Challenging the Norm Quotes

Men are afraid to rock the boat in which they hope to drift safely through life's currents, when, actually, the boat is stuck on a sandbar. They would be better off to rock the boat and try to shake it loose.

The nature of an innovation is that it will arise at a fringe where it can afford to become prevalent enough to establish its usefulness without being overwhelmed by the inertia of the orthodox system.

Organizations that destroy the status quo win. Whatever the status quo is, changing it gives you the opportunity to be remarkable.

Thinking is always dangerous to the status quo. [...] The moment you start thinking, you'll want to change something.

Leaders must go ahead even when moving ahead is controversial. You must be ahead of time, because if you want to represent the status quo, what do you need leaders for?

Someone had to do something sometime. Every victim was a culprit, every culprit a victim, and somebody had to stand up sometime to try to break the lousy chain of inherited habit that was imperiling them all.

Sometimes you have to change the mold. If people keep following the same Hollywood mold, you're going to get the same thing. And as a Black actress, there's not a whole lot out there for us, unless we're creating it.

I always went left to what everybody else was doing. I'm used to going against the grain.

I could have been on a path that led to different, more traditional teen romance, and 'Nip/Tuck' shook me loose from any generalization I might have been forced into. It helped me understand I wanted to take on things that were edgier, more challenging and riskier.

Embrace change as an opportunity to learn, to improve, to make a difference in others' lives as well as in your own. Have the courage to challenge the status quo. Remember that preparation and ambition in combination with opportunity equals success. And have fun!

I think people who go out and tell you how much they're gonna change things are the people who end up being just another whatever. I'm never trying to change anything. That's not for me.

Nothing changes if we keep playing it safe.

Want to change the world? Upset the status quo? This takes more than run-of-the-mill relationships. You need to make people dream the same dream that you do.

In a certain way, my work had set me up to be against lots of things. If there wasn't some sort of sanction for it in the public world, it might have been...it wouldn't have been tolerated, because people don't want things to get shaken up.

Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.

Serve the dinner backward, do anything - but for goodness sake, do something weird.

I've been ostracized before in legislative bodies for voting against the majority. That doesn't bother me.

Normality is death.

I do films that I like. I have done comedy, romance, everything, and I always like to do it differently from the previous ones.

Whenever you write on a subject that questions the status quo, there are bound to be many who wrestle with the issues

You need strong leadership to effectuate change, and the easiest way is to keep everything status quo. And sometimes changes are necessary. If not, you build up too much potential energy.

Trends can tyrannize; trends are traps. In any creative industry, the fact that others are moving in a certain direction is always proof positive, at least to me, that a new direction is the only direction.

Discontent with the status quo is a great catalyst for vision.

My dad would always say, 'Girl, you've been given gifts. Use them.' And what he meant by that was, 'Don't just be successful. Don't just use your talents for your own success. But make a difference with them. Do something significant.' And when I put those two things together, it just causes me to not accept the status quo.