Quotes About Social norms

Before she dozed off, it occurred to her that for the first time in her life Calpurnia had said "Yes ma'am" and "Miss Scout" to her, forms of address usually reserved for the presence of high company.

She gave lip service to the world: she went through the motions of complying with the regulations governing the behavior of teenaged girls from good families; she developed a halfway interest in clothes, boys, hairdos, gossip, and female aspirations; but she was uneasy all the time she was away from the security of those who she knew loved her.

That ain't honest, Mr. Raymond, making yourself out badder'n you are already -' 'It ain't honest but it's mighty helpful to folks. Secretly, Miss Finch, I'm not much of a drinker, but you see they could never, never understand that I live like I do because that's the way I want to live.

The Radleys, welcome anywhere in town, kept to themselves, a predilection unforgivable in Maycomb.

When she dressed, she put on her Maycomb clothes: gray slacks, a black sleeveless blouse, white socks, and loafers. Although it was four hours away, she could hear her aunt's sniff of disapproval.

Don't say nigger, Scout. That's common.

Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that's why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with. (Lee 119)

Being judged by society makes you disregard it altogether after a while. Jean-Michel didn't know that he shouldn't get a twelve-year-old drugs. He didn't even really know what a twelve-year-old was.

People gave you a hard time about being a kid at twelve. They didn't want to give you Halloween candy anymore. They said things like, "If this were the Middle Ages, you'd be married and you'd own a farm with about a million chickens on it.

I've never been married, but I tell people I'm divorced so they won't think something is wrong with me.

There are some societies where women are not even allowed to drive a car, and that restriction is based in the name of religion and tradition. There are other countries where a woman can be punished if she does not cover her head.

The United States Constitution does not one time even mention marriage. It neither requires Congress or the states to adopt same-sex marriage laws nor does it forbid them from maintaining traditional marriage laws.

There are some good traditions in our culture, one of which is that men dance with women. Soon we will reach the stage where we will all have to publicly apologise for being heterosexual.

I am a journalist in the field of etiquette. I try to find out what the most genteel people regularly do, what traditions they have discarded, what compromises they have made.

Americans are locked into our traditions.

A lady is smarter than a gentleman, maybe, she can sew a fine seam, she can have a baby, she can use her intuition instead of her brain, but she can't fold a paper in a crowded train.

No, thanks,' said Sam, who had never understood why he often refused drinks he would have liked to accept.

The natural elements of sunlight, water and air were not permitted to touch a woman's bare skin. At the seaside, women made their laborious way through the water in heavy bathing costumes, covered from neck to ankles. Young girls in boarding schools and convents even had to take baths in long white garments, forgetting that they had bodies at all.

By this time the Gentle Reader is thinking that people who go to church and sing in the choir should not make love in hayfields.

virginity certainly wasn't a

Men repeatedly noted how much easier it was to talk to other males than to women, and their journals often expressed the worry that being married to an angel might not be as easy as it sounded.

I was used to being perceived as having a good attitude. Self-control, self-effacement, self-denial. People like this, especially in girls.

Why are you staring at my boobs? My face is up here," Trudy exclaims. Jack, the hotel employees, and I jump back like we've been electrocuted while the seniors don't skip a beat. No. She. Didn't. These geriatric devils are so bad.

Custom calls me to 't: What custom wills, in all things should we do't, The dust on antique time would lie unswept, And mountainous error be too highly heap't For truth to o'erpeer.