Societal Expectations Quotes

“The bang of the modernist metal doorknocker exploded in the room. Jolting upright on the edge of the couch, Isa froze, her heart beating a discordance of dread. Her mind went blank as she stared
at the door. No.”
― Margarita Barresi, A Delicate Marriage

“One must conform to the baseness of an age or become neurotic.”
― Robert Musil

“Fame to an artist is like light to a vampire.”
― Rebecca Harlem, The Pink Cadillac

“I realized that if you avoid the sin, you will also avoid the fun.”
― Rebecca Harlem, The Pink Cadillac

“Because I am really successful and work on the sets throughout the day. I had sex with a variety of male models. If my spouse accepts all of this, he will be unconcerned if he discovers I cheated on him at some point in the future. That is how much he cares for me. Never in my wildest dreams did I consider defrauding him. When something becomes legal, it is common for people to lose interest in it.”
― Rebecca Harlem, The Pink Cadillac

“When it comes to meditation, one minute is better than zero. Something is an improvement from nothing.”
― Milan Kordestani, I'm Just Saying: A Guide to Maintaining Civil Discourse in an Increasingly Divided World

“Though civil discourse may be especially challenging to facilitate during fractured times, the process itself has stood the test of time for centuries.”
― Milan Kordestani, I'm Just Saying: A Guide to Maintaining Civil Discourse in an Increasingly Divided World

“Focusing on and prioritizing civil discourse ensures that you don’t miss great opportunities to learn and grow with others.”
― Milan Kordestani, I'm Just Saying: A Guide to Maintaining Civil Discourse in an Increasingly Divided World

“Guilt can be a heavy burden to carry around. Sit down here at the table.”
― R. Gerry Fabian, Just Out Of Reach

“It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych

“I'm a good girl. I am pretty. I am always happy-go-lucky.”
― Louise O'Neill, Only Ever Yours

“Anxious behaviour is rewarded in our culture. Being high strung, wound up, frenetic and soooo busy has cachet. I ask someone, “How are you?” and even if they’re kicking back in a caravan park in the outback with a beer watching the sunset, their default response is, “Gosh, so busy, out of control, crazy times.” And they wear it as a badge of honour.
This means that many of us deny we have a problem and keep going and going. Indeed, the more anxious we are, the more we have to convince ourselves we don’t have a problem. This is ironic, or paradoxical. And it seems awfully cruel.”
― Sarah Wilson, First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Story About Anxiety

“Once upon a time there was a boy who knew what he was going to be from the very moment he was born. As soon as he was able to talk, he told everyone, I am a builder of dreams. No one in his family had any idea what that meant, except maybe his Aunt Dorothy, who knew about dreams & how they form you into the thing you’re going to be, even when you think you have other plans.

The rest of his family did things like work with numbers & fix old cars & bake bread in a bakery. When he first told them what he was going to be, they thought it was cute & then, when it didn’t stop, it was something not to be mentioned at family gatherings & finally, it was something that would lead to personal suffering if he didn’t start getting his head on straight, by god. So, he stopped saying it out loud, but he never forgot & when he got older, he moved away & his family told the neighbors he was working as a manager & every one nodded & was pleased that he’d finally come around to viewing life as it was & not how you wish it would be.

But he didn’t really care because he was building things of air & sunlight & the laughter of children & the sharp smell of lighter fluid at a summer barbecue & the flash of color on the throat of a hummingbird & all of them were things that had no real name, but people felt them all the same. They felt them all the same...”
― Brian Andreas, Still Mostly True: Collected Stories & Drawings

“I am more than what others want of me. I am more than what society expects of me. I will not let my life be defined by a box meant to hold me down.”
― The Thoughtful Beast

“As long as I can remember it’s been, ‘Be a good team player, get along, follow the rules.’ Well who made those rules?”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, A Pause in the Perpetual Rotation

“I have a lot of friends who are positive life isn't worth living without True Love Forever. They're always on the prowl and sulk against the gods when they go to a party and don't fall in love. Women, especially, engage themselves in ghastly self-inflicted tortures for which they've been primed since childhood. After all, historically it's always been dreadful for women, and the logic given them was "It's going to be dreadful so you may as well learn to enjoy it.”
― Eve Babitz, Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, & L.A.

“How do you judge the professionals you patronize? Too many people judge them by display factors. Extra points are given to those who wear expensive clothes, drive luxury automobiles, and live in exclusive neighborhoods. They assume a professional is likely to be mediocre, even incompetent, if he lives in a modest home and drives a three-year-old Ford Crown Victoria. Very, very few people judge the quality of the professionals they use by net worth criteria. Many professionals have told us they must look successful to convince their customers/clients that they are.”
― Thomas J. Stanley, The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“That poor girl's been brainwashed into thinking her beauty is all she's worth, because from the time she was a little child she's been getting compliments about her beauty. And it becomes something you think you owe other people.”
― Rose McGowan, Brave

“My sin was to pursue a career as a poet and to desire an identity beyond that of wife and mother. As a result, I am not worthy of being a significant part of my son's life anymore. I was written off for daring to believe I could exist as an individual rather than simply an extension of my family.”
― Maryam Diener, Beyond Black There Is No Colour: The Story of Forough Farrokhzad

“...And maybe folks in Muskox Hollow thought their arrangement was strange, or their parties too rambunctious, or that a lady should have a family and children instead of two gentlemen and thirteen tiny dogs, but no...I don't think Peder Johansen was terribly scandalous.'
'Scandalous or not, my love for the legend of Sullen Johansen was now exponential.”
― Carly Heath, The Reckless Kind

“People lose their jobs over this sort of thing. They lose their friends. Their families. They lose everything.”
― Chris Bohjalian, Trans-Sister Radio

“Wretched therefore as you may think it, I feel it no source of anguish to be associated with the blind, the afflicted, the infirm, and the mourners; since I may this hope that I am more immediately under the favour and protection of my dread Father”
― John Milton, Second Defense of the People of England

“That was another thing about boys: No one assumed the blew a gasket for any reason other than they were just really upset. They were allowed to just be, and nobody blamed where the moon was in its cycle, or whether or not they had the ill fortune of leaking from their privates. It was plain unfair.”
― Jaida Jones, Steelhands

“She had only been around humans for a few days, and she had already embroiled herself in one of the most intricate social dilemmas: to stand out or to fit in?”
― Wiss Auguste, The Illusions of Hope

“I was thirty-one at this point. I was deep in the grips of Hollywood conditioning. The thing is, I was always playing roles that were younger, at least five years younger, which amplified my twisted perception of aging. You have done something wrong! You have lived! You start feeling crazier with each birthday that passes.”
― Rose McGowan, Brave

“I am both infantilised and sexualised, and I'm not sure what to do with that.”
― Laura Sebastian, Lady Smoke

“Transparency in government would be nice!”
― Steven Magee

“Forcing things merely because of attachments or external pressures can lead to a delicate balance between persistence and futility. The moment you find yourself forcing a situation solely because of attachments or the involvement of others, it may be time to reevaluate your path. Sometimes, we push situations beyond their natural rhythm, motivated by attachments or external expectations, inadvertently straying from our authentic path.”
― CARSON ANEKEYA

“Men are so often made to feel inadequate and stupid for having feelings and problems and expressing their doubts and fears. Fight Club was the pressure cooker that lanced the boil of the pent-up existential crisis in masculinity that continues even more so to this day.”
― Stewart Stafford

“I thought about all the press conferences I'd seen over the years, parents trotted out for missing kids, killed kids, abused kids. Everyone feels sorry for those parents, those mothers, until they don't. Until the mothers don't cry enough or cry to much. Until the mother are too put-together or not put-together enough. Until the mothers are angry. Because that's the one thing women are never, ever allowed to be. We can be sad, distraught, confused, pleading, forgiving. But not furious. Fury is reserved for other people. The worst thing you can be is an angry woman, and angry *mother*.”
― Amy Engel, The Familiar Dark