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Abnormality Quotes

Browse 51 quotes about Abnormality.

Abnormality Quotes

“Will we make it safely through this upheaval? Will things go back to normal? I don’t know. I hope so. I hope the prognosis for all of us is good. But for now, I’m keeping my head down and doing what is required. I’m mothering my children. I’m doing my part to hold our home together. I’m reassuring the people I love, and letting them reassure me. It’s remarkable how strong we’ve all become.”

LoveStrengthCovid 19PandemicMotheringReassuranceCovidUpheavalAbnormality
Author:Tracy K. Smith
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“Yes, it was trying to get her under, this world with its mighty self-satisfaction, with its smug rules of conduct, all made to be broken by those who strutted and preened themselves on being what they considered normal. They trod on the necks of those thousands of others who, for God knew what reason, were not made as they were; they prided themselves on their indignation, on what they proclaimed as their righteous judgments. They sinned grossly; even vilely at times, like lustful beasts—but yet they were normal! And the vilest of them could point a finger of scorn at her, and be loudly applauded. 'God damn them to hell!' she muttered.”

JudgmentLgbtqScornNormalityLesbiansAbnormality
Book:The Well Of Loneliness
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“And suddenly, lying in bed, I became aware of every inch of my body and I apologised to it, quietly. I apologised for bring so ungrateful for so long. Then I thanked my arms, hands and fingers for always trying so hard. I thanked my legs and feet for holding me up all the time. I thanked my brain for working so amazingly well and conjuring up thoughts and dreams and sentences and images and crazy poems. And I thanked all my organs for working together and giving me life. It had taken four and a half billion years for me to be here. Right now. In this universe. And in that moment, I felt totally overwhelmed at being alive. There could be nothing but there was everything. I didn't want to waste a single second more worrying about trivialities. Worrying that I'd never match up to an ideal that didn't even exist. Nobody is normal. We are all different. I had to make sure that every moment I had left on this planet counted.”

ComedyAcceptanceConfidenceDisabilityBody ImageDisabledNormalityOthernessAbnormality
Author:Francesca Martínez
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“Something she and her husband had in common but rarely discussed was the absence of a desire for children, to fill their home with people besides themselves. It was a silent agreement, felt rather than spoken, and in her experience the soundest agreements were the ones that did not require the reassurances of language. Therefore this line of questioning was the inverse of what she usually fielded, since a childless married woman in her thirties was so often regarded, by men and women alike, as a puzzle or a pity. What's the story here? people would ask, inquests designed to make women like her suspect there was something malformed inside, blinding them to the hideous reality of their choice.”

ChildrenChoicesWomenMarriageAbnormalityChildlessness
Book:The Third Hotel
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“I see everything as if in a dark mirror, as if through smoked glass. I view the world in the same way as others look at the Sun in eclipse. Thus I see the Earth in eclipse. I see us moving about blindly in eternal Gloom, like the May bugs trapped in a box by a cruel child. It's easy to harm and injure us, to smash up our intricately assembled, bizarre existence. I interpret everything as abnormal, terrible and threatening. I see nothing but Catastrophes. But as the Fall is the beginning, can we possibly fall even lower?”

LifeBeliefExistenceCrueltyConfusionHardshipPessimismDreadGloomAbnormality
Book:Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
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“The adjuration to be "normal" seems shockingly repellent to me; I see neither hope nor comfort in sinking to that low level. I think it is ignorance that makes people think of abnormality only with horror and allows them to remain undismayed at the proximity of "normal" to average and mediocre. For surely anyone who achieves anything is, a priori, abnormal.”

IgnoranceHorrorNormalAchievementExcellenceAverageMediocrityMediocreAbnormalNormalityAbnormality
Author:Karl Menninger
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“No, Mary must not give until she had counted the cost of that gift, until she was restored in body and mind, and was able to form a considered judgment. Then Stephen must tell her the cruel truth, she must say: 'I am one of those whom God marked on the forehead. Like Cain, I am marked and blemished. If you come to me, Mary, the world will abhor you, will persecute you, will call you unclean. Our love may be faithful even unto death and beyond—yet the world will call it unclean. We may harm no living creature by our love; we may grow more perfect in understanding and in charity because of our loving; but all this will not save you from the scourge of a world that will turn away its eyes from your noblest actions, finding only corruption and vileness in you. You will see men and women defiling each other, laying the burden of their sins upon their children. You will see unfaithfulness, lies and deceit among those whom the world views with approbation. You will find that many have grown hard of heart, have grown greedy, selfish, cruel and lustful; and then you will turn to me and will say: "You and I are more worthy of respect than these people. Why does the world persecute us, Stephen?" And I shall answer: "Because in this world there is only toleration for the so-called normal." And when you come to me for protection, I shall say: "I cannot protect you, Mary, the world has deprived me of my right to protect; I am utterly helpless, I can only love you.”

LoveRelationshipsPrejudiceBiasLgbtqPersecutionNormalityLesbiansAbnormality
Book:The Well Of Loneliness
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“And what of that curious craving for religion which so often went hand in hand with inversion? Many such people were deeply religious, and this surely was one of their bitterest problems. They believed, and believing they craved a blessing on what to some of them seemed very sacred—a faithful and deeply devoted union. But the Church's blessing was not for them. Faithful they might be, leading orderly lives, harming no one, and yet the Church turned away; her blessings were strictly reserved for the normal.”

ReligionChurchGayPrejudiceLgbtqBlessingsNormalityLesbiansAbnormality
Book:The Well Of Loneliness
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“He was aware that the way things really were was far different than most people believed. The world a wilder, more feral, more abnormal environment than ordinary civilians were able to accept. Ordinary civilians lived in a state of innocence, veiling their eyes against the truth. The world unveiled would scare them, destroy their moral certainties, lead to losses of nerve or retreats into religion or drink.”

WorldLifeIgnoranceWildnessAbnormalityFeralness
Book:Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights
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“Walking down a street I see, in those who pass by me, not the facial expressions that they really have but the expressions that they would have if they knew what I'm like and the kind of life I lead, if my face and my gestures betrayed the shy and ridiculous abnormality of my soul. In eyes that don't even look at me I suspect there are smirks (which I consider only natural) directed at the awkward exception I embody in a world of people who know how to act and to enjoy life; and the passing physiognomies, informed by an awareness that I myself have interposed and superimposed, seem to snicker out loud at my life's timid gesticulations.”

LifeSelfOthersNormalityPerceptionsAbnormality
Book:The Book of Disquiet
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“I should love to do a novel, about one abnormal character seeing present-day life, very ordinary life, yet arresting through it, abnormality, until at the end the reader sees, and with little reluctance, that he is not abnormal at all, and that the main character might as well be himself.”

ShouldWellsLittlesEndsCharacterMightNovelSeeingReaderOrdinaryAbnormalPresent DayOrdinary LifeDay LifeReluctanceMain CharactersAbnormalityArresting
Author:Patricia Highsmith
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“Photography - the supreme form of travel, of tourism - is the principal modern means for enlarging the world. As a branch of art, photography's enterprise of world enlargement tends to specialize in the subjects felt to be challenging, transgressive. A photograph may be telling us: this too exists. And that. And that. (And it is all 'human.') But what are we to do with this knowledge - if indeed it is knowledge, about, say, the self, about abnormality, about ostracized or clandestine worlds?”

IfsWorldHumansMayMeanArtSelfFormFeltChallengesModernSubjectsPhotographyPhotographSupremeBranchesEnterprisePrincipalTourismEnlargementAbnormalityClandestineArt Photography
Author:Susan Sontag
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“The adjuration to be "normal" seems shockingly repellent to me; I see neither hope nor comfort in sinking to that low level. I think it is ignorance that makes people think of abnormality only with horror and allows them to remain undismayed at the proximity of "normal" to average and mediocre. For surely anyone who achieves anything is, essentially, abnormal.”

PeopleThinkingSeemsLevelsAchieveIgnoranceComfortHorrorNormalLowsAverageMediocreSinkingAbnormalProximityLow LevelAbnormality
Book:the Human Mind
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“Nothing is more curious and awkward than the relationship of two people who only know each other with their eyes — who meet and observe each other daily, even hourly and who keep up the impression of disinterest either because of morals or because of a mental abnormality. Between them there is listlessness and pent-up curiosity, the hysteria of an unsatisfied, unnaturally suppressed need for communion and also a kind of tense respect. Because man loves and honors man as long as he is not able to judge him, and desire is a product of lacking knowledge.”

PeopleKnowsMenNeedsKindLongTwoEyeAbleDesireMoralJudgingProductsHonorCuriosityImpressionCuriousAwkwardLackingCommunionTenseHysteriaUnsatisfiedAbnormalityDisinterestLove And Honor
Author:Thomas Mann
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“That many if not most people...who want fresh leafy greens in January buy them at the supermarket after they've been bleached and plastic-bag shipped from California or beyond is not a tribute to modern technology; it's an unprecedented abdication of personal responsibility and a ubiquitous benchmark of abnormality.”

PeopleIfsWantResponsibilityTechnologyModernCaliforniaBagsPlasticPersonal ResponsibilityTributeUnprecedentedJanuarySupermarketsModern TechnologyPlastic BagsAbnormalityAbdication
Author:Joel Salatin
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“Disease is an abnormal state of the body which primarily and independently produces a disturbance in the normal functions of the body. It may be an abnormality of temperament or form (structure). Symptom is a manifestation of some abnormal state in the body. It may be harmful as a colic pain or harmless as the flushing of cheeks in peripneumonia.”

MayStatesBodyPainFormProduceHealthDiseaseNormalFunctionStructureManifestationCheeksSymptomsTemperamentAbnormalDisturbanceAbnormalityFlushingColic
Book:The Canon of Medicine (al-Qānūn Fī'l-ṭibb)
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“Much like the removal of moles and skin lesions is done to prevent them from growing into more serious skin abnormalities, removing minor discord before it becomes a calamity is an important use of our time. Most people don’t like to make waves and they swallow frustration and bury true feelings, not wanting to compromise temporary tranquility, never realizing that massive turmoil doesn’t start out massive—it grows beneath the skin like a cancer that could have been avoided with early detection.”

PeopleHas BeensImportantDoneUseFeelingsGrowsRealizingGrowingSeriousSkinsWaveCancerCompromiseOur TimeFrustrationMassiveTemporaryMinorsTranquilityCould Have BeenAvoidedCalamityTurmoilDiscordRemovalMolesDetectionTrue FeelingsAbnormality
Author:T. D. Jakes
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“Diversity is not an abnormality but the very reality of our planet. The human world manifests the same reality and will not seek our permission to celebrate itself in the magnificence of its endless varieties. Civility is a sensible attribute in this kind of world we have; narrowness of heart and mind is not.”

WorldMindHumansHeartKindRealityPlanetsDiversityEndlessCelebrateVarietyAttributesSensiblePermissionHeart And MindOur PlanetCivilityMagnificenceAbnormality
Author:Chinua Achebe
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“In a noted 1943 Harvard study, there were no cases of toxemia, congenital anomalies, or neonatal deaths among a group of well-fed woman. In contrast two~thirds of the children born to women who were on poor prenatal diets had congenital abnormalities, dies, or (had) neurological dysfunction. and 44% of the mothers had developed toxemia.”

WellsChildrenAgeMotherDiesBornDarkPoorCasesStudyGroupsMedicalDietsFedsContrastHarvardDark AgesDysfunctionAnomaliesAbnormality
Author:Tom Brewer
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“From what has been said, it would appear that the possibility of thyroid deficiency should be considered, and if found, should be treated in any woman with a menstrual abnormality or a reproductive problem. It was generally agree that correction of thyroid deficiency solved many such abnormalities and problems - until about 1940.”

IfsShouldHas BeensSaidProblemFoundPossibilityAgreeTreatedCorrectionsDeficiencyFertilityPmsAbnormalityThyroid
Author:Broda Otto Barnes
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“It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself-anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face ... was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime.”

GivingLooksFacesCasesDangerousExpressionHabitAnxietyTyrannyNervousWanderRangeUnconsciousYour FaceSmallestOffenseSuggestionsTicsMutteringAbnormality
Book:Animal Farm and 1984
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