Things Back To Normal Quotes & Sayings

Resurrection plants are usually tiny, no bigger than your fist. They are ugly and small and useless and special. When it rains, their leaves puff up but do not become green for forty-eight hours because it takes time for photosynthesis to start up. During those strange days of its reawakening the plant lives off of pure concentrated sugar, an intense sustained infusion of sweetness, a year's worth of sucrose coursing through its veins in just one day. This little plant has done the impossible: it has transcended the wilted brown of death. The miracle is not sustainable, of course, and within a day or two things will inevitably go back to normal. Such a crazy life takes its toll, and in the long term, even a resurrection plant withers and dies completely. But for a brief, glorious moment it knows something that no other plant has ever known: how to grow without being green. — Hope Jahren

Is it that the women are to blame; or is it the artificial system of things, under which the normal sex-impulses are turned into devilish domestic gins and springes to noose and hold back those who want to progress? — Thomas Hardy

Back when I was 16, when I should have been doing normal high school things, I availed myself of my brand new driver's license to spend as much time as possible in Milwaukee's Renaissance Book Shop, a tumbledown five-story warehouse that the city was finally able to close down in 2011 for safety reasons. It was my teenage paradise. — Rick Perlstein

It's us. It's you and me. I don't care about any of this stuff. We can go home; we can go back to my gym and just work out if you want. I don't care. We don't have to do "normal" things. We can just be us. What we have isn't normal; and I don't see why it should be. — Sarah Skilton

For better, worse or different, sometimes when things go back to normal, normal simply isn't normal anymore. — Ingrid Law

One of the oldest aches in the bones of humanity is loneliness. I mean it's one of the things that goes way back; loneliness is not good for the world. And so, whoever you are, gay or straight, it is totally normal, natural, and healthy to want somebody to go through life with. It's central to our humanity. — Rob Bell

It's strange how things can change back as suddenly as they changed originally. When one thing happens and suddenly, things are back to normal. — Stephen Chbosky

Because I'm sure that as soon as things really get back to "normal," once our kids or grandkids grow up in a peaceful and comfortable world, they'll probably go right back to being as selfish and narrow-minded and generally shitty to one another as we were. — Max Brooks

The desire for change is enacted by change, not by a lack of it. When things shift, there is a natural outcry, a desire for a shift back. Sometimes this is a positive reaction, sometimes not. Regardless, once that shift becomes the new normal, that desire to effect dissipates and is eventually forgotten. — Bryce O'Connor

Though things between him and me had been tense for a few days,
they'd quickly gone back to normal. He never can stay pissed at me for long.
Look at this face. Could you? — Emma Chase

I know I come off as a little too optimistic, because I'm sure that as soon as things really get back to "normal," once our kids or grandkids grow up in a peaceful and comfortable world, they'll probably go right back to being as selfish and narrow-minded and generally shitty to one another as we were. But then again, can what we all went through really just go away? I once heard an African proverb, "One cannot cross a river without getting wet." I'd like to believe that. — Max Brooks

Lissa slipped off the bed. "Don't say it. Things happen in Sea Haven that can't be explained, and I'm not tying myself to any man, let alone one of those Prakenskii brothers. Can you imagine my personality with a man like that? So domineering. I'd shove him off a cliff. You just can't put something like that out into the universe and not have it come back and bite you in the butt."
"My butt's pretty small," Airiana pointed out. She swept both hands through her thick hair, breathing deeply. She was beginning to feel normal again, although a residue of the nightmare had lodged in the pit of her stomach, leaving her with a vague uneasiness.
"Yes, it is. But I'm kind of curvy. Which means my butt is just big enough for fate to laugh its head off while it bites me. I'm not taking any chances."

-Lissa & Airiana — Christine Feehan

Jace set what he was holding down on the windowsill and reached out to her. She came to lean against him, and his hand slid up under her t-shirt and rested caressingly, possessively, on the small of her back. He bent to kiss her, gently at first, but the gentleness went quickly and soon she was pressed up against the glass of the window, his hands at the hem of her shirt - his shirt
"Jace." She moved a little bit away. "I'm pretty sure people down there in the street can see us."
"We could ... " He gestured toward the bed. "Move ... over there."
She grinned. "You said that like it took you a while to come up with the idea."
When he spoke, his voice was muffled against her neck. "What can I say, you make my thought processes slow down. Now I know what it's like to be a normal person."
"How ... is it?" The things he was doing with his hands under the t-shirt were distracting.
"Terrible. I'm already way behind on my quota of witty comments for the day. — Cassandra Clare

It was fun being an actor, but by the time college rolled around, I was ready to try some new things. By the time I graduated, I realized I enjoyed having a normal life and I never went back. — Jeff Cohen

More than anything, I'd like to go to a park today. I want to sit in a swing, drink chocolate milk, and not think about anything in the world except the pleasure of that moment. I want to know what a normal life feels like because I can't remember anymore. I want to drag my feet on the ground as I swing back and forth. I want to feel the fresh, spring chi on my skin. I'm very tempted to get out my Halloween decorations today because looking at them always gives me a little burst of excitement. I can't, though, because I have a rule: No Halloween decorations before June 21. That's the summer solstice, so after that we're officially in the second half of the year.
Another rule I abide by is no peppermint until November 1. I only eat peppermint between November 1 and January 6, because that keeps it special. If you don't do things like that in here, then there's nothing to look forward to. — Damien Echols

The general burden of the Coolidge memoirs was that the right hon. gentleman was a typical American, and some hinted that he was the most typical since Lincoln. As the English say, I find myself quite unable to associate myself with that thesis. He was, in truth, almost as unlike the average of his countrymen as if he had been born green. The Americano is an expansive fellow, a back-slapper, full of amiability; Coolidge was reserved and even muriatic. The Americano has a stupendous capacity for believing, and especially for believing in what is palpably not true; Coolidge was, in his fundamental metaphysics, an agnostic. The Americano dreams vast dreams, and is hag-ridden by a demon; Coolidge was not mount but rider, and his steed was a mechanical horse. The Americano, in his normal incarnation, challenges fate at every step and his whole life is a struggle; Coolidge took things as they came. — H.L. Mencken

I'm saying that I can wait. For now. But when things get back to normal - assuming that ever happens - I want my shot. We can make each other happy, Faythe. I know it. And I'm done walking away from things I want just because they don't come easily. You're worth the work. — Rachel Vincent

He left through the patio door. He was not certain, but he thought he had proved something. He hoped he had made something clear. The thing was, they had to have a serious talk soon. There were things that needed talking about, important things that had to be discussed. They'd talk again. Maybe after the holidays were over and things got back to normal. He'd tell her the goddamn ashtray was a goddamn dish, for example. — Raymond Carver

One of the best ways to properly evaluate and adapt to the many environmental stresses of life is to simply view them as normal. The adversity and failures in our lives, if adapted to and viewed as normal corrective feedback to use to get back on target, serve to develop in us an immunity against anxiety, depression, and the adverse responses to stress. Instead of tackling the most important priorities that would make us successful and effective in life, we prefer the path of least resistance and do things simply that will relieve our tension, such as shuffling papers and majoring in minors. — Denis Waitley

I have to take care of the house, and the dogs, and the Macondo Board meetings, all those e-mails, the letters that are going to fans. And you've got to pay bills. These things eat up your time. You have to prepare and pack to go on that trip. Then when you come back you have to file all that stuff, answer all that mail, and that's not even washing the clothes or any of that. So it takes as many days as I've been away to come back to normal and to get quiet. — Sandra Cisneros

Claire was just coming down the stairs, humming and thinking about how nice it was to have things getting back to normal, and how she'd tell Shane about the January thing tonight, when Myrnin sent a message through the portal.
Well, more of a rock with a note tied to it, which rolled across the floor and scared Eve into a scream before the portal snapped shut. Eve kicked the rock resentfully with her thick black boots and glared at it, then at the wall.
Claire gave her a "What the hell?" kind of look.
"Your boss," Eve said, and reached down to grab the rock, "needs to figure out texting. Seriously. Who does this? Is he actually from the Stone Age? — Rachel Caine

I twisted, my loose clothes sliding over my shoulders, my waist. I hadn't realized how much weight I'd lost. Despite things creeping back to normal. I said, "Don't you have other things to deal with?" "Of course I do," he said, shrugging. "I have so many things to deal with that I'm sometimes tempted to unleash my power across the world and wipe the board clean. Just to buy me some damned peace." He grinned, bowing at the waist. Even that casual mention of his power failed to chill me, awe me. "But I'll always make time for you." I was hungry - I hadn't yet eaten. And that was indeed worry glimmering behind the cocky, insufferable grin. So I motioned him to lead the way to that familiar glass table at the end of the hall. — Sarah J. Maas

That was how I was going to get things back to normal - by working. I never thought I would use the words "working" and "normal" in the same sentence, but I'll try anything to avoid facing reality. — Gary Reilly

And things were back to normal except we were just friends. — Stephen Chbosky

When I look at photographs of my twenty-two-year-old self, so convinced of her own defectiveness, I see a perfectly normal girl and I think about aliens. If an alien came to earth - a gaseous orb or a polyamorous cat person or whatever - it wouldn't even be able to tell the difference between me and Angelina Jolie, let alone rank us by hotness. It'd be like, 'Uh, yeah, so those ones have the under-the-face fat sacks, and the other kind has that dangly pants nose. Fuck, these things are gross. I can't wait to get back to the omnidirectional orgy gardens of Vlaxnoid 7. — Lindy West

Vampires did this all the time, you remember. It was normal for them, it was their own unique take on resource conservation. They could have taught your kind a few things about restraint, if that absurd aversion to right-angles hadn't done them in at the dawn of civilization. Maybe they still can. They're back now, after all - raised from the grave with the voodoo of paleogenetics, stitched together from junk genes and fossil marrow steeped in the blood of sociopaths and high-functioning autistics. One of them commands this very mission. A handful of his genes live on in your own body so it too can rise from the dead, here at the edge of interstellar space. Nobody gets past Jupiter without becoming part vampire. — Peter Watts

Oh, it's normal," he said, and she remembered how he had always been quick to reassure her, to make her feel better. "I was away for a much shorter time, obviously, but I was very surprised when I came back. I kept thinking that things should have waited for me but they hadn't. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Most often, our water is shut off because of some reconstruction project, either in our village or in the next one over. A hole is dug, a pipe is replaced, and within a few hours things are back to normal. The mystery is that it's so perfectly timed to my schedule. That is to say that the tap dries up at the exact moment I roll out of bed, which is usually between 10:00 and 10:30. For me this is early, but for Hugh and most of our neighbors it's something closer to midday. What they do at 6:00 a.m. is anyone's guess. I only know that they're incredibly self-righteous about it and talk about the dawn as if it's a personal reward, bestowed on account of their great virtue. — David Sedaris

Dwindling energy is one of the most boring things about being old. From time to time you get a day when it seems to be restored, and you can't help feeling that you are 'back to normal', but it never lasts. You just have to resign yourself to doing less
or rather, taking more breaks than you used to in whatever you are doing. In my case I fear that what I most often do less of is my duty towards my companion rather than indulgence of my private inclinations. — Diana Athill

When you grow up
and from the look of things, you have awhile
but you learn things never go back to normal simply because everyone's sorry. Sorry is ridiculous. — Marisha Pessl

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

We had it all. Life was perfect. And then life changed. It always does. When life changes in this way, we can beg and plead to go back to the way things were. Feeling entitled to that reality. Waiting for someone to wave the magic wand and put things back to normal; back to the way life was. Or we can step up, recognize that it is time to move forward from here, and embrace total accountability — John O'Leary

Everyone thought that things were getting back to normal. They had no idea that normal didn't exist for me any more. Normal had been smashed on the rocks beneath the bridge. — Cat Clarke

[I]t is useful at times to admit to yourself that you don't know your way and to be open to help from unexpected places. Doing that makes available to you inner and outer energies and allies that arise out of your own soulfulness and selflessness. [...] [G]etting caught up in the normal human tendencies of self-cherishing and arrogance, and ignoring the larger order of things, will ultimately lead to ans impasse in your life in which you are unable to go forward, unable to go back, and unable to turn around. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

In some ways Lawler is a conceptual Diane Arbus. She's a stalker who takes advantage of situations. She pulls back curtains, causing normal things to look freakish and the freakish to turn mundane. — Jerry Saltz

It's like they say about soldiers coming back from war. People all around you are dying. Really dying, Eric. You go in for a week's chemotherapy and you're in a ward with people who are really, actually dying, there and then and doing their best to come to terms with it. When the week's up, you go home and you see your family and your friends and everything's normal and familiar. It's too much. You think - one world can't possibly hold both these lives and you feel like you're going to go crazy when you realise the world is that big and it can fill with the most terrible things whenever it wants to. — Steven Hall

I always feel like I'm in the five- to 10-pound struggle, but my life is so busy. I'm just not that concerned, really. I'm normal and I'm perfectly happy being that way. Some weeks I'm like, 'Man, my clothes are fitting so good,' and then some weeks, I'm, like, 'I need to cut back on a few things,' but that's it. I don't fall into the trap of having to be 110 pounds. — Hilary Duff

How could they have forgotten the importance of today's date? My brain screamed at me as, with shaking fingers, I climbed the stairs to the bus, before making my way to the back, out of sight. My birthday, like the norm, happens on the same date every year. Therefore, the confused part of my brain argued, how could they have all simply forgotten this fact and acted so "normal" when I entered the kitchen this morning?
They may have been abducted by aliens in the night? This was a voice from the incomprehensible area of my mind. Consequently, their behaviour would make complete sense then!
Furthermore, answered another voice from the same ridiculous compartment, they could've simply gone to bed last night fine and then awoken the next morning with amnesia? Sometimes, these things happen unexpectedly. Adele Rose, Awakening. — Adele Rose

It's funny how you can't ask difficult questions in a familiar place, how you have to stand back a few feet and see things in a new way before you realize nothing that is happening to you is normal. The trouble with you and me is we are used to what is happening to us. We grew into our lives like a kernel beneath the earth, never able to process the enigma of our composition ... Nothing is normal. It is all rather odd, isn't it, our eyes in our heads, our hands with five fingers, the capacity to understand beauty, to feel love, to feel pain. — Donald Miller

It's weird for people who still have feelings to be around depressed people. They try to help you have feelings again so things can go back to normal, and it's frustrating for them when that doesn't happen. — Allie Brosh

When you're a kid you just think about where you are going to be to put yourself in a position for the next scoring chance. But as you develop, you start to do things that may not catch the eye of the normal football watcher, the dropping back, the closing down. — Michael Owen

There really is no sense in pretending to be normal. Just be you because the moment you do, weirder things happen. Crazy comes back into fashion and every woman has to go out and find her some. — Shannon L. Alder

It wasn't just that Lucy wanted to help him. She wasn't as selfless as that. She was madly attracted to him. She was attracted to all of the normal things and the weird things, too, like the back of his neck and his thumbs on the edge of his desk and the way his hair stuck out on one side like a little wing over his ear. She caught his smell once, and it made her dizzy. She couldn't fall asleep that night. — Ann Brashares

Ignoring fame was my rebellion, in a funny way. I was insistent on being normal and doing normal things. It probably wasn't advisable to go to college in America and room with a complete stranger. And it probably wasn't wise to share a bathroom with eight other people in a coed dorm. Looking back, that was crazy. — Emma Watson

The author isn't altogether certain that there is any such thing as exaggeration. Our brains permit us to use such a wee fraction of their resources that, in a sense, everything we experience is a reduction. We employ drugs, yoga techniques and poetics - and a thousand more clumsy methods - in an effort just to bring things back up to normal. — Tom Robbins

I thrust Sophie into a corner, blocking her with my body. She panted and snagged her lower lip in her teeth. "This is not my life," she insisted.
I looked at her solemnly. "I'm afraid it is. But it doesn't have to be for long. Let's just get through this. Then things go back to normal for you."
"Like they keep going back to normal for you?" Sophie hissed. "Ghost of your mother, psycho ex-best friend, company agent dating your dad, psychic vampire ex-boyfriend, werewolf current boyfriend - by the way, I can't blame you for that one," she confessed, eyes round as she mouthed the word whoa before continuing with her list, "Trip to the asylum, attempts against your life, vigilante father ... "
"Hey, the last ones are brand new. And the vigilante father thing? He'll revert."
"Anyhow, I'm not so keen on your concept of normal." I caught her staring at me. — Shannon Delany