Junot Diaz Quotes

The essential problems remain the same... The kids I write about are asking for the same things I wanted. They want two contradictory things. They want to be the same as everyone else, and they want to be different from everyone else. They want acceptance for both.

I just want to be like other people that are normal.

All I've ever wanted is to be normal.

People like you to be something, preferably what they are.

People come to New York to be different, but I go to Starbucks to be the same.

I don't like to be different; I would like to be the same.

Socially I never was an outsider. I have never thought of the conflict element before frankly, but perhaps it was wanting to belong, and at the same time wanting to retain one's own personality.

One of the things I worked very hard on all my life was to be like everyone else. I tried very hard to fit in.

Growing up, I just wanted to be like everyone else. I didn't value or understand the beauty in being different at the time in my life.

A lot of people go through life trying to perform normalcy, and I think you can relate to that.

If you try too hard to fit in you become something you are not.

I don't crave acceptance in the classical world.

In London, I did feel a pressure to be more avant-garde than I wanted.

I just want to be normal, like everybody else." "Are you sure that being like everybody else will make you happy?

But it was okay not to fit in everywhere, as long as you did somewhere.

If you want to look like the people next door, you're probably smothering yourself into your dreams.

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

I wonder whether there is such a thing as a sense of individuality. Is it all a facade, covering a deep need to belong? Are we simply pack animals desperately trying to pretend we are not?

...if you are not like everybody else, then you are abnormal, if you are abnormal , then you are sick. These three categories, not being like everybody else, not being normal and being sick are in fact very different but have been reduced to the same thing

I wanted to be, you know, just no different than anybody else.

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.

If we attach more importance to what other people believe than to what we know to be true - if we value belonging over being - we will not attain authenticity.

The myth is the public domain and the dream is the private myth. If your private myth, your dream, happens to coincide with that of the society, you are in good accord with your group. If it isn't, you've got a long adventure in the dark forest ahead of you.

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

The constant pressure to bring about conformity is a dangerous thing.