#norm

In a high school, the norms act to hold down the achievements of those who are above average, so that the school's demands will be at a level easily maintained by the majority. ↗

— James S. Coleman

#achievements #act #average #demands #down

I knew what normalcy was, and I wasn't having it. ↗

— Gary Coleman

#i #knew #normalcy

It is intellectually dishonest to look backwards with all the facts and judge the decisions that were made with almost none of the facts, or the facts that existed hidden in the normal cloud of endless speculation of what might happen. ↗

— Norm Coleman

#backwards #cloud #decisions #dishonest #endless

Normal kids in their teens want to go and date girls and do mischievous things, your hormones are jumping around, but I stayed in my bedroom in search of something. ↗

— Grandmaster Flash

#bedroom #date #go #hormones #i

I knew it was going to be enormous because of the number of people who bought the books, but, to be honest, I never thought it would be bigger than Bond. Never in a million years. ↗

— Robbie Coltrane

#bigger #bond #books #bought #enormous

Mind you, I cannot swear that my story is true. It may have been a dream; or worse, a symptom of some severe mental disorder. But I believe it is true. After all, how are we to know what things there are on earth? Strange monstrosities still exist, and foul, incredible perversions. Every war, each new geographical or scientific discovery, brings to light some new bit of ghastly evidence that the world is not altogether the same place we fondly imagine it to be. Sometimes peculiar incidents occur which hint of utter madness. How can we be sure that our smug conceptions of reality actually exist? To one man in a million dreadful knowledge is revealed, and the rest of us remain mercifully ignorant. There have been travelers who never came back, and research workers who disappeared. Some of those who did return were deemed mad because of what they told, and others sensibly concealed the wisdom that had so horribly been revealed. Blind as we are, we know a little of what lurks beneath our normal life. There have been tales of sea serpents and creatures of the deep; legends of dwarfs and giants; records of queer medical horrors and unnatural births. Stunted nightmares of men's personalities have blossomed into being under the awful stimulus of war, or pestilence, or famine. There have been cannibals, necrophiles, and ghouls; loathsome rites of worship and sacrifice; maniacal murders, and blasphemous crimes. When I think, then, of what I saw and heard, and compare it with certain other grotesque and unbelievable authenticities, I begin to fear for my reason. ("The Mannikin") ↗

— Robert Bloch

#occult #paranormal #rationalism-intellect #rationality #supernatural

I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men." "Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything. ↗

— Jane Austen

#clichés #constancy #double-standards #education #feminism

I feel there must be an enormous amount of really talented songwriters out there who can't sing. ↗

— Roger Daltrey

#enormous #feel #i #i feel #must

In order to move others deeply we must deliberately allow ourselves to be carried away beyond the bounds of our normal sensibility. ↗

— Joseph Conrad

#away #beyond #bounds #carried #deeply

Anybody who has stood on the prairie in North Dakota has felt the force of the wind and knows that our state has an inexhaustible supply of wind power. The potential here to create jobs and draw millions of dollars in new investment to North Dakota is enormous. ↗

— Kent Conrad

#create #dakota #dollars #draw #enormous