Quotes About Conformity

Being female was so hard. Always having to rearrange yourself, to pluck yourself and whittle yourself and deprive yourself and inspect yourself in order to feel comfortable in this world.

as if we were actual human beings or completely normal people

Everyone cared what others thought, even those who were defiantly different. They cared more than anyone.

acceptable. Some people were just weird. Now anyone who seems the least bit off has to have a label, a diagnosis, be "on the spectrum.

All these girls had thrown away their corsets, claiming liberation, but apparently, they weren't supposed to eat.

Why does the world demand girls to be beautiful, but when they are, punish them for it? Why does it punish girls either way? Why does the world want girls to be sorry, some even more than others? Sorry, sorrier, sorriest.

Be good. Be a nice girl. Don't ruin our happy family.

Being an actress is similar to trying to fit in with the popular kids in high school. You're expected to drive the right car, wear the right clothes and say the right things.

I become professional or hip, depending on what I am wearing. I feel different when I am wearing different clothes. I act different. I let my Talbots suits and my vintage shirts remake me in their image. I want to let Jesus do the same.

And they all have pretty children, And the children go to school, And the children to go summer camp, And then to the university, Where they are put in bozes And they come out all the same. - Malvina Reynolds

Sometimes it's easier to be as bad as they expect you to be.

Were we all like that? Were we all trying to change how we looked on the outside to match how we felt on the inside? Were we all trying to change how people saw us?

Put a pair of high heels on a fellow and just look what he was reduced to.

It bothers you, doesn't it?" Mia said suddenly. "I think you can't imagine. Why anyone would choose a different life from the one you've got. Why anyone might want something other than a big house with a big lawn, a fancy car, a job in an office. Why anyone would choose anything different than what you'd choose.

Because more than anything, her mother had wanted to stand out; because more than anything, her father had wanted to blend in. Because those things had been impossible.

Because more than anything, her mother had wanted to stand out; because more than anything, her father had wanted to blend in. Because those things had been impossible. In

James slid into his seat and the girl next to him asked, "What's wrong with your eyes?" It wasn't until he heard the horror in the teacher's voice—"Shirley Byron!"—that he realized he was supposed to be embarrassed; the next time it happened, he had learned his lesson and turned red right away.

Everything that she had wanted for Lydia, which Lydia had never wanted but had embraced anyway. A dull chill creeps over her. Perhaps—and this thought chokes her—that had dragged Lydia underwater at last.

Everything that she had wanted for Lydia, which Lydia had never wanted but had embraced anyway.

How had it begun? Like everything: with mothers and fathers. Because of Lydia's mother and father, because of her mother's and father's mothers and fathers. Because long ago, her mother had gone missing, and her father had brought her home. Because more than anything, her mother had wanted to stand out; because more than anything, her father had wanted to blend in. Because those things had been impossible.

My mother just thinks I should marry someone more like me, then brushed it away, like dust onto the floor. But those words had haunted James. How they must have wound around his heart, binding tighter over the years, slicing into the flesh. He had hung his head like a murderer, as if his blood were poison, as if he regretted that their daughter had ever existed.

Hers had been just one of the pale, pretty faces, indistinguishable from the next, and though he would never fully realize it, this was the first reason he came to love her: because she had blended in so perfectly, because she had seemed so completely and utterly at home.

So concerned about wearing the right things, saying the right things, being friends with the right people.

She had been brought up to follow rules, to believe that the proper functioning of the world depended upon her compliance, and follow them—and believe—she did.