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Normality Quotes

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Normality Quotes

“The foundation of morality on the human sentiments of what is acceptable behavior versus repulsive behavior has always made morals susceptible to change. Much of what was repulsive 100 years ago is normal today, and - although it may be a slippery slope - what is repulsive today is possible to be normal 100 years into tomorrow; the human standard has always been but to push the envelope. In this way, all generations are linked, and one can only hope that every extremist, self-proclaimed progressive is considering this ultimate 'Utopia' to which his kindness will lead at the end of the chain.”

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Book:Healology
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“Für jene, die in das Erscheinungsbild ‚normalen’ Verhaltens hineinschlüpfen, weil sie die Spannung der Widersprüche zwischen der auferlegten Realität und ihrer inneren Welt nicht ertragen, für solche Menschen gibt es bald keine wirklichen Gefühle mehr. Stattdessen gehen sie mit Ideen von Gefühlen um, haben keine Erfahrung mehr mit ihnen. Sie präsentieren aufgesetzte Gefühle und sagen sich von ihren wahren Gefühlen los. Je ‚gesünder’ das Image der Identität, das sie angenommen haben, desto erfolgreicher werden sie diese Manipulation vollziehen können. Und es ist Manipulation, da ihr Ziel nicht der Ausdruck ihrer selbst ist, sondern den andern zu überzeugen, dass sie angemessen handeln, denken und fühlen.”

EmotionIdentityManipulationNormality
Book:The Insanity of Normality: Toward Understanding Human Destructiveness
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“Normality seemed suspicious to him. He avoided smart routes, healthy decisions, and standard trajectories. Andrei fancied the forsaken, the dreadful, the dusty. He intentionally said yes to what other people said no to. "There must be something worthwhile," he always thought, "in the apparently worthless, seemingly dangerous, and painfully obvious.”

LifeInspirationFreedomSocietyIndividualityOriginalityUniquenessArtistsNormalityMonotony
Book:A Happy Ghost
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“... somewhere in my heart, however, I continued to believe that intense and lasting love was possible only in a climate of somewhat tumultuous passions. This, I felt, consigned me to being with a man whose temperament was largely similar to my own. I was late to understand that chaos and intensity are no substitute for lasting love, nor are they necessarily an improvement on real life. Normal people are not aways boring. On the contrary. It has been with pleasure, and not inconsiderable pain, that I have learned about the possibilities of love - its steadiness and its growth...”

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Book:An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
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“Questions like “Is this normal?” or “Am I weird?” reveal how deeply the concept of being “normal” is embedded in the subconscious of the ordinary majority. They don’t mean “Is this ordinary?” or “Am I a product of a photocopy?” when they ask these things, of course. In fact, they are not even consciously trying to conform to norms, even if their words might suggest otherwise. It is simply that they have internalized the association of the word “normal” with the idea of “good.”

GoodnessNormalGoodConformityNormAssimilationNormalityColonizationNormativityNormativeness
Author:Sov8840
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“I have come to believe that we steer our individual spheres of being through the spectra of possible worlds via the choices we make, the acts we perform. Most people stick to known routes, and therefore cannot travel far. They live too modestly, and perhaps too privately. Only by being strange can we move, for strange acts cause us to be rejected by whatever normality we have offended, and to be propelled towards a normality that can better accommodate us.”

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Book:The Etched City
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“One day I'm a normal person with a normal life,” he said. “The next I'm standing on a street corner in Madrid with a secret phone and a hole in my arm and I'm bleeding all over, hoping I don't get arrested. It was completely crazy. But it seemed like the only way at the time.”

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Book:The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs
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“Fear is location specific. Which is not something people from Bent Tree usually learn because they rarely leave. But if you're not from somewhere rural, gunshots have a different connotation. Any bang-bang in the city and your adrenaline spikes. You lock the door. You pray. At the Lodges, gunshots are like crickets; you don't hear them every day, but nearly. They are the sound of industry, and industry is money, and money makes you smile.”

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Book:Tell Me Something Good
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“Weird how I can feel so frail and tiny sometimes, and other times so brave and bold and reckless and free, and . . . Does everybody feel the same? When people get grown-up, do they always feel grown-up and sensible and sorted out and . . . And do I want to feel grown-up? Do I want to stop feeling . . . paradoxical, nonsensical? Do I want to stop being crackers? Do I want to be destrangified? O yes, sometimes I want nothing more - but it only lasts a moment, then O I want to be the strangest and crakerest of everybody.”

AgeGrowing UpChildhoodStrangeNormalMadnessMadInsanityNonsenseWeirdNormality
Book:My Name is Mina
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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.”

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Book:The Well Of Loneliness
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“The judges of normality are present everywhere. We are in the society of the teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge, the social worker-judge; it is on them that the universal reign of the normative is based; and each individual, wherever he may find himself, subjects to it his body, his gestures, his behavior, his aptitudes, his achievements.”

JudgmentNormality
Book:Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
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“Hva ville det egentlig si å være sinnssyk? Man kunne jo glatt vekk kalle hinannens særegenheter og mer eller mindre brysomme eiendommeligheter for sinnssykdom. Hvem kun hindre det? Én hadde aversjon for katter, en annen var ikke til å bevege til å foreta seg noe på en mandag, en tredje gikk ikke i seng uten først å sette skoene baklengs foran sovekammerdøren, en fjerde trodde på drømmer og lot seg påvirke av dem, en femte hadde talt med hedenfarne ånder og visste at han efter døden skulle komme i den niende himmel, en sjette hadde hatt en åpenbaring av apostelen Petrus, og av ham fått malt til å helbrede sykdommer ved håndspåleggelse, en syvende ble søvnløs av gremmelse over ikke å kunne få sitt arbeide til, en åttende følte seg så uskikket for jordelivet at han foretrakk godvillig å absentere seg, en niende hadde dårlig mave, og var som følge av det umulig å omgåes, en tiende drakk og foretok seg i fullskap de merkeligste og avskyeligste ting, en ellevte hadde motbydelighet for det annet kjønn, en tolvte kunne ikke tåle synet av barn, en trettende fikk stivkrampe når han kom i nærheten av rotter og mus, en fjortende var stormannsgal og bilte seg inn at han visste til punkt og prikke hva som skulle kalles sinnssykdom og hva ikke, og så fremdeles i det uendelige.”

SufferingHumanityPsychologyMedicineInsanityPsychiatryPsychiatristDoctorNormalitySinnssyk
Book:På St. Jørgen
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“Normality does not exist. There is no such a thing as normal. The social norms that guide most people are not always normal for everyone. Behaviours and actions that are abnormal for most people may be considered normal for others, so therefore normality does not exist. Stay true to yourself; never be ashamed of doing what feels right to you at any giving moment, decide what feels right to you and do it. Don’t be normal, be yourself.”

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Book:Zen, Meditation & the Art of Shooting: Performance Edge - Sports Edition
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“I don’t know about you, but for me there is forever a struggle between the rational side of myself and the side that is alert to glimpses or impressions of something otherworldly. And, of course, I know there is no coherent argument to be had here. My rational self has all the weaponry, all the big guns – reason, science, common sense, normality – and all that far outweighs the side of me that only has suspicions and hints and signs of something else, something mysterious and quietly spoken. But, even still, it feels, under the circumstances, that to dismiss the existence of these things that live beyond our reasonable selves outright is, at best, ungenerous. Don’t you think? I mean, I don’t blindly succumb to these feelings, but still I remain watchful for that promise. This is how I have chosen to live my life – in uncertainty, and by doing so to be open to the divine possibility of things, whether it exists or not. I believe this gives my life, and especially my work, meaning and potential and soul, too, beyond what the rational world has to offer.”

DivineCommon SenseRationalUncertaintyRationalityNormality
Book:Faith, Hope and Carnage
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“People are led to believe they possess freedom of expression simply because they are allowed to say whatever they please. At first glance, this indeed seems true: one may share offensive jokes, hurl profanities, circulate crude memes, ridicule religion, express rage outbursts, swear at others, or indulge in bizarre fantasies. Yet all of this unfolds within an invisible cage—a system of rules dressed as liberty. The moment someone speaks of suicide, rape, or other "sensitive" subjects—not to promote them, but simply to confront them—their words are flagged, erased, and their presence diminished. Even the very words “suicide” or “rape” are censored with asterisks. The crime lies not in intent but in utterance. Likewise, should someone express a worldview too deviant from that of mass society, their account may be silenced under vague accusations: “spam,” “harm,” “hate speech,” or “misinformation.”

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Author:Sov8840
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“Through the neurodiversity lens I began to wonder, for instance, whether since the very start, I had been disabled by a neuronormative society. This, I came to see, had hindered my learning, my development, and my prospects right from the beginning of life. I also began to understand my trauma and mental illness as stemming from not just relative poverty and parental neglect but also a structurally ableist world.”

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Book:Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism
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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.”

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Author:Francesca Martínez
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“At its worst, the purpose of a psych ward is to normalize you back into a community that is anything but. Its purpose is not to heal you, but to make you stay sick so that you can function alongside the lies of a country steeped in them, so you can function alongside the lies you are forced to tell about yourself. We are all doubling in order to live, and the psych ward tells you to squash that inner knowing. It's simply not useful if you hope to thrive. At its best, psychiatric care gives you tools to let your inner knowing walk alongside the insanity of the world and create survival tools to trust what you know and survive the gaslighting and discrimination that seeks to burn down your house.”

HealingRecoveryConformityTransitionPsychiatryRepressionNormalityMalpracticePsych WardMedical Abuse
Book:Becoming a Man: The Story of a Transition
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“Language has been weaponized in modern societies not just to communicate but to control thought. Terms like “success,” “confidence,” “normal,” “mental health,” or “self-improvement” are presented as universally desirable, but these words are saturated with invisible assumptions. When people use these terms, they are not merely communicating ideas but also adhering to a predefined set of beliefs and norms. For example, to say one is “successful” is not simply to express achievement but to buy into the societal belief that success is tied to specific metrics like wealth or social status. To use such language is already to submit to the ideology behind it.”

ValuesLanguageThoughtIdeologyCensorshipNormMind ControlNormalityFree ThoughtNewspeak
Author:Sov8840
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“The part of us that wants to be married and have a family is the part that wants to be normal, like other people, set on the path we were raised to believe was the right path--not just to happiness, but to respectability, acceptance, community. The part of us that wants love-potion-strength romance is the part that wants to go mad.”

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Book:The Vulnerables
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