There's life for you. Spend the best years of your life studying penmanship and rhetoric and syntax and Beowulf and George Eliot, and then somebody steals your pencil.
Dorothy ParkerRead
Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.
Interpretation
This quote challenges the notion of heterosexuality as a standard behavior, suggesting it's merely prevalent rather than inherently 'normal.'
Dorothy Parker's quote critiques the societal perception of heterosexuality as the default or 'normal' sexual orientation. Instead, she asserts that it is merely the most common form of sexuality among people, urging a broader understanding of human sexuality that recognizes the diversity and validity of all orientations beyond just heterosexuality.
In practice
In a discussion about LGBTQ+ rights, this quote highlights the necessity of recognizing diverse sexual orientations.
There's life for you. Spend the best years of your life studying penmanship and rhetoric and syntax and Beowulf and George Eliot, and then somebody steals your pencil.
My land is bare of chattering folk; / the clouds are low along the ridges, / and sweet's the air with curly smoke / from all my burning bridges.
Prince or commoner, tenor or bass, Painter or plumber or never-do-well, Do me a favor and shut your face - Poets alone should kiss and tell.
They say of me, and so they should, It's doubtful if I come to good. I see acquaintances and friends Accumulating dividends And making enviable names In science, art and parlor games. But I, despite expert advice, Keep doing things I think are nice, And though to good I never come Inseparable my nose and thumb.
It is that word 'hunny,' my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up.
I canβt write five words but that I change seven.
At times I feel myself overtaken by an immense tenderness for these people around me who live in the same century.
Where, if not in the Divine Mercy, can the world find refuge and the light of hope?
The Soul is the voice of the body's interests.
It's not the one thing nor the other that leads to madness, but the space in between.
April is the cruelest month, T.S. Eliot wrote, by which I think he meant (among other things) that springtime makes people crazy. We expect too much, the world burgeons with promises it can't keep, all passion is really a setup, and we're doomed to get our hearts broken yet again. I agree, and would further add: Who cares? Every spring I go out there anyway, around the bend, unconditionally. ... Come the end of the dark days, I am more than joyful. I'm nuts.
I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I'm for that. Where the government is necessary, I'm for that. I'm deeply suspicious of somebody who says, 'I'm in favor of privatization,' or, 'I'm deeply in favor of public ownership.' I'm in favor of whatever works in the particular case.
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