Dick Van Dyke Quotes

I think if you give in and accept society's stereotypes, then you start thinking, 'I cannot dance till late at night because I'm 70.'

I can't stay within the constructs of societal expectations.

I've always wanted to be older, as I think it's all right to be a little bit odd when you're out of your 20s.

When you're a dweeb, when you're really young, it stands out. But as everybody gets older and more conservative, it's not an issue any more.

Society, in general, has taught for many generations that when you reach a certain age, you have to learn to stop playing.

I refused to conform to an image that a lot of people thought a president's brother should adopt.

There is a piece of me that likes to fondly imagine my maverick and rebellious nature. But, more accurately, I like to have a nice and cosy institution that I can rub up against a little bit.

Some people look gender non-conforming because they want to look that way - they don't want to conform to society's expectations.

People say women shouldn't have long hair over a certain age, but I've never done what everyone says.

I don't believe in societal restrictions. It wasn't a choice - conformity simply never occurred to me.

Old people should be heard but not seen. Young people should be seen, not heard.

Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.

It was not a good thing in my family to be a 'personality.'

I was probably the only kid in school that had long hair.

I think if you're 50 you just ruddy say it.

We’re freaks, that’s all. Those two bastards got us nice and early and made us into freaks with freakish standards, that’s all. We’re the tattooed lady, and we’re never going to have a minute’s peace, the rest of our lives, until everybody else is tattooed, too.

She was too much—for Zenith, Ohio. She’d tried at times to make herself smaller, to fit neatly into the ordered lines of expectation. But somehow, she always managed to say or do something outrageous—she’d accept a dare to climb a flagpole, or make a slightly risqué joke, or go riding in cars with boys—and suddenly she was “that awful O’Neill girl” all over again.

Society wants to put us in a box and say, OK, you do this and you do that and you do this, and I'm like, no, I like this, I like that.

They yell at me to be dignified. But what are the dignified people like? The people who are held up as examples of me? They are snobs. Frightful snobs I'm a curiosity in Hollywood. I'm a big freak, because I'm myself!

I got tired of doing battle with people thinking I was a little weird because I wasn't in a band making happy, stilted music. The only people who really seem weird to me are people who think they're normal. People who think it's possible to be normal just by doing the same things that most people do. Is there a most people? I don't know. Television makes it seem like there is, but I think that might just be television.

I try to define myself through my own choices rather than just accepting society's kind of you're that, you're that, let me put you in a box kind of thing.

Having to be different is the same trap as having to be the same.

But perhaps when you were too obedient, and did not do openly what others did, and were quiet in church and hard-working at school, then some unknown rebellion brewed in you, doing harm to you, though how I do not understand.

You can't be creative and still be a good girl.

One of the saddest things about conformity is the ghastly sort of non-conformity it breeds; the noisy protesting, the aggressive rebelliousness, the rigid counter-fetishism.