Quotes About Expectations

I've always dreamed of becoming a mother. I thought I would get married and do it all the traditional way, but life kept going on, my career kept me busy - and I had not stopped to become a mommy.

My dad, coming from a very traditional family, always wanted me to be a doctor. So he would always ask me, 'What are you going to be when you grow up?' And I'd have to say 'Dr. Chen.'

Many alternatives to traditional marriage have emerged. People feel free to shop around, experimenting with several living arrangements in succession. And when people do marry, they have different expectations and goals.

What we need to understand is that when traditions become laws, rules, obligations and expectations others put on us that we don't want to fulfill, then they lose real meaning and steal the joy from our lives. And if we're too religious, we won't be able to be led by the Holy Spirit and enjoy an intimate relationship with Him.

We try to respond as closely as we can to the nature of each city, to the traditions, to their expectations. I don't believe that architects should be imposing their style or their plans on every city in the world.

I always try to design fashion that is interesting and innovative, and I like to break traditions and challenge people's expectations.

People still ask my husband and me which of us is the mom - which, as one lesbian friend pointed out to me, is like asking which chopstick is the fork. This pressure on us to embody normative traditions can be paralysing.

I remember when I drove into Notre Dame, getting ready for the first day of work. I had an electrical charge go up my back because I realized all of a sudden that I was responsible for the traditions that the Knute Rocknes and the Frank Leahys had set, and what Notre Dame stood for.

The Packers have all kinds of traditions and rules that you only learn about when you get here. One of the rules is that receivers can't wear sleeves.

Every Olympics, they make a big deal out of something - security... traffic... pollution... something - and it really doesn't come true. For me, there's never been a problem.

Just keep the idea in the back of your head: 'I can't control L.A. traffic. I'll leave earlier than I think I need to, and I'll get there when I get there.'

What having a Down's syndrome child isn't - and I feel very strongly about this - is a tragedy. All those pregnancy books you read when you are expecting refer to Down's syndrome as if it were the worst possible outcome, and it's not.

A lot of young coaches who respect the fact I have been doing it a long time, that is often their question: 'Does it get any easier? Can you relax more during the games? Can you take it all a little bit more philosophically and put it more in perspective?' The tragedy is that I have to tell them, 'No. If anything, it gets worse.'

It got to the point the last time, at Texas, where every loss was a tragedy and every win was exhaling.

At Juve you were first or you were nothing. If we went out of the Champions League it was a tragedy. I saw team-mates who did not eat for a week.

I think we've been programmed from birth to be a certain way - to be demure, to be polite, and to be nice and to not be boastful or braggadocios in all of these things - and it leads to this kind of tragedy. Women spend so much time hating what they look like.

Now most people do not want an ordinary life in which they do a job well, earn the respect of their collaborators and competitors, bring up a family and have friends. That's not enough any more, and I think that is absolutely tragic - and I'm not exaggerating - that people feel like a decent, ordinary, fun life is no longer enough.

I don't think anybody, regardless of tragic circumstances, can expect to come to a congressional hearing and take it over with a series of interruptions.

You talk through what exactly happened to Howard Dean on the campaign trail, what Bill Clinton must have lived through, what the daily grind of doing what these people have to do. And they can never lose their temper, they can never be tired, and they can never slip up, or it's on-camera, and it's everywhere - and it's over.

We played it as long as we could play it on that CD and I think it might be 50 minutes, maybe. What you have to do is play a couple of songs and then get off the stage because everything that trails it sounds stupid.

American athletes, especially distance runners, are at a big disadvantage against the rest of the world. We're expected to live by all the rules, like not being able to coach, but still train and make our own living.

Production wants a miracle on every movie. They want us to do something new and amazing - but then they give you a 55-year-old actor with sciatica who doesn't want to train.

I wanted an electric train for Christmas but I got the saxophone instead.

Junior is such a great guy. He's the new and improved model. It's a beautiful thing. That's what you train your children to do. He's an inspiration to his brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews who say it's too hard living up to the family name.