Why Be Normal Quotes & Sayings

I thought every person should live for art, not just me, and furthermore, why would I want to be normal? Why would I want to be stupid like everyone else? — Rabih Alameddine

The population at large is neither 'ordinary' or 'normal'. They seem to be bound together by a collective ignorance of themselves and what they are. They have, every one of them, got their deep dark thoughts with many a skeleton rattling in their secret cupboards. Their fascination with 'types' like myself plagues them with the mystery of why and how a living person can actually do things which may be only those dark images and acts secretly within them. I believe they can identify with these 'dark images and acts' and loathe anything which reminds them of this dark side of themselves. — Dennis Nilsen

I never said you were supposed to be a jailer, i only said a normal person would have questioned why someone would create a decoy nun and then crawl out the window. — Janette Rallison

One reason why it is difficult for management to accept unexpected success is that all of us tend to believe that anything that has lasted a fair amount of time must be 'normal' and go on 'forever'. Anything that contradicts what we have come to consider a law of nature is then rejected as unsound, unhealthy, and obviously abnormal. — Peter F. Drucker

Why do you love the woman you're in love with? Because she is. And that, after all, is God's own definition of Himself; I am that I am. The girl is who she is. Some of her isness spills over and impregnates the entire universe. Objects and events cease to be mere representations of classes and become their own uniqueness; cease to be illustrations of verbal abstractions and become fully concrete. Then you stop being in love, and the universe collapses, with an almost audible squeak of derision, into its normal insignificance. — Aldous Huxley

Taylor Swift on why girls look up to her:
It's the message. I try to have a normal life and look at things in a normal way, under very abnormal circumstances. That's always going to be my main goal, that's always what I'm going to strive for, to be a normal human being. It's interesting because you're put in really abnormal situations. You have an abnormal-size microscope covering your life and everything you do. You look at the idea of being 22, that's when you're supposed to be out there living and being selfish and making mistakes and messing up. If I mess up once, it's a headline everywhere. — Taylor Swift

I don't know how this works. Or why. I stopped trying to figure it out a long time ago. I'm never going to figure it out, any more than a normal person figure out his or her own existence. After a while, you have to be at peace with the fact that you simply are. There is no way to know why. You can have theories, but there will never be proof. — David Levithan

If you are doing what everyone else is doing, you are doing something wrong. Why? Because most people are not obtaining results that are considered extraordinary.
"If your thinking is causing you to do what everyone else is doing, you are only contributing to the average. Even if you are contributing to the average at a high level, it is still ... average.
"Do you want to be average? Do you want an average life span or an average lifestyle? Do you want an average marriage? Do you want to raise average children? Do you want an average spiritual life? Do you want average financial results? Do you want an average amount of influence for good in your community?
" ... to produce results that are extraordinary - you cannot afford to think like average people think. You cannot act like average people act. You cannot be what average people are ... which is normal. — Andy Andrews

He's a very, very sensitive guy. That's one of the things that makes his antisocial behavior, his rudeness, so unconscionable. I can understand why people who are thick-skinned and unfeeling can be rude, but not sensitive people. I once asked him why he gets so mad about stuff. He said, "But I don't stay mad." He has this very childish ability to get really worked up about something, and it doesn't stay with him at all. But there are other times, I think honestly, when he's very frustrated, and his way to achieve catharsis is to hurt somebody. And I think he feels he has a liberty and a license to do that. The normal rules of social engagement, he feels, don't apply to him. Because of how very sensitive he is, he knows exactly how to efficiently and effectively hurt someone. And he does do that. — Walter Isaacson

I try to be outraged by things that other people are just very accepting of, as though they're normal and can't be changed. A lot of what I write about is, 'Hey, you know, this stuff is really awful, and it doesn't need to be, and that's why it's so offensive.' Things should be better. — Matt Taibbi

But I also asked why they didn't chase their dreams. How many rock stars just settled for accountancy? How many astronauts grew up to be psychologists? Other kids were playing Mafia Wars, we were taking down the fucking Mafia and no it wasn't normal. It wasn't even close. — Mark Millar

Normal? What's that?"
"How you really look."
"Can you take off all your clothes?"
Okay weirdest thing ever-I just asked myself to take off all my clothes. It doesn't get much creepier. "Why on earth would I do that?"
"You asked me to be naked; I thought it was only fair. — Kiersten White

You are a miracle, why would you ever want to be normal? — Kami Garcia

Who gets to be the judge of reality? If it was deeply felt, believed, spoken about often or altered your life course, then it was real enough. Faith doesn't get the luxury of all those things one hundred percent of the time, but we call that normal behavior based on a gut feeling. I said. I looked at his wife and she busted out laughing. Her husband was trying to catch invisible butterflies above his head - dementia. My patients teach me the most sobering of truths: Why wreck his smile. If I could see them, I would want to catch them too. — Shannon L. Alder

I remember during Oscar season, the thing I hated most was being talked to differently; people treat you differently. And then I suddenly understood why celebrities can be so weird; it's hard to act normal when no-one treats you normally. — Jennifer Lawrence

A little pain now and then is normal;
The wounds will heal, and then we'll be okay.
Life goes on, but not forever,
So why should we? — Margo T. Rose

I mean, I tried to change, I did, everybody tries to change, Michael. Not just the queerboys. You look in the mirror and all you see is what's wrong, I'm not _this_ enough or I'm not _that_ enough, and you spend your whole life trying to fix yourself, because you just want to be okay inside your head, you know?

I know you know this, Michael, that's why you're here. You're looking for the fix. Yeah, that's why they call it a fix. Because you think you're broken. Only you're not--that broken feeling? That's normal. That's how you know you're normal. If you're not feeling it, you really are broken, that's the joke — David Gerrold

Most psychologists believe that nature - genetics - accounts for about half of the reason why we tend to act the way we do. His point is simply that there are certain times and places and conditions when much of that can be swept away, that there are instances where you can take normal people from good schools and happy families and good neighborhoods and powerfully affect their behavior merely by changing the immediate details of their situation. This — Malcolm Gladwell

[ ... ]he also had a device which looked rather like a largish electronic calculator. This had about a hundred tiny flat press buttons and a screen about four inches square on which any one of a million "pages" could be summoned at a moment's notice. It looked
insanely complicated, and this was one of the reasons why the snug plastic cover it fitted into had the words
Don't Panic printed on it in large friendly letters. The other reason was that this device was in fact that most
remarkable of all books ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The reason why it was published in the form of a micro sub meson electronic component is that if it were printed in normal book form, an interstellar hitch hiker would require several inconveniently large buildings to carry it around in. — Douglas Adams

Why be happy when you could be normal ? — Jeanette Winterson

You see, my version of why anyone would want to become an actor is that it's some psychological fixation, something that happened in puberty that you didn't outgrow in time, which is normal. Nevertheless, if you make it a profession, it can be really neurotic. — Christoph Waltz

Ugh. Why did I have to have so many thoughts? Why couldn't I just be a normal girl and bask in the glow of finally knowing that the boy I wanted wanted me back?
I slipped in the back door,and as I did, one of the maids gave me a quick curtsy. Ah,right. Because I wasn't a normal girl.
I had hoped to get back to my room without seeing anyone else, but I met Cal on the landing. Wonderful.
"Hey," he said, taking in my disheveled appearance. "Why are you up so early?"
"Oh,I was just,you know, exercising." I jogged in place for a second before realizing that I probably looked like a mental patient.
"Okaaay," Cal said slowly, confirming my suspicions. — Rachel Hawkins

Caroline leaned forward. "Now explain to me why this is perfectly normal and dressing up in Regency gear is not."
He blinked. "Finley, because the Civil War is history."
"So is Regency England." She laughed, eyes bright. "Just because we're not firing cannons or riding horses doesn't mean it won't be fun. — Mary Jane Hathaway

I thought that nothing enormously bad or good had happened to me during my life. All the normal things had occurred. I had lived a completely unremarkable life. I wanted only my home, and the love and safety of those around me, nothing else. I knew there was no particular reason why I was put on this earth, but here I was and I was glad to be here, awed by the beauty of it. It was a perfect moment. (p.99) — Michael Zadoorian

Well," he said with an affected sigh, "you have my approval, at least."
"Why?" Hyacinth asked suspiciously.
"It would be an excellent match," he continued. "If nothing else, think of the children."
She knew she'd regret it, but still she had to ask. "What children?"
He grinned. "The lovely lithping children you could have together. Garethhhh and Hyathinthhhh. Hyathinth and Gareth. And the thublime Thinclair tots."
Hyacinth stared at him like he was an idiot.
Which he was, she was quite certain of it.
She shook her head. "How on earth Mother managed to give birth to seven perfectly normal children and one freak is beyond me."
"Thith way to the nurthery." Gregory laughed as she
headed back into the room. "With the thcrumptious little
Tharah and Thamuel Thinclair. Oh, yeth, and don't forget
wee little Thuthannah! — Julia Quinn

It's considered acceptable in our culture to approach perfect strangers, as often or not who may be in extremis, and evangelise. I don't see why that's considered a normal thing. — Christopher Hitchens

When I was successful, but accused of arrogance, I wanted to drag every journalist who misunderstood to this place, and make them see that for a woman, a working-class woman, to want to be a writer, to want to be a good writer, and to believe that you were good enough, that was not arrogance; that was politics. (Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? p. 103) — Jeanette Winterson

I try to write characters that are normal, believable people with a unique sense of humor. I like characters that aren't necessarily society's idea of "perfect". I wanted to make characters that were more real. I want my potential readers to see that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. I want them, especially the girls, to realize that whatever you look like, whether you're chubby or skinny, dark haired or blonde, popular or the school outcast, that everyone deserves to be loved. And that if you look hard enough, there's someone out there waiting just for you. — Taylor Fenner

I'm sorry, I don't know what any of you want, or why guns and knives are being waved around, or why the girl has just been taken hostage, but everyone seems to be acting like having a TALKING SKELETON in the room is perfectly normal. And you, where are your eyes? How can you see? How come the only people with eyes in this room are me and her? — Derek Landy

Consider in what way the industrial system developed upon capitalist lines. Why were a few rich men put with such ease into possession of the new methods? Why was it normal and natural in their eyes and in that of contemporary society that those who produced the new wealth with the new machinery should be proletarian and dispossessed? — Hilaire Belloc

Normal is boring and safe. So, deviate from the norm because the greatest advances in humankind's history have come from people embracing their inner A. B. Normal. — Karl Pippart III

Yeah but everyone is in love with me! Like Snape and Loopin took a video of me naked. Hargrid says he's in love with me. Vampire likes me and now even Snaketail is in love with me! I just wanna be with you ok Draco! Why couldn't Satan have made me less beautiful?" I shouted angrily. (an" don't wory enoby isn't a snob or anyfing but a lot of ppl hav told her shes pretty) "Im good at too many things! WHY CAN'T I JUST BE NORMAL? IT'S A FUCKING CURSE!" I shouted and then I ran away. — Tara Gilesbie

But do you imagine there's a certain type of person in the world who conforms to the idea of a 'bad person'? You'll never find someone who fits that mold neatly, you know. On the whole, all people are good, or at least they're normal. The frightening thing is that they can suddenly turn bad when it comes to the crunch. That's why you have to be careful. — Soseki Natsume

you have a hyper-sensitive sense of smell. It's dozens of times more sensitive than a normal person's. In one way, it's a bonus, because pleasant smells, to you, are amazing. However, the opposite is also true. Bad smells are awful. "This is why you think people stink. You can smell everything about them: the smallest amount of sweat or a hint of coffee on their breath. It's one of the main reasons you find people so difficult to be around. "My offer is this: I will amend — Justin Lee Anderson

Being a parent is a life sentence. You see, that's why normal people should not have children. Because, if you raise a kid with only love and support, I guarantee that kid will be in rehab by the time he is sixteen. Why ? Because you never introduced him to mister back-of-your-hand. You know why I only broke into a liquor store once ? 'Cos my father introduced me to mister back-of-his-hand. And it's wiley side-kick. Mister foot-in-my-ass. — Christopher Titus

Sitcoms are designed for normal people who just want to turn on their TV and get a laugh. It's not high-brow, you don't have to work so hard, and it's meant to be a relatable genre. That's why I love it so much - my fans are from 8 years old to 80 years old, because everybody can relate to what's funny. — Megyn Price

Broke is normal. Why be normal? — Dave Ramsey

I'm not concerned with paid assassins ... mindless, soulless animals who excel at nothing else. But you, Erik ... you love all the beauty in this world ... you are a genius in so many different fields. Why do you set yourself beyond the pale of humanity by such a despicable crime?"
He took off the mask and turned slowly to let me see.
"This face which has denied me all human rights also frees me of all obligation to the human race," he said quietly. "My mother hated me, my village drove me from my home, I was exhibited like an animal in a cage until a knife showed me the only way to be free. The pleasures of love will always be forbidden to me ... but I am young, Nadir. I have all the desires of any normal man. — Susan Kay

I honestly don't know where the high voice thing came from in the first place. Why do people have high voices? Emotional problems? What is that? It could easily be that. And now I'm getting more normal, and my voice is getting deeper. — Leslie Mann

She sighed, annoyed at her restlessness. "So," she said, disrupting Wolf in another backward glance.
"Who would win in a fight - you or a pack of wolves?"
He frowned at her, all seriousness. "Depends," he said, slowly, like he was trying to figure out her motive for asking. "How big is the pack?"
"I don't know, what's normal? Six?"
"I could win against six," he said. "Any more than that and it could be a close call."
Scarlet smirked. "You're not in danger of low self-esteem, at least."
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing at all." She kicked a stone from their path. "How about you and ... a lion?"
"A cat? Don't insult me."
She laughed, the sound sharp and surprising. "How about a bear?"
"Why, do you see one out there?"
"Not yet, but I want to be prepared in case I have to rescue you."
The smile she'd been waiting for warmed his face, a glint of white teeth flashing. "I'm not sure. I've never had to fight a bear before. — Marissa Meyer

the kids who can't adapt to school's tedium are diagnosed with ADHD and are put on powerful psychoactive drugs, which have the immediate effect of reducing their spontaneity so they can attend to the teacher and complete the senseless busywork. Nobody knows the long-term effects of these drugs on the human brain, but research with animals suggests that one effect may be to interfere with the normal development of the brain connections that lead children generally to become more controlled, less impulsive, with age and maturity.13 Perhaps that helps to explain why today we see more and more cases of ADHD extending into adulthood. As with lots of psychoactive drugs, the drugs used to treat ADHD may be creating long-term dependency. — Peter Gray

Such ordeals always strike one with their strangeness, their digression from the normal flow of events, and often provoke a universal protest: "Why me?" Be sure that this is not a question but an outcry. The person who screams it has been instilled with an astonishing suspicion that he, in fact, has been the perfect subject for a very specific "weird," a tailor-made fate, and that a prior engagement, in all its weirdness, was fulfilled at the appointed time and place. — Thomas Ligotti

Why was it considered normal for a girl to live for fashion and makeup, but not car engines or bugs? And what about sports fanatics? My mom had a boyfriend who would flip out if he missed even a minute of a football game. Wouldn't that be what doctors considered autistic behavior? — Tara Kelly

The reason why women are abandoned has always been a puzzle to me, until I started realizing that it goes back to a hidden factor that they, themselves hide, and that's called irresponsibility. Feminism made them worse, because now they think that it is normal to be irresponsible, that a man must be the victim of the domestic abuse. — Kent Lamarc

But, what has happened with the adult human? Why are we so different? Why are we not wild? From the point of view of the Victim we can say that something sad happened to us, and from the point of view of the warrior we can say that what happened to us is normal. What has happened is that we have the Book of Law, the big Judge and the Victim who rule our lives. We are no longer free because the Judge, the Victim, and the belief system don't allow us to be who we really are. Once our minds have been programmed with all that garbage, we are no longer happy. — Miguel Ruiz

Queen songs are not about the life of a rock star - they tend to be about the lives of normal people, which is why I think the songs connect so much. We're very lucky that they seemingly connect with every generation. — Brian May

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

People should be left to believe what they like, so long as they harm no one else. Apart from normal expectations of politeness, it is not however clear why people should require their personal beliefs to be treated with special sensitivity by others, to the point that if others fail to tip-toe respectfully around them they will start throwing bombs. — A.C. Grayling

Often I would hear other people ask, "When will I be normal again?"
What you don't often hear is a blunt truth: things will never be normal again. Not the "old" normal at least. You have to invent the new normal.
I knew that I needed to take an honest appraisal of my life. Were my problems really bigger than me? Of course not. That's why I remained in constant motion. Resistance to life's changes meant death. No matter how depressing and bleak my past looked, I knew that I needed to keep moving and adapting in order to survive. — Michelle Dallocchio

I see you are looking at my feet," he said to her when car was in motion.
"I beg your pardon?" said the woman.
"I said I see you're looking at my feet".
"I beg your pardon. I happened to be looking at the floor," said the woman, and faced the doors of the car.
"If you want to look at my feet, say so," said the young man. "But don't be a God-damned sneak about it."
"Let me out here, please," the woman said quickly to the girl operating the car.
The car doors opened and the woman got out without looking back.
"I have two normal feet and I can't see the slightest God-damned reason why anybody should stare at them," said the young man. — J.D. Salinger

I'm just trying to keep things normal around the house, because there's no reason why things shouldn't be normal. — John McCain

I was very curious, that's why I think my reality TV seems normal. I watch a lot of reality TV because I am so interested in people and observing people. From a very young age I can remember watching a woman with a guy and she's rolling her eyes and he's pleading with her and I would think, she doesn't want to be with him, he's in love with her, she likes this other guy and I would make up these stories in my head about these people. That helps me sort of profile people and that is a key to being able to read people. — Daniel Negreanu

Writing will never be perfect in a poet's eye that is why we need people's criticism good or bad, whether or not it gives a positive or negative frame to our work. We are first at hand to fight against the real and the normal in our writing as our outspoken, brimming voice bring truths to light so vividly and intensely for mass consumption that we so long for in our hearts. When the poet, not jubilant, neither spirited, allows his mind to quiet, allows the survival of and realises that all figures of speech matters; when God has witnessed the culmination of his progress; when the writer is almost in a hypnotic stance. Then the poet cannot stop himself when he is in the right place, then he can guess at the intensity, the prowess of his pen, his prolific writing and the intelligence behind his words becomes a self portrait kind of like what Vincent van Gogh used to do when he was depressed and lonely, fighting against the feelings of isolation and rejection by the establishment. — Abigail George

Basically that you can do anything. If you pool your resources,and just give up the idea that you're going to act like a normal person or sleep, if you want it hard enough and do it well enough, it happens. A lot of really talented people either sort of get crushed under the wheel of the movie studio system or desperately try and get their next gig in TV. I understand why, because we've all got to put food on the table and the brass ring is out there, we'd all like to be making the Emmy-winning shows and the blockbusters and all that, but at the same time you could be doing stuff yourself. — Joss Whedon

Every character, or actor, on Friends is too pretty. I can't suspend reality for people that good looking - again it's a fantasy. I keep thinking, where are their normal looking friends? Are they only willing to be friends with young, beautiful, thin people of average height? And why is their apartment so big? That's a huge apartment for New York." I shrugged. "It bothers me. — Penny Reid

Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course ... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret ... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige". — Christopher Priest

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

Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid. — James Shikwati

THE SPLIT-BRAIN PARADOX One way in which this picture, based on the corporate hierarchy of a company, deviates from the actual structure of the brain can be seen in the curious case of split-brain patients. One unusual feature of the brain is that it has two nearly identical halves, or hemispheres, the left and right. Scientists have long wondered why the brain has this unnecessary redundancy, since the brain can operate even if one entire hemisphere is completely removed. No normal corporate hierarchy has this strange feature. Furthermore, if each hemisphere has consciousness, does this mean that we have two separate centers of consciousness inside one skull? — Michio Kaku

Why should we try to be normal? Normal is boring. — Michelle Madow

Besides, they say, when we eat something, what really happens is this. Our failing health starts fighting off the attacks of hunger, using the food as an ally. Gradually it begins to prevail, and, in this very process of winning back its normal strength, experiences the sense of enjoyment which we find so refreshing. Now, if health enjoys the actual battle, why wouldn't it also enjoy the victory? Or are we to suppose that when it has finally managed to regain its former vigour - the one thing that it has been fighting for all this time - it promptly falls into a coma, and fails to notice or take advantage of its success? As for the idea that one isn't conscious of health except through its opposite, they say that's quite untrue. Everyone's perfectly aware of feeling well, unless he's asleep or actually feeling ill. Even the most insensitive and apathetic sort of person will admit that it's delightful to be healthy - and what is delight, but a synonym for pleasure? — Thomas More

What if someone hurts you with a weapon? Wait. Think it over. You probably feel angry. That's normal. But wasn't it the stick striking your body that hurt you? Can you be angry at the stick? Of course not. Should you be angry at the wielder of the stick? Wouldn't it make more sense to be angry at the hatred in the mind of the stick wielder? If you think about it, isn't the end of hatred in the world what you want most of all? Why, then, would you add to it by giving energy to your anger? After all, it will pass on its own if left alone, especially if you respond to it with compassion. — Sylvia Boorstein

Are you completely slow? YES. I'm mental. This is why I have a list called 'how to be normal — Anne Eliot

I'm not him - that guy who was your boyfriend. That guy you want.He almost said: I wish I could be. He had wished he could be. That was why he had come to the Academy, to learn how to be that guy they all wanted back. He'd wanted to be that way, be an awesome hero like in a game or a movie. He'd been so sure, at first, that was what he wanted. Except wishing he could be that guy was like wishing to obliterate the guy he was now: the normal, happy guy in a band, who could still love his mother, who did not wake up in the coldest, darkest hour of the night weeping for dead friends. And he did not know if he could be that guy she wanted, whether he wished it or not. — Cassandra Clare

Why be normal when you can be paranormal! — Paul Goat Allen

The baby was warm against my chest. I knew I was broken too. I wasn't like other people. I was scared and weird and anxious and sad lots of the time, and I didn't know why. My parents thought I was abnormal, I was pretty sure. They said I wasn't, but you don't get sent to a therapist if you're normal.
Sometimes we really aren't supposed to be the way we are. It's not good for us. And people don't like it. You've got to change. You've got to try harder and do deep breathing and maybe one day take pills and learn tricks so you can pretend to be more like other people. Normal people. But maybe Vanessa was right, and all those other people were broken too in their own ways. Maybe we all spent too much time pretending we weren't. — Kenneth Oppel

I was always interested in language. I thought, why not? If a painting, by the normal definition of the term, is paint on canvas, why can't it be painted words on canvas? — John Baldessari

Why were we raised to speak in low tones about periods? To be filled with shame if our menstrual blood happened to stain our skirt? Periods are nothing to be ashamed of. Periods are normal and natural, and the human species would not be here if periods did not exist. I remember a man who said a period was like shit. Well, sacred shit, I told him, because you wouldn't be here if periods didn't happen. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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

I wish I could run away," Rudger told Jersey as they both rushed in and out of various patients' rooms, darting around like little ants. "I can't leave and be on my own though, not right now, anyway."
"Why?" asked Jersey, waving her flashlight in mid-air.
Rudger froze for a second, a regretful haze emanating from his eyes. "It'd break her heart if I left."
"Ain't that normal? For parents to have mixed feelings about their kids growin' up?"
"Not for me, it isn't."
Jersey made a pitying face in his direction. "So, you wanna keep bein' towed around with your mom, livin' in a gross town like Danvers?"
"Is there a choice?"
"Yeah, there sure is. You can run away and try to be a whole person before it's too late, or you can live with mommy dearest forever and turn into Norman Bates. — Rebecca McNutt

I wish I knew why she never told me any of this. Maybe she thought I wouldn't be able to handle it, that I was too sheltered or too innocent or something. If she had told me why she cut herself all the time, or that it was the pills that made her act so spaced out, or that she was even on pills, or even saw doctors, or any of it, I would have done my best to help her. I'm not saying I'm a superhero. I'm not saying I would have just swooped down and saved her. I'm just saying the only reason everything was a waste was that she made it a waste. That whole time, back when I was just a normal kid in high school, living out my normal life, I really thought everything mattered. — Nina LaCour

Only moderately ordinary children should be sent to school
so it seems to me.'
'I'm inclined to think just the opposite. I think it would probably make her more normal if she went away and mixed with other children.'
'She wouldn't mix, you see. You never really mixed, did you? And she wouldn't be willing even to pretend to. She's proud, and solitary, and naturally apart. If she has a single nature, why do you want to make her gregarious?'
'No, I don't want to make her anything. But I think school would be good for her.'
'Was it good for you?'
Gerald's eyes narrowed uglily. School had been torture to him. Yet he had not questioned whether one should go through this torture. — D.H. Lawrence

What's the matter with you? Huh? Huh?'
'Why can't you be normal?'
'Why do you wanna be so different? — Jerry Spinelli

Why do farmers farm, given their economic adversities on top of the many frustrations and difficulties normal to farming? And always the answer is: "Love. They must do it for love." Farmers farm for the love of farming. They love to watch and nurture the growth of plants. They love to live in the presence of animals. They love to work outdoors. They love the weather, maybe even when it is making them miserable. They love to live where they work and to work where they live. If the scale of their farming is small enough, they like to work in the company of their children and with the help of their children. They love the measure of independence that farm life can still provide. I have an idea that a lot of farmers have gone to a lot of trouble merely to be self-employed to live at least a part of their lives without a boss. — Wendell Berry

When she looked back at Michael, he was staring up at her with murder in his eyes. "Get down from there!" he roared. He pulled the brake on the wagon and sprang to the ground, stalking across the yard like a barbarian on the march. Even from three stories up she could hear him muttering in Romanian, and whatever he was saying did not sound complimentary. He stood in the middle of the yard and yelled up at her. "Why can't you be a normal woman and keep your feet on the ground? I have traveled nine hundred miles to get back to you, and look! Trousers! — Elizabeth Camden

People are vaccinated with dangerous chemicals during their childhood, indoctrinated with immorality through television while growing up, taught to reject God by their teachers, fed with genetically modified food, and led to suspect others by their relatives and friends, and then you wonder why it's so difficult to find a normal person in this modern world, why nobody assumes responsibility for their words and behavior, and why everyone is so selfishly abusive. The biblical apocalypse has begun and the zombies are everywhere. It's just that we call them stupid and selfish instead. But they do act like there's no life inside of them anymore. There are no more normal human beings around. The survivors of this apocalypse are extremely scarce and must be treasured. — Robin Sacredfire

We seem to live in a world where you have to walk around grinning like a loon. I can't understand all the fuss about Mona Lisa painting, everyone wondering why she's not smiling, if she's depressed or heartbroken. No, she was just normal!
Emotions are always extreme these days: you either have to be crying with laughter or crying in pain. No wonder water levels are rising. It's not global warming, it's all the tears from crying. — Karl Pilkington

Allie hated this. Why couldn't they have even a day to be normal kids in a normal school, with their A levels the biggest obstacle ahead of them? — C.J. Daugherty

There's a reason why the story of the ghetto should never come with a photo. The Third World slum is a nightmare that defies beliefs or facts, even the ones staring right at you. A vision of hell that twists and turns on itself and grooves to its own soundtrack. Normal rules do not apply here. Imagination then, dream, fantasy. You visit a ghetto, particularly a ghetto in West Kingston, and it immediately leaves the real to become this sort of grotesque, something out of Dante or the infernal painting of Hieronymus Bosch. It's a rusty red chamber of hell that cannot be described so I will not try to describe it. It cannot be photographed because some parts of West Kingston, such as Rema, are in the grip of such bleak and unremitting repulsiveness that the inherent beauty of the photographic process will lie to you about just how ugly it really is. — Marlon James

Look, this is all very, very weird. Why are you focusing on rumours and urban legends? You haven't even asked me any
normal questions."
"Normal questions? Like what?"
"Like, I don't know, like if Lynch had any enemies."
"Did Lynch have any enemies?"
"Well, not that I know of, no."
"Then there really was no point in me asking that, was there? Unless you wanted to distract me. You didn't want to distract me, did you, Kenny?"
"No, that's not - "
"Are you playing a game with me, Kenny?"
"I don't know what you're - "
Inspector Me leaned forward. "Did you kill him?"
"No!"
"It'd be OK if you did."
Kenny recoiled, horrified. "How would that be OK?"
"Well," Me said, "maybe not — Derek Landy

You are a grand nerveux, Vincent," Doctor Rey had told him. "You never have been normal. But then, no artist is normal; if he were, he wouldn't be an artist. Normal men don't create works of art. They eat, sleep, hold down routine jobs, and die. You are hypersensitive to life and nature; that's why you are able to interpret for the rest of us. But if you are not careful, that very hypersensitiveness will lead you to your destruction. The strain of it breaks every artist in time. — Irving Stone

That's why I stay to myself, and why I can never have a normal relationship with anyone. I have to keep my friends at arm's length at all costs because if I get too close to anyone - no matter how close I want to be - their lives and mine are at risk."
His fingers skimmed over the length of my arm down to my wrist. "What happens when you find that one person worth breaking the rules for?"
"I have to walk away."
Max stepped closer, and his body was pressing against mine. When I tried to move back, I hit the pylon, thereby preventing any escape. His lips were inches from mine. "What if someone thinks you're worth the risk?"
"I'd say that person is very foolish. I'm not worth dying for."
"You are worth it and I'm as foolish as they come. — Loni Flowers

The absence of God in most spheres of life is perceived to be normal, and even Christians feel it as normal - which is why absorbing the culture all around us and its priorities is so dangerous. — John Piper

Jack, who apparently always had to be moving in some way, had made up for the missing knife by grabbing a half loaf of French bread and methodically ripping it into tiny pieces.
"What," I said, narrowing my eyes. "Why don't faeries like bread?"
"Hmm?" Jack looked up, then shrugged. "I dunno."
Lend picked up a piece, crumbling it. "My dad said he thought it was because it was the staff of life for people."
"Nasty stuff tastes like mold," Jack said. "I tried a piece once a while ago when I was still trying to force myself to eat normal food so I could stay here. It was like a shock to my whole system." He shuddered at the memory. — Kiersten White

Why would you want the cure?-Elijah
I want to live and die like a normal person. Not the way you and Nik want me to.-Rebecca
I still don't understand. Why must you always think of our family as a burdon? Now and forever. Those words mean are as important to me now as they ever were.-Elijah
You will always be my brother and I will always love you.-Rebecca — L.J.Smith

There is a bit [in Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal?] where I talk about 'keeping the heart awake to love and beauty.' That's very difficult in our world, even when things are going well. It's not a world with much room for love and beauty. The daily news is [filled with] everything that goes wrong in our world, and everything horrible and unpleasant. I think that saturates your mind with negativity. I really think we need something to counteract that. I don't think it's Pollyanna or sentimental to focus on the ways we support one another on the micro level.
(from "It is the Imagination that Counts") — Jeanette Winterson

I'm really not comfortable with you being naked," I said, struggling for a normal tone and failing.
His brow arched. "Why should it unsettle you, pet? After all, you just said I meant nothing to you beyond mere gratitude. And you've seen a man's body before, so don't pull that blushing act with me. What could be bothering you, then? I know what's bothering me." The smoothly bantering tone changed to a low, furious growl. "What's bothering me is that you dare to stand there and tell me what I do and do not feel about last night. That kissing you and holding you meant nothing to me. Then, to top it all off, that you were only reacting to me because you were impaired! That's rich. You know what those drugs did to you in the first dose, before the second one made you comatose? They killed the bug up your arse! — Jeaniene Frost

The other thing is that I'm a pretty moody guy, but no one really wants to see a normal-looking guy complain about things or talk about being unhappy. That's hard. Most people are like, 'Well, you have all your hair and you're tall, so why are you unhappy?' That can be limiting. — Gary Gulman

There's a clarity that comes with great ideas: You can [easily and simply] explain why something's a great business, how and why it's cheap, why it's cheap for temporary reasons and how, on a normal basis, it should be trading at a much higher level. You're never sitting there on the 40th page of your spreadsheet, as Buffett would say, agonizing over whether you should buy or not. — Joel Greenblatt

Why be normal? What's the point? — Richard Saunders

I was very upset at how his skin was peeling off so badly anywhere, but nobody gave it a second thought. They told me it was 'normal'.
Of course this was far from normal. There was no way they could have known about EB (Epidermolysis Bullosa) back then considering the rarity of the disorder. The only way to diagnose EB it is through a skin biopsy, and they would need to suspect EB to send it to the correct lab. It would not be until Nicky was born 21 months later that every Doctor imaginable was all of a sudden extremely interested in seeing photos of Alex. "Oh yeah" the dermatologist that diagnosed Nicky and Doctor McGuire at Stanford said to me unequivocally, "Alex for sure had EB." How EB could have caused his demise though is still a mystery. Doctor Marinkovich at Stanford told me that many babies with EB are indeed stillborn, but could not tell me why. At this point however, in the delivery room, we were completely oblivious about EB and would remain so for nearly two years — Silvia Corradin

In fact, the messages actually seemed to increase drug use. Kids aged twelve and a half to eighteen who saw the ads were actually more likely to smoke marijuana. Why? Because it made drug use more public. Think about observability and social proof. Before seeing the message, some kids might never have thought about taking drugs. Others might have considered it but have been wary about doing the wrong thing. But anti-drug ads often say two things simultaneously. They say that drugs are bad, but they also say that other people are doing them. And as we've discussed throughout this chapter, the more others seem to be doing something, the more likely people are to think that thing is right or normal and what they should be doing as well. — Jonah Berger

One shouldn't be afraid to lose; this is sport. One day you win; another day you lose. Of course, everyone wants to be the best. This is normal. This is what sport is about. This is why I love it. — Oksana Baiul

They're called in the Scripture the Beatitudes. You know why they're called the Beatitudes without being prestigious? Because they should be the attitudes of every believer. That's the normal Christian life, not the abnormal Christian life. The normal Christian life is holiness. — Leonard Ravenhill

Strange can be quite normal. Strange can just be the phrase 'That is not important' as an answer for everything. But if your son never answered you that way before, then the fourth time you ask him why he's not eating, or if he's cold, or you send him to bed, and he answers, almost biting off the words as if he were still learning to talk, 'That is not important', I swear to you Amanda, your legs start to tremble. — Samanta Schweblin

elected leaders can't get along at all. Hateful comments have become normal in Washington, and that's made for some of our greatest disappointments. In their personal lives and businesses, average Americans have to work with people they don't necessarily agree with all the time - but they can set that aside, be constructive, and get results. So, they ask, why can't Members of Congress do the same? — Dana Perino

Not in the least," I said. "I understand everything you've said. But - oh, Simon, I feel so resentful! Why should father make things so difficult? Why can't he say what he means plainly?" "Because there's so much that just can't be said plainly. Try describing what beauty is - plainly - and you'll see what I mean." Then he said that art could state very little - that its whole business was to evoke responses. And that without innovations and experiments - such as father's - all art would stagnate. "That's why one ought not to let oneself resent them - though I believe it's a normal instinct, probably due to subconscious fear of what we don't understand. — Dodie Smith

Why couldn't I be down there having fun like a normal teenage girl? Why did I always have to feel threatened? Under fire? — Kresley Cole

What do you think it is to be normal?'
Why in the world would you want to be?' she says.
I don't know. I guess that's the problem.'
I don't think normal is that great.'
But so many people choose it,' I reply.
I don't think that's it at all. I think most everyone is normal and some of us, for whatever reason, choose to reject that and wear ruby red slippers or old black hats.'
Well, why do we choose the hard road? — Patrick Jones

Why can't I have a normal girlfriend?" he asked the air over his head. "I finally meet someone I like and she turns out to be crazy. — Lili St. Crow