Something Like Normal Quotes & Sayings

I think it's important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it's like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths ... and then reason up from there. — Elon Musk

I'm not totally blind to the fact that I like people to see my work, but if it's not something I would enjoy seeing in a magazine, then I think I shouldn't be making it. I think that I don't represent only myself, I represent more people; I mean, if I like it, then I think more people will like it because I think I'm quite a normal guy. — Anton Corbijn

It will be awesome, if the people had the chance all stuff which surround them to see them as larger as possible so to be differences like you are a mice or something like this.... - I'm sure that people will see stuff which as normal size everything they won't see! — Deyth Banger

I don't know if my life will ever be completely normal again, but something like normal is a good start. — Trish Doller

After you do a play like 'The Normal Heart,' it's hard to find something you feel so passionate about. — John Benjamin Hickey

Have you ever done something so far out of your normal behavior that it was freeing?" She wouldn't plead, but she wasn't above a little coercion. She whispered into his ear and gave the lobe a quick nibble. "I mean. We're stuck here together. I like you a lot and have talked to you more than anyone else in a long time. If this was a date I'd be thinking of letting you into my apartment for a nightcap or whatever it is people call it now. Want to throw morals and all that out the window for a little bit? — Lea Barrymire

Her siren smile lit up my world. "Noah."
"Echo. You look ... " I let my eyes wander up and down as I approached the car. "Appetizing."
Her laughter tickled my soul. "I think we've had this conversation before."
I settled between her legs and cradled her face with my hands. "And I think at the end of that night something like this also happened."
Her lips feathered against mine and she giggled. "You ready for a new normal?" she whispered.
I kissed her lips one more time and plucked the keys from her hand. "Yes, and I'm driving. — Katie McGarry

The counterculture has nothing to do with Dolce & Gabbana having a 'Hippy Summer' or something. Street kids, and kids who want to live in any sort of counter-cultural experience other than what's being presented by the mainstream media or political climate, or 'normal' cultural climate, are never going to look like that. — Chris Robinson

There you are: a normal person. A little person. You're just like everyone else - you go to work, you return from work. You get an average salary. Once a year you go on vacation. You're a normal person! And then one day you're suddenly turned into a Chernobyl person. Into an animal, something that everyone's interested in, and that no one knows anything about. — Svetlana Alexievich

Sheesh, I'm surprised you've survived out here this long. Tell me, are you normal for a warrior or are you like a special day-release case or something?" "What? — Mina Carter

The other aspect of those weekday-evening trips he loved was the light itself, how it filled the train like something living as the cars rattled across the bridge, how it washed the weariness from his seatmates' faces and revealed them as they were when they first came to the country, when they were young and America seemed conquerable. He'd watch that kind light suffuse the car like syrup, watch it smudge furrows from foreheads, slick gray hairs into gold, gentle the aggressive shine from cheap fabrics into something lustrous and fine. And then the sun would drift, the car rattling uncaringly away from it, and the world would return to its normal sad shapes and colors, the people to their normal sad state, a shift as cruel and abrupt as if it had been made by a sorcerer's wand. — Hanya Yanagihara

On how to make boys like you:
the third way is to be come something called "hot"
Now Katie I would argue that there are at least two
distinct definitions
of hot. There is the like normal
human definition which is that individual seems
suitable for mating. And then theirs the weird culturally
constructed definition of hot which is that individual is
malnourished and has probably had plastic bags inserted
into her breasts. Now boys might find that hot now but I don't think there's anything inherently hot about it like if you went back to the 18th century and ask a fifteen year old boy would you like to marry a woman who has had plastic bags needlessly inserted into her breasts that fifteen year old boy would probably be like: "What's plastic? — John Green

There's nothing that compares to being in a band with your best friends. We're so comfortable together, we understand each other. It feels, like, normal. Whereas solo period felt like I was trying to be something, and play a role, and pretend. — Gwen Stefani

Turning down this invitation comes in lots of flavors. It looks like numbing yourself or distracting yourself or seeing something really beautiful as just normal. It can also look like refusing to forgive or not being grateful or getting wrapped around the axle with fear or envy. I think every day God sends us an invitation to live and sometimes we forget to show up or get head-fakes into thinking we haven't really been invited. But you see, we have been invited - every day, all over again. — Bob Goff

You travel life has the aspect of a dream. It is something outside the normal, yet you are in it. It is peopled with characters you have never seen before and in all probability will never see again. It brings occasional homesickness, and loneliness, and pangs of longing ... But you are like the Vikings who have gone into a world of adventure, and home is not home until you return. — Agatha Christie

There is something inherently stupid about gentrified thinking. It's a dumbing down and smoothing over of what people are actually like. It's a social position rooted in received wisdom, with aesthetics blindly selected from the presorted offerings of marketing and without information or awareness about the structures that create its own delusional sense of infallibility. Gentrified thinking is like the bourgeois version of Christian fundamentalism, a huge, unconscious conspiracy of homogenous patterns with no awareness about its own freakishness. The gentrification mentality is rooted in the belief that obedience to consumer identity over recognition of lived experience is actually normal, neutral, and value free. — Sarah Schulman

I went home and they seemed ... my parents seemed normal. They didn't seem to feel like somehow they had been victims of some Nazi camp or something. — Sheena Iyengar

Sometimes you've got to give them what they expect. It's the most important lesson of his life. He figures there are parts missing somewhere inside him; little pieces, like strands of a spider web that vibrate when something touches any part of the web. The strands let the spider know something else has entered its world. He has all the normal emotions. They just don't apply to other people; like those strands have been severed. — Wayne DePriest

Our lives are part of a unique adventure ... Nevertheless, most of us think the world is 'normal' and are constantly hunting for something abnormal
like angels or Martians. But that is just because we don't realize the world is a mystery. As for myself, I felt completely different. I saw the world as an amazing dream. I was hunting for some kind of explanation of how everything fit together. — Jostein Gaarder

When things go smoothly, then we can pretend we are something very special. But something happens, something unexpected, then we are forced to act like normal human beings. — Dalai Lama XIV

Friends and family came and went, sometimes helping her with her tears, other times making her laugh. But even in her laughter there was something missing. She never seemed to be truly happy; she just seemed to be passing time while she waited for something else. She was tired of just existing; she wanted to live. But what was the point in living when there was no life in it? These questions went through her mind over and over until she reached the point of not wanting to wake up from her dreams
they were what felt real.
Deep down, she knew it was normal to feel like this, she didn't particularly think she was losing her mind. She knew that one day she would be happy again and that this feeling would just be a distant memory. It was getting to that day that was the hard part. — Cecelia Ahern

I feel like a pink worm in the core of this green room, as though I have eaten my way in and should be working on becoming a butterfly, or something. I'm not real awake, here, at the moment. I hear somebody coughing. I hear my heart beating and the high-pitched sound which is my nervous system doing its thing. Oh, God, let today be a normal day. Let me be normally befuddled, normally nervous; get me to the church on time, in time. Let me not startle anyone, especially myself. Let me get through our wedding day as best I can, with no special effects. Deliver Clare from unpleasant scenes. Amen. — Audrey Niffenegger

Normal adult shopping is something I will never actually do, because it's no more possible for me to go shopping like normal adults do than it is for a man with no legs to wake up one day and walk. I can't miss shopping like you'd miss things you once had. I miss it in a different way. I miss it like you would miss a train. — John Darnielle

Her laugh was sad and taciturn, seemingly detached from any feeling of the moment, like something she kept in the cupboard and took out only when she had to, using it with no feeling of ownership, as if the infrequency of her smiles had made her forget the normal way to use them. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I loved the idea of the fact that the way, like I said, they colored outside of the lines. You know, there was rules that they didn't have to follow. And you got -you got - you could get more of a sensational thrill, all right, with some of these exploitation movies or art films, or you could get something you wouldn't see at the normal cineplex. — Quentin Tarantino

I know that when you talk about something that may hurt someone, reactions are normal, and you are touching some nerves ... But I don't do things because people always like what I do. — Pierfrancesco Favino

Her face literally glowed, blazing with so much anger, Jason could see her skull beneath her skin. Jason's mind was getting blurrier, but he knew something didn't seem right. Then the moment passed, and Her Highness looked like a normal elegant woman again, with a cordial smile and a soothing voice. "Jason. What an interesting name," she said, her eyes as cold as the Chicago wind. "I think we'll have to make a special deal for you. Come, children. Let's go shopping. — Rick Riordan

Freaky kids like us can't ever be normal- Tyler says smugly- Our generation is some new kind of "evolutionary development", my shrink says- "Normal" is just "average", not cool. My latest diagnosis is "A.P.M", Acute Premature Melancholia", usually an affliction of late middle age, they think is genetic since Ty Senoir has had it all his life, too.
You look if you might be A.P.M, too, Sky: that kind of pissed-off mopey look in your face like you swallowed something really gross and can't spit it out. — Joyce Carol Oates

And then, one day, they program a new tune, and it really catches your ear, you know, because you can be doing the washing up or something, you know, in your apartment and suddenly you go, whoa, what are they playing in there? And you run to the wall, but it's finished - but the song's finished. You only heard enough of it just the pique your interest. And you never know when they're going to play it again, of course, like a normal radio station. — Nick Lowe

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

Some people get a kick out of reading railway timetables and that's all they do all day. Some people make huge model boats out of matchsticks. So what's wrong if there happens to be one guy in the world who enjoys trying to understand you?"
"Kind of like a hobby?" she said, amused.
"Yeah I guess you could call it a hobby. Most normal people would call it friendship or love or something, but if you want to call it a hobby, that's OK too. — Haruki Murakami

My theory is that everything went to hell with Prohibition, because it was a law nobody could obey. So the whole concept of the rule of law was corrupted at that moment. Then came Vietnam, and marijuana, which clearly shouldn't be illegal, but is. If you go to jail for ten years in Texas when you light up a joint, who are you? You're a lawbreaker. It's just like Prohibition was. When people accept breaking the law as normal, something happens to the whole society, you see? — Orson Welles

What would normal people think if they knew what went on in a writer's mind below the surface? They'd think him even more around the bend than they had previously supposed if they could see the witches' cauldron of images and memories boiling up from the subconscious, impressions whirling in from without, ideas and insights bursting up like bubbles and gone again before they can be seized. And the hopelessness of the business, the whole infuriating, exhausting, fascinating business of grabbing something out of the turmoil and imposing upon it some faint shadow or rumor of the order, pattern and rhythm of the world. — Elizabeth Goudge

I find it surreal, then perfectly normal. I'm struck by how fast the surreal becomes the norm. I marvel at how unexciting it is to be famous, how mundane famous people are. They're confused, uncertain, insecure, and often hate what they do. It's something we always hear - like that old adage that money can't buy happiness-but we never believe it until we see it ourselves. Seeing it in 1992 brings me a new measure of confidence. — Andre Agassi

Chills crept up my back. It may seem like nothing to a normal person, but I wasn't normal. I was a spy. And it takes a lot for someone like me to get chills. The scariest part was that I knew it wasn't from the coolness of the morning. Something felt wrong today; I just couldn't figure out what. — Embee

Would it be too explicit, too exaggerated, to say that when I set eyes on Isobel Tolland, I knew at once that I should marry her? Something like that is the truth; certainly nearer the truth than merely to record those vague, inchoate sentiments of interest of which I was so immediately conscious. It was as if I had known her for many years already; enjoyed happiness with her and suffered sadness. I was conscious of that, as of another life, nostalgically remembered. Then, at that moment, to be compelled to go through all the paraphernalia of introduction, of 'getting to know' one another by means of the normal formalities of social life, seemed hardly worth while. We knew one another already; the future was determinate. — Anthony Powell

Too many people glorified small-town America, making it seems like a Normal Rockwell painting, but the reality was something else entirely. With the exception of doctors and lawyers or people who owned their own business, there were no high-paying jobs in Oriental, or any other small town for that matter. And while is was in many way an ideal place to raise young children, there was little for young adults to aspire to.There weren't, nor would there ever be, middle management positions in small towns, nor was there much to do on the weekends, or even new people to meet — Nicholas Sparks

I have since talked to some of my girlfriends sexual assault and found out that they had their own experiences that they never shared at the time. It was never talked about it. And I think it's because of that normal response - you feel badly, you feel responsible, you feel guilty, you feel like you did something wrong, you feel ashamed. — Kirsten Gillibrand

I was a young man with a completely normal sex drive, who was encouraged to study the scriptures," he said. "I memorized all of it." He stroked her lips. ""Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet ... Thou hast ravished my heart.""
Something stricken banished the laughter from her gaze. "Yes," she whispered. "That's what it feels like."
All the words burned away, and he stood silent, without language or barriers, holding on to her bare, warm waist. He felt like he might drown if he let go. He might drown anyway, but if he did, he needed to bring her with him. — Thea Harrison

If a betting game among a certain number of participants I played long enough, eventually one player will have all the money. If there is any skill involved, it will accelerate the process of concentrating all the stakes in a few hands. Something like this happens in the market. There is a persistent overall tendency for equity to flow from the many to the few. In the long run, the majority loses. The implication for the trader is that to win you have to act like the minority. If you bring normal human habits and tendencies to trading, you'll gravitate toward the majority and inevitably lose. — William Eckhardt

The liturgy is the place where we wait for Jesus to show up. We don't have to do much. The liturgy is not an act of will. It is not a series of activities designed to attain a spiritual mental state. We do not have to apply will pressure. To be sure, like basketball or football, it is something that requires a lot of practice
its rhythms do not come naturally except to those who have been rehearsing them for years. On some Sundays the soul will indeed battle to even pay attention. In the normal course of worship, we do not have to conjure up feelings or a devotional mood; we are not required to perform the liturgy flawlessly. Such anxious effort ... blind us to what is really going on.
We do have to show up, and we cannot leave early. But if we will dwell there, remain in place, wait patiently, Jesus will show up. — Mark Galli

Trying to explain the feeling I had is like trying to describe what you see when your eyes are bandaged: it's not impossible, but it's different from describing something you can actually look at, something you might see in the course of a normal day. It is trying to describe something at which you are unable to look directly. — John Darnielle

WILL PUSHED HIS EMPTY PLATE AWAY AND LEANED BACK IN HIS chair, feeling that delightfully uncomfortable sensation that comes when you eat just a little too much of something really delicious. Lady Pauline smiled fondly at the young man. "Would you like extras, Will? There's plenty left." He patted his stomach, surprised to find that it seemed to actually feel tighter than normal, as if it were straining at his clothes from the inside. "Thank you, no, Pauline," he said. "I've already had seconds." "You've already had fourths," Halt commented. Will frowned at him, then turned back to Pauline, smiling at her. At least she didn't make disparaging comments the way her husband did. — John Flanagan

I try Dr. Pat's breathing exercises but they're not working because my entire mind is focused on keeping myself glued to the couch. I don't want to move any closer to the bathroom just in case. But I hate myself for the thought. I know it's not right or normal. I know I'm not simply some cute quirky girl like Beck says, and every moment I can't get off the couch is a moment that makes me one level crazier. That heavy, pre-crying feeling floods my sinuses and I drop my head from the weight of it. Cover my face with my hands long enough to get out a cry or two. Because there is nothing, nothing worse than not being able to undo the crazy thoughts. I ask them to leave, but they won't. I try to ignore them, but the only thing that works is giving in to them.
Torture: knowing something makes no sense, doing it anyway. — Corey Ann Haydu

She should have been afraid. He was a big, violent beast who could easily kill her a dozen different ways. But he had saved her from the wolves. Surely he didn't mean to hurt her? And he spoke like a mostly normal human. Something that could be reasoned with.
She thought about Gaston, the only other beastlike thing she knew who spoke.
He would have been a lot slower on the uptake about everything. Their conversation would have been a lot longer and more frustrating. And he would have tried to marry her at her some point. He was human and utterly impossible to communicate or negotiate with. — Liz Braswell

Willie said normal was boring and that I should be grateful that I had a touch of spice. She said no one cared about boring people, and when they died, they were forgotten, like something that slips behind the dresser. — Ruta Sepetys

How do you go on living like normal when you know that something bad's going to happen? — Cynthia Hand

Chefs don't eat at normal hours, so the only time you feel like you really need a meal is after service, when you're exhausted and just crave something to help you wind down. — Marcus Samuelsson

Those who are close to us, when they die, divide our world. There is the world of the living, which we finally, in one way or another, succumb to, and then there is the domain of the dead that, like an imaginary friend (or foe) or a secret concubine, constantly beckons, reminding us of our loss. What is memory but a ghost that lurks at the corners of the mind, interrupting our normal course of life, disrupting our sleep in order to remind us of some acute pain or pleasure, something silenced or ignored? We miss not only their presence, or how they felt about us, but ultimately how they allowed us to feel about ourselves or them. (prologue) — Azar Nafisi

Jen leaned around Sally and glared at her two best friends. "What are you two betting on?"
"Good grief. What, does she have eagle ears or something?"
"No you dork. Your whisper is just you talking in normal volume but making your voice raspy. Really, you sound more like a chick who's been smoking for thirty years." Jen shrugged. "I'm just throwing that out there. You can take it and apply it at your leisure."
Fane was chuckling at Jen's words when Jacque elbowed him, causing him to cough.
"You don't get to laugh, wolf-man." Jacque turned back to Jen. "Thank you for that observation, Sherlock. — Quinn Loftis

If she had been a normal female, she would have swooned. But she was not normal, never had been.
"Good grief, you are impossibly handsome," she said breathlessly. "I vow, I have never experienced the like. For an instant, my brain stopped altogether. I must say, my lord, you do clean up well. But next time, I wish you would call out a warning before you come into view, and give me a chance to brace myself for the onslaught."
Something dark flickered in his eyes. Then a corner of his hard mouth quirked up. "Miss Adams, you have an interesting - a unique - way with a compliment."
The trace of a smile disoriented her further. "It is a unique experience," she said. "I never knew my brain to shut off before, not while I was full awake. I wonder if the phenomenon has been scientifically documented and what physiological explanation has been proposed. — Loretta Chase

It must be something voluntary, something self induced - like getting drunk, or talking yourself into believing some piece of foolishness because it happens to be in the Scriptures. And then look at their idea of what's normal. Believe it or not, a normal human being is one who can have an orgasm and is adjusted to society. It's unimaginable! No question about what you do with your orgasms. No question about the quality of your feelings and thoughts and perceptions. And then what about the society you're supposed to be adjusted to? Is it a mad society or a sane one? And even if it's pretty sane, is it right that anybody should be completely adjusted to it? — Aldous Huxley

One of my favorite ways to write paranormal, as in the 'Wake' trilogy, is to write very normal characters with just a hint of something other-worldly. Like somewhere, maybe, someone really can get sucked into other people's dreams. — Lisa McMann

It's not just that I'm dumb. Nakata's empty inside. I finally understand that. Nakata's like a library without a single book. It wasn't always like that. I used to have books inside me. For a long time I couldn't remember, but now I can. I used to be normal, just like everybody else. But something happened and I ended up like a container with nothing inside. — Haruki Murakami

There's something that's sexy about a guy who has the strength to kill somebody, but is also vulnerable enough to be in love. It's just those two sides - like, I don't know why, but women for some reason aren't attracted to normal guys, like, guys who are in between. — Evan Peters

Everything stopped that day, literally. I even stopped growing....Injured and traumatized children--they quite often fail to grow to normal height....Resources are diverted. The growth system shuts down....Accidents, catastrophes--something like seventy-five percent of disaster victims are convinced there were warning signs they brushed off....If you trace it back, you can see the mistake--the point you would have had a different outcome....To see the mistake, the place where you went wrong, and not be able to go back and fix it? Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch, p. 615 — Donna Tartt

HELLO. Hello hello hello hello hello hello.
Hello?
Damn, now I've gone and done it. I've made hello go all abstract and weird. It looks like an alien rune now, something an astronaut would find engraved on a moon rock and go, A strange moon word! I must bring this back to Earth as a gift for my deaf son! And which would then
of course
hatch flying space piranhas and wipe out humanity in less than three days, SOMEHOW sparing the astronaut just so he could be in the final shot, weeping on his knees in the ruins of civilization and crying out to the heavens, It was just helloooooooo!
Oh. Huh. It's totally back to normal now. No more alien doom. Astronaut, I just kept you from destroying Earth,
YOU'RE WELCOME. — Laini Taylor

I really am the world's shittiest boyfriend. Holding onto something normal for the sake of having it, for nothing other than to keep what is familiar and safe close to me because the alternative is so fucking terrifying I can't begin to wrap my head around it. It has nothing to do with it being another guy and everything to do with it being Chance, and Chance has the ability to shatter me into the minuscule fragments and base elements of the star I supposedly came from.
Who walks willingly into something like that? — Kelley York

We should have a name for them, Anna said.The Sick, or the Infected? Something. Something to differentiate them from the real people we see - I mean, the normal survivors like us.

The Thirsty? Dave suggested.

The Thirsty? Anna said sarcastically. Like, look out Dave - there's a Thirsty behind you?

The Arseholes, Mini said. The Scary Arseholes.

That works, I said with a grin. Look out Dave, there's an arsehole behind you! — James Phelan

I'd like to be in a female version of The Fugitive. Something where I don't have to be ripped up like an action star, but be a normal, healthy lady who is framed and on the run. I'd have to run from explosions and punch people in the face but not rappel down a building. — Jenny Slate

I wonder why they still love me and why I can't love them back and how two normal stable people could have created something like me, lived with something like me, and tolerated something like me. — James Frey

Jacque leaned over and whispered in Sally's ear, "I give it two days before he lays one on her."
"You're being generous. I say less than twenty four hours."
"Is that a bet?" Jacque asked, eyebrows raised.
"Better believe it," Sally answered. Her lips eased into a crooked smile.
Jen leaned around Sally and glared at her two best friends. "What are you two betting on?"
"Good grief. What, does she have eagle ears or something?"
"No, you dork. Your whisper is just you talking in normal volume but making your voice raspy. Really, you sound more like a chick who's been smoking for thirty years."
Jen shrugged. "I'm just throwing that out there. You can take it and apply it at your leisure."
Fane was chuckling at Jen's words when Jacque elbowed him, causing him to cough."You don't get to laugh, wolf-man."
Jacque turned back to Jen. "Thank you for that observation, Sherlock."
"Always glad to help a friend in need, Watson." Jen grinned at Jacque's irritated look. — Quinn Loftis

I've never really had a real job. When I was young doing stand-up, I'd get 50 bucks a week here or 100 bucks a week there. Sometimes for headlining one of the rooms, or MC-ing, or something like that. So, I've never had like a normal job. — Seth Rogen

Who knew Demon Child would have such a normal name? I expected something exotic like Serena or Destiny or the Evil One That Comes in the Night to Make Us Chilly. — Darynda Jones

Know what I think?" said Perry. "I think there must be something wrong with
us. To do what we did."'
"Did what?"
"Out there."
Dick dropped the binoculars into a leather case, a luxurious receptacle initialed
H. W. C. He was annoyed. Annoyed as hell. Why the hell couldn't Perry shut up? Christ
Jesus, what damn good did it do, always dragging the goddam thing up? It really was
annoying. Especially since they'd agreed, sort of, not to talk about the goddam thing.
Just forget it.
"There's got to be something wrong with somebody who'd do a thing like that,"
Perry said.
"Deal me out, baby," Dick said. "I'm a normal." And Dick meant what he said.
He thought himself as balanced, as sane as anyone - maybe a bit smarter than the
average fellow, that's all. But Perry - there was, in Dick's opinion, "something wrong"
with Little Perry. — Truman Capote

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

GHOSTBUSTERS I always wanted the reboot of Ghostbusters to be four girl-ghostbusters. Like, four normal, plucky women living in New York City searching for Mr. Right and trying to find jobs - but who also bust ghosts. I'm not an idiot, though. I know the demographic for Ghostbusters is teenage boys, and I know they would kill themselves if two ghostbusters had a makeover at Sephora. I just have always wanted to see a cool girl having her first kiss with a guy she's had a crush on, and then have to excuse herself to go trap the pissed-off ghosts of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire or something. In my imagination, I am, of course, one of the ghostbusters, with the likes of say, Emily Blunt, Taraji Henson, and Natalie Portman. Even if I'm not the ringleader, I'm definitely the one who gets to say "I ain't afraid a no ghost." At least the first time. — Mindy Kaling

People here say that there is something strange, but only about Dawn. The other girls, they are normal, polite young women. They all look alike, like tiny replicas of their Ma. But Dawn, she looks nothing like them and she acts nothing like them. — Carys Jones

You're not . . . normal, Clara. You try to pretend you are. But you're not. You talked to a grizzly bear, and it obeyed you. Birds follow you like a Disney cartoon, or haven't you noticed? And for a while after you came back from Idaho Falls, Wendy thought you were on the run from someone or something. You're good at everything you try. You ride a horse like you were born in the saddle, you ski perfect parallel turns your first time on the hill, you apparently speak fluent French and Korean and who knows what else. Yesterday I noticed that your eyebrows kind of glitter in the sun. And there's something about the way you move, something that's beyond graceful, something that's beyond human, even. It's like you're . . . something else. — Cynthia Hand

A phrase such as 'the idea derived from evolution that ontogenesis recapitulates phylogenesis' for example, not impossibly intricate in itself but somehow resistant to effort, as though it triggered something obdurate and even delinquent in his mind. Or the promise to look at an argument from three points of view, each of which had five salient features, the first of which had four distinguishable aspects. It was like discovering that a supposedly sane person with whom one had been enjoying a perfect normal conversation was in fact quite mad. Or, if not mad, sadistic. — Howard Jacobson

Would Terrible actually have killed me if I hadn't agreed to come up?" "It's entirely possible, yeah." She said it like it was no big deal. Like it was normal or something, rather than psychotic. Who the hell were these people? — Stacia Kane

I'm starting to believe that happily ever after includes people doing things that upset each other. We all get cranky, or impatient, or worried, or careless enough to do or say things that hurt someone else. Like it or not, that's normal. We can't blame it all on Olympia's bad energy. The important part is that we feel sorry about what we've done and make up for it. That's something Olympia never did. — Jean Ferris

Yeah, well, I'll be glad to birth it if it means I can name him something normal. (Zarek)
Yeah, yeah. This from a man who whines like a two-year-old when he stubs his toe. I'd like to see you survive ten hours of childbirth. (Astrid) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

They met in the library searching for old Sidney Sheldon books. Her silence and calmness drew her to him. His brooding nature drew him to her. Conversations flowed like the waters of a water-fall! And every time they met their conversations sparked flames like the forest caught in a wild fire!

There was something in her eyes! Her eyes were expressive and from the first day that they met, they spoke to him a million things! He could know which night she had cried, which night she had slept peacefully and which night of hers had been spent in complete sleeplessness. He began reading her eyes more deeply and passionately than the books in the library...

And being an obsessive man, he did things normal men did not! Like he knew the number of strands of hair that her eye-lashes had! — Avijeet Das

It would hurt someone normal," I whispered. "I'm not normal. It isn't like a phantom limb, something you had, used, needed and missed when it was gone. I never had that. I never had love. Devotion. Loyalty. You can't miss something you've never had. — Kristen Ashley

Doing something for Victoria's Secret would be great - I love Doutzen Kroes. She's so special to look at but seems like a very normal person. She's true to herself - that's important to me. — Ymre Stiekema

Nina pulled the pins from her hair, shucked off the blonde wig, and tossed it on the table they'd set in the middle of the tomb. She slumped into a chair, rubbing her fingers along her scalp. "So much better," she said with a happy sigh. But Matthias could not ignore the almost greenish cast to her skin.
She was worse tonight. Either she'd run into trouble with Smeet or she'd simply overexerted herself. And yet, watching her, Matthias felt something in him ease. At least now she looked like Nina again, her brown hair in damp tangles, her eyes half-shut. Was it normal to be fascinated by the way someone slouched? — Leigh Bardugo

Then everything was normal again, except that the liner was speeding for the planet Krim at something more than thirty times the speed of light. Normality extended through all the galaxy so far inhabited by men. There were worlds on which there was peace, and worlds on which there was tumult. There were busy, zestful young worlds, and languid, weary old ones. From the Near Rim to the farthest of occupied systems, planets circled their suns, and men lived on them, and every man took himself seriously and did not quite believe that the universe had existed before he was born or would long survive his loss. Time passed. Comets let out vast streamers like bridal veils and swept toward and around their suns. Some of them - one in ten thousand, or twenty - were possibly seen by human eyes. The liner bearing Hoddan sped through the void. In time it made a landfall on the Planet Krim. — Murray Leinster

While she strode rapidly through the ward to the door at the other end, she was able to see that every bed or cot held an infant or a small child in whom the human template had been wrenched out of pattern, sometimes horribly, sometimes slightly. A baby like a comma, great lolling head on a stalk of a body... then something like a stick insect, enormous bulging eyes among stiff fragilities that were limbs... a small girl all blurred, her flesh guttering and melting - a doll with chalky swollen limbs, its eyes wide and blank, like blue ponds, and its mouth open, showing a swollen little tongue. A lanky boy was skewed, one half of his body sliding from the other. A child seemed at first glance normal, but then Harriet saw there was no back to its head; it was all face, which seemed to scream at her. — Doris Lessing

Mia looks down at my outstretched hands, opens her mouth to say something, and then she just sighs. Her face hardens into a mask as she reaches out her own hand to take mine.

The tremor in my hand has become so normal, so nonstop, that it's generally imperceptible to me. But as soon as my fingers close around Mia's, the thing I notice is that it stops and suddenly it goes quiet, like when the squall of feedback is suddenly cut when someone switches off an amp. And I could linger here forever.

Except this is a handshake, nothing more. — Gayle Forman

My run is so weird. That's what I'm most nervous about in this whole ordeal. I'm most nervous about everybody making fun of the way I run. I do, like, karate hands. Instead of running with my hands closed together like a normal person. It's like I'm trying to be aerodynamic or something, so my hands are straight like razors. Karate hands. — Jennifer Lawrence

I'm from a normal household. I haven't always had millions to spend on creams and clothes. I like something that's affordable, but good quality. With Avon, it's really accessible, and everyone loves it. It's a brand that you can rely on. — Abbey Clancy

Grief is not linear. People kept telling me that once this happened or that passed, everything would be better. Some people gave me one year to grieve. They saw grief as a straight line, with a beginning, middle, and end. But it is not linear. It is disjointed. One day you are acting almost like a normal person. You maybe even manage to take a shower. Your clothes match. You think the autumn leaves look pretty, or enjoy the sound of snow crunching under your feet. Then a song, a glimpse of something, or maybe even nothing sends you back into the hole of grief. It is not one step forward, two steps back. It is a jumble. It is hours that are all right, and weeks that aren't. Or it is good days and bad days. Or it is the weight of sadness making you look different to others and nothing helps. — Ann Hood

We heard her come halfway up the stairs, where she must have seen the bedroom light on.
Again, the normal parent reaction would have been to say something like, "You had better come out this moment or I am releasing the tiger!" But Debbie was not a normal parent, so we heard her gigle and creep away, saying, "Shhh! Rachel! Come with Mommy! Stuart is busy! — Maureen Johnson

I like to draw, produce paintings, do something with my fingers - but I am very normal, down-to-earth person. — Marion Bartoli

This is the defining event of my life and you're treating it like it's normal. like it's nothing."
He leaned back, looking up at the sk. "Well, maybe it should stop being the defining event. There's a whole lot more to an average life than something that happened before you were a year old."
I knew that he was right, but it was scary. I looked away because I didn't want him to see how lonely I'd been. It was disorienting to think everything that had defined me for so long was only circumstantial. — Brenna Yovanoff

Education, like everything else, goes in fads, and has the normal human tendency to put up with something bad for just so long, and then rush to the other extreme. — Anthony Standen

There's a time and a place for being normal. For most people, normal is their default setting. But for some, like you and me, normal is something we have to bring out, like putting on a suit for a posh dinner. — Alice Oseman

But I started to realize that it doesn't begin like this, that anybody can be the target for prejudice, all you have to be is "too" something . Too short, too fat, too clever, too big, too small, too slow, too new, "too different" from what others think of as normal. — Bryce Courtenay

I just desperately wanted to be happy again in a way that wasn't forced. I wanted to feel like I accomplished something. I did this. I finished this record. I'm doing all the promo. I'm doing everything that I said I was going to do. I really wanted to be happy and normalized and I was tired of people saying I was volatile. I'm not. I'm a pretty normal person. I have problems like anyone else but I've worked so hard to be OK and I don't think that I gave myself enough credit for that. — Michael Angelakos

So," Martinez said, "we're talking about going directly against NASA's decision?" "Yes," Lewis confirmed, "that's exactly what we're talking about. If we go through with the maneuver, they'll have to send the supply ship or we'll die. We have the opportunity to force their hand." "Are we going to do it?" Johanssen asked. They all looked to Lewis. "I won't lie," she said. "I'd sure as hell like to. But this isn't a normal decision. This is something NASA expressly rejected. We're talking about mutiny. And that's not a word I throw around lightly. — Andy Weir

Haunt an old house.
Ask for a treat.
Laugh like a witch.
Lick something sweet.
Offer a trick.
Wander a maze.
Echo a boo.
Exclaim the phrase
Normal's unnatural on Halloween! — Richelle E. Goodrich

In something like an instant the man had changed his life. He reinvented his relationship to the world around him in a way that is considered normal only in California. — Michael Lewis

That's what being shy feels like. Like my skin is too thin, the light too bright. Like the best place I could possibly be is in a tunnel far under the cool, dark earth. Someone asks me a question and I stare at them, empty-faced, my brain jammed up with how hard I'm trying to find something interesting to say. And in the end, all I can do is nod or shrug, because the light of their eyes looking at me, waiting for me, is just too much to take. And then it's over and there's one more person in the world who thinks I'm a complete and total waste of space.
The worst thing is the stupid hopefulness. Every new party, every new bunch of people, and I start thinking that maybe this is my chance. That I'm going to be normal this time. A new leaf. A fresh start. But then I find myself at the party, thinking, Oh, yeah. This again.
So I stand on the edge of things, crossing my fingers, praying nobody will try to look me in the eye. And the good thing is, they usually don't. — Carol Rifka Brunt

When a newspaper comes out that says 'Duff' Puff - she must have gained 15 pounds' or something like that, how would any normal person react? — Hilary Duff

Let us give publicity to H.I.V./AIDS and not hide it, because the only way to make it appear like a normal illness like TB, like cancer, is always to come out and say somebody has died because of H.I.V./AIDS, and people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary. — Nelson Mandela

"With my desire and drive, I definitely wasn't normal. Normal people can be happy with a regular life. I was different. I felt there was more to life than plodding through a normal existence ... I have always been impressed by stories of greatness and power. I wanted to do something special, to be recognized as the best. I saw bodybuilding as the vehicle that would take me to the top, and I put all my energy into it." And so with beliefs and dreams like that, he reached the top and everything he has ever done. And it all started in his head ... with visions, with dreams, would goals. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

I don't want to be treated like I came from another planet or something or was somehow born with some weird birthright or super power. I don't view myself that way. I am a normal guy, picking up the crap from the dog and scraping the BBQ and having a beer and fixing the shed out back. — Chris Hadfield

Each person in the group said something except for me. My silence became noticed. About halfway through the meeting I started to think, I've got to talk. Today, I've got to talk. Fear racked me so bad that sweat ran down my sides. I thought, After the curly-haired woman stops talking I'll raise my hand. A man with a cocky smile told the curly woman that her story was nothing compared to his, he'd been passed out cold from heroin and God knows what, and I wanted to tell him to quit glorifying hinself. I was just about to say the words, a few faces turned toward me as if they could sense my imminent speech, when a man across the circle interrupted.
The opportunity passed; what I wanted to say wouldn't fit now. I tilted on the back two legs of the chair and waited for my desire to speak and be noticed and be part of the group to travel back through my nervous system. Up the synapses condemnation rushed: Why couldn't I spit something out like a normal person? — Daphne Scholinski

Adam Wayne, the conqueror, with his face flung back and his mane like a lion's, stood with his great sword point upwards, the red raiment of his office flapping around him like the red wings of an archangel. And the King saw, he knew not how, something new and overwhelming. The great green trees and the great red robes swung together in the wind. The preposterous masquerade, born of his own mockery, towered over him and embraced the world. This was the normal, this was sanity, this was nature, and he himself, with his rationality, and his detachment and his black frock-coat, he was the exception and the accident - a blot of black upon a world of crimson and gold. — G.K. Chesterton