Judith Butler Quotes

Culture is a product of law. And laws create norms for society. This is why anyone who wants to change the culture of a country must try to change the norms of the country.

Where a bad custom has been in existence for any length of time, most people grow to regard it as part of the order of nature.

The conception of what is normal varies not only with the culture but also within the same culture, in the course of time.

It wasn't possible just to rid oneself, simply, of the norms through which one is constituted.

First off, I think nudity is taken differently in America, though they did make a fuss in England, too.

...how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!

I think a whole lot of stuff gets by people - I could name half a dozen groups that do songs that are openly supportive of experimentation with drugs, nobody ever said anything to them.

I do think homophobia in the '80s was more rampant and socially acceptable.

Recall that people like to do what most people think it is right to do; recall too that people like to do what most people actually do.

I feel like we're so limited by the context at which we look at life. The way we look at who we're supposed to be and how we're supposed to love... everything. I feel like that, in and of itself, is a project of a lifetime: the problem of how to break out of the limiting context that is imposed upon us by the educational system, by the church, by our parents... As a kid I rejected it without even thinking about it. Now that I'm a little older, I see how deeply destructive it really is.

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

There was nothing abnormal about it when homosexuality was the norm.

I just don't think America wants a female host. It's like men don't walk around in skirts in this country. Why change a good thing?

In civilized communities men's idiosyncrasies are mitigated by the necessity of conforming to certain rules of behavior. Culture is a mask that hides their faces.

Did they practice looking suspicious in mirrors? Welcome to the United States. Don’t even think about chewing gum the wrong way.’ (Carlos)

I think that a society cannot live without a certain number of irrational beliefs. They are protected from criticism and analysis because they are irrational.

Is anyone human actually normal? I'm beginning to think being normal is actually abnormal.

Public opinion alone can keep a society pure and healthy.

If the culture is so all pervasive that you can’t think outside of it, how are you making genuine choices?

Being brought up in a culture is a matter of learning appropriate forms of feeling as much as particular ways of thinking.

Culture is everything you don't have to do.

I think the Internet shortens the distance between people, and that can often lead to inappropriateness.

We do what we see and what we're told. If we haven't been raised in a family or in a community where women are treated as full human beings and men don't have to be superior anymore, we continue to think that it's not only natural but inevitable.

I think it's important to break taboos for the same reason it's important to break laws and rules - because either you're a slave to them, or you're taking matters into your hands.

He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.