Quotes About Social norms

Boys are beaten for reading poetry, grocers are called 'robbers' for sending in their bills, dogs are fed chicken while the servants are forced to eat laundry starch to stave off hunger, terrified children are put on horses at a remarkably young age, a nanny is dismissed for drunkenness but still given a good reference because to do otherwise 'would have been unkind and unnecessary'. The proper way to conduct oneself in all matters is to employ selective silence: Papa

The refusal to become (or to remain) heterosexual always meant to refuse to become a man or a woman, consciously or not.

L'hétérosexualité n'est pas "naturelle", pas plus qu'elle n'est la seule sexualité, la sexualité universelle.

Does it really matter what these affectionate people do-- so long as they dont do it in the streets and frighten the horses

Just as people believe that power often goes to those who don't deserve it, a beautiful girl often marries the ugly man in town.

A man with long hair and green spectacles had a "decidedly free love look," and "several young ladies of very bad behavior" were "evidently professional." They coexisted with many "respectable looking people." A redheaded girl grabbed a seat, threw off a soggy shawl, and grumped, "I hope, by gosh, I haven't come here for nothing in all this rain." She would not be disappointed.

I married beneath me. All women do.

Oh, I would just love to talk to you sometime, maybe we could have lunch,' she recalled. But Graham politely declined, explaining to the governor's wife that he did not dine alone with women - be they single or married. 'Oh, well, I'm sorry,' Hillary said. 'Maybe we could have a lot of people there.' Graham replied that he would think about it. ... And so five people sat down at a found table in Little Rock's ornate Capital Hotel that fall.

In the American colonies and in England, the unmarried man of means was a scandalous figure. He was ridiculed as a hermaphrodite, as half man, half woman;

To be a man, apparently, was to lack the ability to be a woman.

If you call the day after, you're maybe a bit desperate because, since the first day is out of the question, the second day is really the first day, so you're calling on the first day. If they're going to call, people call on the third day.

also designed to keep girls chaste is breast ironing.

The caterer was chatting, standing wide-legged and easy, knife moving this way and that as she talked, taking up her space a little too aggressively, the way women who have been raised with a lot of brothers tend to in a group of men. It was clear she had never considered using the knife for anything but food preparation; there was no awareness of its edge and balance as it related to the soft skin of the men around her.

Civilizations are not made "avec des idées" but with good manners.

In a perfect penal code, vulgarity would be punished with the death penalty.

Nafai knew the rule: when a man acts like a child, he's boyish, and everyone's delighted; when a boy acts the same way, he's childish, and everyone tells him to be a man.

I didn't know whether it was better to maintain a fierce distinction between yourself and your acquaintances in society in order to deal with and respond properly to things in a pleasant manner, or rather never to hide yourself, to remain true to yourself always, even if they say bad things about you

To begin with, I believe a fatal contradiction lies between women's right to vote and lipstick. Those guys usually aren't popular with the ladies. Without a doubt, this is a plan for revenge.

Women are never disarmed by compliments; men always are.

Rules are set up for the good of society. But as soon as you make a rule, someone feels the need to break it.

Of course it doesn't make sense." Lady Wendall said. "The rules of society rarely do.

Of course, the best topics are always somewhat inappropriate. Very few topics are truly inappropriate—you just have to speak about those topics in an appropriate manner.)

The automatic use of Du, even to strangers if they were friends of friends, was very surprising. Sie, it seemed, meant relegation to the outer darkness and people had been known to fight with swords about the matter.

The people of North America have little idea of religion, but they have strict public morality. The Latin people are without morality but they are highly religious.