Michel Foucault Quotes

Anyone who is different or is slightly out of the norm, is considered crazy.

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

We're accepted as long as we conform to what we are expected to be, and I'm sure that's not any different for anyone else.

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

The problem with the stigma around mental health is really about the stories that we tell ourselves as a society. What is normal? That's just a story that we tell ourselves.

It didn't matter that I wore clothes from Sears; I was still different. I looked different. My name was different. I wanted to pull away from the things that marked my parents as being different.

I don't care what people call me, labels have the negative value of making smaller boundaries for people.

I am very abnormal... But it wasn't very long ago that I wasn't so abnormal. I was very normal and headed for a lifetime of paying medical bills as proof of my normalcy.

All of us are mad. If it weren't for the fact every one of us is slightly abnormal, there wouldn't be any point in giving each person a separate name.

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

If you can't pigeon-hole yourself, who can you pigeon-hole?

I think anyone who's willing to be brutally honest with who they are and express themselves is always going to get the oddball label, the pyscho label, the twisted label. That's what happens.

I think that people need a box to put people in to feel okay, but I'm just not like that.

I think growing up, people want to put you in a box and label you quite often, just because it's kind of easier, I guess.

But the center can be a harmful place for one who has lived so long on the edge.... Normality is the Great Neurosis of civilization.

You have not yet learned that in this life you have to be like everyone else: the perfect mediocrity--no better, no worse. Individuality is a monster and it must be strangled in its cradle to make our friends feel comfortable.

Sanity is not statistical.

There is nothing wrong with me. These are really sick people, sick that you can see.

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.

Stuffing people into boxes is for those who have issues about their own box.

People will always put you in a box that they think you fit in, and it's up to you to not fall into it.

Normality is the Great Neurosis of civilization.

Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status.

I didn't want to get stuck in pretty, public school roles, or I knew I'd end up as some sort of caricature.