Norton Juster Quotes

We not trying to do what everybody else is doing.

I came out with sounds that didn't sound like the usual hip-hop beat. I took that chance because no one would identify with me if I sound like somebody who's already out.

You know how it is: you're a kid, and you see your parents do something, you tend not to want to follow that and do your own thing.

Yes, my fashion sense is outrageous, but I am a rebel. I am young and still growing up.

People who pigeonhole us for our queerness are not people I'm interested in knowing. They're so boring. How dare you be so boring? Grow up. Get some Ray-Bans.

If you follow the same path as everyone else you're just going to be like everyone else.

When I was growing up, you had to conform and do the same thing that everyone else was doing. I would just go home and make music and be able to make myself happy, but I know that's more of a challenge for some people.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds

No one ever told me when I was growing up that make-up and skirts were just for girls. If you're confident and you own it, [the other kids] are fine with it...I've always supported the lifestyle that I will do what I please and deal with it.

Don't do it, Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone else you will never see your cup of stars again; don't do it; and the little girl glanced at her, and smiled a little subtle, dimpling, wholly comprehending smile, and shook her head stubbornly at the glass. Brave girl, Eleanor thought; wise, brave girl.

PUNK IS: the personal expression of uniqueness that comes from the experiences of growing up in touch with our human ability to reason and ask questions.

You almost have to force yourself to stay in a vacuum to become different - if you really want to be different.

My family’s said to me from the beginning, ‘People are always going to tell you to pick what you want to be when you grow up. You take that and throw it out the window, that’s garbage. People are complicated and we love many things and we’re passionate about many things. You can be a human rights activist and also be doing these comedy plays in your community and that’s OK. All those things are a part of who you are and you can love them equally.

You'll never stand out if your goal in life is to fit in.

Some of us aren't meant to belong. Some of us have to turn the world upside down and shake the hell out of it until we make our own place in it.

Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same.

... don't let your elders and supposed betters tell you any different. Sure, you've never been to Paris. No, you never ran with the bulls at Pamploma. Yes, you're a pissant who had no hair in your armpits until three years ago - but so what? If you don't start out too big for your britches, how are you gonna fill 'em when you grow up? Let it rip regardless of what anybody tells you, that's my idea; sit down an smoke that baby.

Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, while the creative individual cannot grow up because he keeps growing.

I learned the word non-conformist in fourth grade and immediately announced that I would grow up to become one.

Outside, in the newly fallen darkness, the world had been transformed. The sky had become a glistening tapestry of stars.

There is no sin worse in life than being boring--and nothing worse than letting other people tell you what to do. I was one of the few heiresses to walk the runway as a model. A lot of people thought that was shocking. Why did I do it? Was it a desperate cry for attention, like the papers said? Hardly. It's not like I need any more attention. Did I do it for money? Of course not. Modeling doesn't pay that well, anyway, unless you're Gisele or Cindy Crawford, or, like Patti Hansen, you get to marry a rock star. I did it because it was fun.

The 'futures' and 'careers' for which American students now prepare are for the most part intellectual and moral wastelands. This chrome-plated consumers' paradise would have us grow up to be well-behaved children. But an important minority of men and women coming to the front today have shown they will die rather than be standardized, replaceable, and irrelevant.

I don't want to be just another blade of grass.

If someone asks me what inspires me, I always say, "That which is missing," because I don't want to copy everything that's already happening. I feel like when you copy, you blend in, and when you blend in, you get lost.