Quotes About Convention

It was over, the awkward moment, the dreaded moment, sliding past in a ripple of commonplaces, the easy mechanical politenesses that are so much more than empty convention; they are the greaves and cuirasses that arm the naked nerve.

The condition of the black race, their pain, their wounds, would in his mind become merged with his own: the absent father and the hint of scandal, a mother who had gone away, the cruelty of other children, the realization that he was no fair-haired boy -- that he looked like a 'wop'. Racism was part of that past, his instincts told him, part of convention and respectability and status, the smirks and whispers and gossip that had kept him on the outside looking in

The reason to believe that many polysemous meanings are memorized, rather than stretched as the need arises, is that they are conventional—they are arbitrary practices of a language community, neither deducible nor universal.

articulated by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, is "the arbitrariness of the sign," the wholly conventional pairing of a sound with a meaning. The word dog does not look like a dog, walk like a dog, or woof like a dog, but it means "dog" just the same. It does so because every English speaker has undergone an identical act of rote learning in childhood that links the sound to the meaning.

Tijd was ook maar een afspraak, gemaakt door gewone mensen die een gewone wereld wilden.

When do we simply follow convention, doing what others request or demand; and when do we rely on our own individual judgment, with all its limitations and biases, and reject the requirements of the collective? In other words: How do we establish a balance between reasonable conservatism and revitalizing creativity?

I WAS wearing jeans and a slightly grubby polo shirt, partly to remind Koblenz that I wasn't on official Stoddard Associates business. And to let him know I wasn't playing by the rules of the suit-and-tie world. Also because it was more comfortable than a suit.

people in new york are authorized by convention to snoop around and mentally measure and pass comment on any real estate they're invited to step into.

The musician breaks the rules of work by playing, rather than working. It's queer, in that it's a transgression.

After 'Urinetown,' 'Avenue Q' and now 'Mormon,' is there an envelope remaining to be pushed?

I have a theory, now - that the whole of the Renaissance was peopled with girls dressed as boys so they could make art.

The point is, the political reporters are the ones who no longer understand the ritual they are covering. They keep searching for political meanings in the tepid events when a convention is now essentially a human drama and only that.

In a repressed society, artists fulfil a sense of harking back to instant gratification, or immediate expression, by doing things that function on the edge of society, or outside of what is conventionally accepted.

I think that Richard Nixon is a great man and that he is very dedicated to what he does. I had the pleasure of meeting him when I attended the Republican National Convention in Miami. You can really tell that he is willing to go out of his way to help the American people.

The Republicans need all the entertainment help they can get. When Charlie Daniels was one of your convention headliners, you know you need some serious help.

By ratifying the Convention, governments become legally bound to implement the rights therein.

I've never been to Comic-Con, but I'm certainly aware from this side of the Atlantic that it's a very important part of film marketing now, even when the films are not directly linked to a comic.

Immorality sanctified by tradition is still immorality.

I went to grad school because I wanted to learn the rules so I would know how to break them. Breaking the rules is saying, 'I'm breaking in, OK? I'm breaking in your very comfortable little house over here, and I'm going to take a room.'

I expect the Republicans will enjoy a large bounce out of their convention. They're here wrapping themselves in the 9/11 flag, which I think is inappropriate in many ways, but it's their choice.

Here's the thing: Tanahashi has this idea that wrestling has to be a certain way. There are borders that you shouldn't cross. Wrestling should be wrestling; there's a 'classic' way. But the thing is, when I watch a Tanahashi match, I feel nothing.

I'm not an advocate of true rhymes, I don't think. I think that everyone who writes musical theater needs to know how to do true rhymes, because that's the tradition of it, but I do think that in order for the art form to grow, it's important to not let tradition get in the way of innovation.

People always did like to talk, didn't they? That's why I call myself a witch now: the Wicked Witch of the West, if you want the full glory of it. As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention.

Soyez réglé dans votre vie et ordinaire comme un bourgeois, afin d'être violent et original dans vos Å"uvres.