Quotes About Expectations

How could I have been anything else but what I am, having been named Madonna. I would either have ended up a nun or this.

To be brave is to love someone unconditionally, without expecting anything in return. To just give. That takes courage, because we don't want to fall on our faces or leave ourselves open to hurt.

If your joy is derived from what society thinks of you, you're always going to be disappointed.

Men are easy to get but hard to keep.

Women with pasts interest men because they hope history will repeat itself.

Don't marry a man to reform him - that's what reform schools are for.

Men are all alike - except the one you've met who's different.

Gentlemen prefer blondes, but who says blondes prefer gentlemen?

But an intelligent man like you would know that to live in an unrealistic hope is a very foolish way to spend a life." - Lena Gray

He thought about how life never turns out like you think and hope it will.

It's the binary of normative/transgressive that's unsustainable, along with the demand that anyone live a life that's all one thing.

What I wish I had known, age twenty-one, as I cycled away from the results board towards the meadow by the river in Cambridge, where I would throw stones into the water and cry, is that nobody ever asks you what degree you got. It ceases to matter the moment you leave university. That the things in life which don't go to plan are usually more important, more formative, in the long run, than the things that do.

Her grandmother keeps announcing that Esme will never find a husband if she doesn't change her ways. Yesterday, when she said it at breakfast, Esme replied "Good" and was sent to finish her meal in the kitchen.

What I wish I had known, aged twenty-one, as I cycled away from the results board towards the meadow by the river in Cambridge, where I would throw stones into the water and cry, is that nobody ever asks you what degree you got. It ceases to matter the moment you leave university. That the things in life which don't go to plan are usually more important, more formative, in the long run, than the things that do.

She grows up feeling wrong, out of place, too dark, too tall, too unruly, too opinionated, too silent, too strange. She grows up with the awareness that she is merely tolerated, an irritant, useless, that she does not deserve love, that she will need to change herself substantially, crush herself down if she is to be married. She grows up, too, with the memory of what it meant to be properly loved, for what you are, not what you ought to be.

Her grandmother keeps announcing that Esme will never find a husband if she doesn't change her ways. Yesterday, when she said it at breakfast, Esme replied, good, and was sent to finish her meal in the kitchen.

mine was white organdie with an orange-blossom trim and I didn't want the holly to tear it so she carried the wreath. She cared little for her dress. Scarlet velvet, she'd wanted. Crimson. But she got burgundy taffeta. And she said it didn't fit properly, the seams weren't straight and even I could see that but such things mattered so much to her that

Please.' Esme stood. She clasped her hands together to keep them still. 'Miss Murray says I could get a scholarship and after that perhaps university and—' 'There would be no profit in it,' her father said, as he settled himself back into his armchair. My daughters will not work for a living.

younger women as they pass us in the street, with their cigarettes, their makeup, their tight-seamed dresses, their tiny handbags, their smooth, washed hair, and we turn away, we put down our heads, we keep on pushing the pram up the hill.

Children were experiments, and his had failed.

Let me tell you something. When there is a penalty kick, most people think that the penalty taker is in control. But they are wrong. The penalty taker is full of fear, because he is expected to score. He is under great pressure. He has many choices to make, and as he places the ball and walks back to make his run, his mind is full of the possibility of failure. This makes him vulnerable, and it makes the keeper very powerful.

You must come out into the real world and face these problems sensibly and maturely. These lavatories are just an adolescent escape-mechanism, like going to the pictures; they're a dream world. You must come to terms with things, and not expect too much.

Her life's work was a fantastical pipe dream to the backers who had sanctioned the project but were now cutting back on what they considered frivolous expenditures.

Boys don't cry, but men do.