY. NORMALCY IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS. — Rick Riordan

I realize that nothing is really normal. All it takes to alter normalcy is a death or a birth. Or just some misguided fear, love, or loneliness that never goes away. — Kevin Sampsell

It's like I am inside this ethereal sphere wherein exists no logic, no reasoning, no typicality, no explanations, no realism, no comparisons, nothing ordinary, and no normalcy. And then if you are to understand me, you have to step into my realm and leave all of those things behind. I'm not typical. I'm not ordinary. And I'm not normal. And I never will be . So I don't see the point of waking up in the morning and wishing to be so. — C. JoyBell C.

Seth gave her that: a private space to believe in the illusion of normalcy. — Melissa Marr

What a foreigner may see in a fool, a bigot, an idiot or others of their kinds? Really I cannot say. As normalcy goes beyond natural light and extremism is sometimes loosely defined. But every fool must be a foreigner to his potential in the positive light, a degenerate in the negative light. In between potentials is where normalcy may hide. — Dew Platt

I'm sick and tired of having a forest and a torture chamber in my house... I want to have a nice quiet flat with ordinary doors and windows and a wife inside it, like anybody else! — Gaston Leroux

A critical point: Is an inter-phase between crisis and normalcy, life and death, danger and safety, failure and success — Ikechukwu Joseph

The distance of the fighting created the illusion of normalcy, but the new rules resulted in an attitude shift that did not suit the Administration's plans. They were going for structure, control, for panic that produced submission - what — Tea Obreht

Civilised life, you know, is based on a huge number of illusions in which we all collaborate willingly. The trouble is we forget after a while that they are illusions and we are deeply shocked when reality is torn down around us. — J.G. Ballard

It was those words that made me fall in love with him. Right there in that spot. Because he wanted me to be like him. That was his normalcy. — Amber L. Johnson

There's a notion I'd like to see buried: the ordinary person. Ridiculous. There is no ordinary person. — Alan Moore

If we are looking for a soft and malleable God who will stay safely within the boundary limits of conventional religious normalcy in His participation and impact upon our lives, then we are looking for a God who is not the God of the Bible. — Barton Jahn

I love the normalcy of Cleveland. There's regular people there. — Drew Carey

No one was normal, not really. — Richelle Mead

We fight monsters and unholy creatures for a living here. Grotesque, evil, violent, dangerous; they're certainly all these things. And yet, we somehow manage to go to sleep each night and wake up each morning. The terror wears off. What was horrific becomes mundane. We lose ourselves to a numbed normalcy after a while, a self-inflicted detachment. You forget how you got here, what it was like before. And then someone comes along, someone new, someone who sees it all with fresh eyes, and it snaps you out of your daily coma, reminding you of what you've forgotten. Of what you've become. — Bill Blais

My whole life I wanted to be normal. Everybody knows there's no such thing as normal. There is no black-and-white definition of normal. Normal is subjective. There's only messy, inconsistant, silly, hopeful version of how we feel most at home in our own lives. But when I think about what I have, what I strived to reach my whole life, it's not the biggest or best or easiest or prettiest or most anything. It's not the Manor or the laundry closet. Not the multi-million dollar inheritance or the poorhouse. It's not superstardom or unemployment. It's family and love and safety. It's bravery and hope. It's work and laughter and imperfection. It's my normal. — Tori Spelling

Disasters like Oklahoma City and 9/11 were time-limited. The children who were affected psychologically could go to a place of normalcy. — Irwin Redlener

It was as if the words they spoke were weaving a kind of net, a net of normalcy and propriety and sanity, around a situation that was anything but. The — T. Kingfisher

Was this normalcy-predictable patterns, the certainty of doing the same thing everyday? Because if so, normalcy was about to make me freak out and start screaming. — James Patterson

Who among us can claim normalcy, Bishop? — David Marusek

[Jesus Christ] used to have blue eyes but I painted them brown like mine and everybody's, to make him normal. — NoViolet Bulawayo

Many have never risked losing the normalcy of their daily existence to gain the astonishing experience of having to see God come through or die. — Murray Pura

When you have a young kid you can't go out much at night, so I spent a lot of time at home, watching movies and cooking dinner with my wife. It felt like what most people experience. White picket fence stuff.So there was some enjoyment of that normalcy, but I have to admit that part of me missed the chaos of touring. I think it's about balance. — Dan Mangan

I am very abnormal ... But it wasn't very long ago that I wasn't so abnormal. I was very normal and headed for a lifetime of paying medical bills as proof of my normalcy. — Dirk Benedict

I knew what normalcy was, and I wasn't having it. — Gary Coleman

Don't tolerate me as different. Accept me as part of the spectrum of normalcy. — Ann Northrop

He doesn't know where he is. He thinks this is his normal life. I don't have time to ruminate about how depressing it is that my brother can't tell the different between normalcy and eternal damnation. — Cynthia Hand

It's a wonderful time when you sit down around the table for dinner and discuss life. No matter where you are, it gives the semblance of normalcy to my crazy world. — Melina Kanakaredes