Socially Acceptable Quotes

I had to deal with being somewhat of an outcast because it's not socially acceptable to be a struggling musician. There have been times where I've felt sorry for the person I was dating. I felt she deserved better. ~ Taylor Hicks

In boot camp, I was warned about the double standards in the Navy. Petty Officer Hunter told us that Navy men were horny animals eager to stick their dicks in something warm and wet. That was socially acceptable. However, females were held at a higher standard. Females serving sea duty was a new concept, only a decade or two old when I enlisted. I was one of the first women allowed on destroyers. Therefore to show our gratitude for being granted one inch towards male equality, we had to work a hundred times harder for a worthy image.
Hunter informed us that we had to work hard to establish a decent reputation at our command. If we acted like a slut, we would be treated like a slut. One slip would permanently brand us. ~ Maggie Young

Polite, socially acceptable suppression of our rage is "inauthentic," insofar as we are not sharing our full selves. And that is part of trust, too. Part of being trustworthy is meeting expectations and staying in line, as if you were a well-behaved woman. ~ Emily Nagoski

Faces may be hard to read because humans are complex social animals that have learned to suppress the display of emotions for various reasons. It is often inappropriate to show negative emotions like hatred and contempt in public, so people go about wearing socially acceptable faces rather like masks. ~ Glen Wilson

Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting. ~ Sydney J. Harris

His voice was soft and sweet as molasses; but my mother once told me that you had to trust that the first thing out of a person's mouth was truth. After they have a chance to think about it, they'll change what they say to be more socially acceptable, something they think you'll be happier with, something that will get the results they want. ~ Patricia Briggs

Mental imbalance is about as acceptable as herpes. It's never going to be accepted. But really, it's a disease just like cancer. It just happens, and eats away all the good parts of your brain, like judgment and happiness and perception and memory and life. And you can die from depression just like any other disease. And it's not as if people choose it. So why is it still a joke of medicine? "She died of cancer." is a lot more socially acceptable to people than "She committed suicide. ~ Sarahbeth Purcell

The task of the modern individual is to move appropriately and effectively from disengaged spectator to attentive perceiver in order to slide easily into the social order. The starer, in contrast, is an undisciplined spectator arrested in an earlier developmental stage or one resistant to the attentiveness of the modern networker. The starer is a properly attentive spectator befuddled, halted in mid-glance, mobility throttled, processing checked, network run amuck ... So the challenge of proper looking is converting the impulse to stare into attention, which is socially acceptable. (21-22) ~ Rosemarie Garland-Thomson

We grow up being told to do this and told to do that because it's the 'right' thing to do.

If we did something obscure, it'd be 'wrong'.

We have been taught to choose the respectable, socially acceptable path that everyone else walks down.

What if we were told to do what feels right and were not afraid to perceive the world in an authentic light.

We are told how to think and what to think, but not how to feel.

We don't always need logic, we need to feel. ~ Joshua Lynott

There's a nonsensical dichotomy that exists within you after you break up with someone - especially if it's someone you loved deeply. A large part of you hopes they'll move on, be happy, follow their dreams to the fullest.
That's the side you show the world.
But a smaller part of you, whether you admit its existence or not, secretly and selfishly yearns for a reality in which that person would never move on. Never forget your love, or replace you with someone else; never be fully complete again, without you by their side.
That's the side we hide away, the innermost part of ourselves that we push down below the socially-acceptable responses to heartbreak. ~ Julie Johnson

The woman he couldn't ethically fuck, he wanted to fuck six ways to Sunday without a single socially acceptable barrier between them. ~ Elizabeth Finn

I was feeling overwhelmed. Meeting Bianca, dancing, rejection by Bianca, social overload, discussion of personal matters - now, just when I thought the ordeal was over, Rosie seemed to be proposing more conversation. I was not sure I could cope.
'It's extremely late,' I said. I was sure this was a socially acceptable way of saying that I wanted to go home.
'The taxi fares go down again in the morning.'
If I understood correctly, I was now definitely far out of my depth. I needed to be sure that I wasn't misinterpreting her. ~ Graeme Simsion

The first thing to understand is that being a vegetarian is actually a private matter. I'm still taken aback by the question " then what do you eat?" and am embarrassed as I struggle to produce the weeks food diary. Its not that I'm ashamed of what I eat, but its none of anyone's business. I imagine I would have a similar feeling counting up how many pairs of underwear I went thru in a week. The only reason opening someone's fridge is more socially acceptable than opening someone's medicine cabinet is that people keep beer in their fridge. ~ Sloane Crosley

A woman's beauty is supposed to be her grand project and constant insecurity. We're meant to shellac our lips with five different glosses, but always think we're fat. Beauty is Zeno's paradox. We should endlessly strive for it, but it's not socially acceptable to admit we're there. We can't perceive it in ourselves. It belongs to the guy screaming 'nice tits. ~ Molly Crabapple

You can hardly walk up to complete strangers and say, "Good for you! You've risked banishment and brutality and ostracism just to be together, and I applaud your choice! You're in the vanguard of social change, and even though it's hard on you, the generations that come after you will have an easier time of it because you were brave enough to fall in love." So instead I told them I liked their baby. It means the same thing, but it's more socially acceptable. ~ Sharon Shinn

Sugar and fat a socially acceptable drugs. ~ Lisa Gardner

In civilized societies, we spend our lifetimes trying to become what is socially acceptable. We're dark and we're light. We all have both sides to us. ~ Robert De Niro

I couldn't quite believe how much I seriously loved Aled Last, even if it wasn't in the ideal way that would make it socially acceptable for us to live together until we die. ~ Alice Oseman

Oh, but fine isn't everything!' Rachel exclaims and grabs her hands and pulls her into a stepping foxtrot over the paintings, twirling her round. 'Fine is the very definition of mediocrity. It's what's polite. It's what's socially acceptable. We need to live brighter and deeper than just fine, my darling! ~ Lauren Beukes

No time!" I called. There was, alas, all the time in the world now, but it wasn't socially acceptable to say, "No patience! ~ Gillian Roberts

Death by drink driving is the only socially acceptable form of homicide. ~ Candy Lightner

I had dreams. And I had to pursue them; otherwise my soul would have shriveled. The hardest part was allowing myself to want something other than what was socially acceptable, telling myself to go after it, then actually doing it. ~ Connor Franta

Social stability comes at the price of wearing a mask, of learning to distance ourselves from our unique nature, from our personal desires, needs, and feelings; instead, we embrace a socially acceptable self. ~ Frederic Laloux

So it was all like, Caroline continues to have behavioral problems. She struggling a lot with anger and frustration over not being able to speak (we are frustrated about these things, too, of course, but we have more socially acceptable ways of dealing with our anger). Gus has taken to calling Caroline HULK SMASH, which resonates with the doctors. There's nothing easy about this for any of us. but you take your humor where you can get it. Hoping to go home on Thursday. We'll let you know ... ~ John Green

I'm angry because it's not socially acceptable to wear my onesie in public ~ Troye Sivan

I am an American. Black. Conservative. I don't use African-American, because I'm American, I'm black and I'm conservative. I don't like people trying to label me. African- American is socially acceptable for some people, but I am not some people. ~ Herman Cain

The social codes are different, distinctly preppy, fraternity-sorority, hip, flip, fast-and-cute, nauseating, and artificial. I have no doubt that the majority of these people are interesting, likeable, intelligent people. Unfortunately, they've been taught not to show it. The problem lies in socializing. When these people socialize, they don a common "mask." They talk a certain way (hip, flip) act a certain way, do certain things, all of which have been defined as socially acceptable. By acting in such a way, one makes "friends." With time, friends use their masks less and less, and a true, deep friendship results. ~ Juan F. Thompson

Beware: don't choose the convenient, the comfortable, the respectable, the socially acceptable. Choose something that rings a bell in your heart. ~ Rajneesh

In my theater pieces, I would do "Tits on the Head" - Polaroid photos for $10 on the stage. There would be a line of folks paying me $10 for their turn. It was public prostitution. I turned my whole audience into johns. But because it was in a theater context, an art context, it was socially acceptable. ~ Annie Sprinkle

People laugh because they're nervous, or to cover up tension, or to flirt, or because there's some instant applause meter in their head telling them that it's the socially acceptable thing to do. Genuine laughter, I don't even think that happens daily. ~ Lindsey Leavitt

I looked back and forth from my glass to hers. "Why does your tea look different?"
"Because my tea is whiskey." She grinned proudly.
"Whiskey?" I stared at it incredulously before checking the time on my phone. "It's ten thirty in the morning."
"Lawrence, when you're my age, you learn to do things when you want to do them, not when it's socially acceptable. Hell, who knows if I'll still be around at dinner time? While we're on the subject, I had half a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream for dinner last night. Cheers!" She raised her glass again and winked at me. ~ Beth Ehemann

There are some circles in America where it seems to be more socially acceptable to carry a hand-gun than a packet of cigarettes. ~ Katharine Whitehorn

The truth is always important. It may not be popular, or fashionable, or convenient but it is always important. Somewhere there must always be a record of events as they actually occurred. Not the politically airbrushed record, or religious wishful thinking or the socially acceptable version, but the often inconvenient truth.' 'My ~ Jodi Taylor

I don't understand why it's more socially acceptable to say that you are a shallow person than to just say this is not something you want to do. Especially because it's a really hard job. It's a really important job. And why the hell should you do a really hard, important job that you don't want to do? That has extremely high stakes? That just blows my mind. ~ Meghan Daum

It was easier for girls. They could say This hurts, or I don't like how this feels, and have the complaint be socially acceptable. Boys, though, didn't speak that language. They didn't learn it as children and they didn't manage to pick it up as adults, either. ~ Jodi Picoult

Social networks are so full of wasted time - they could be compared to a waste disposal system. Flush, before you go and waste no time to go. ~ Will Advise

Why does reading freak people out so much? Sure, I could be pretty anti-social when we were on the road, but if I was playing a Gameboy hour after hour, no one would be on my case. In my social circle, blowing up space monsters is socially acceptable in a way that American Pastoral isn't. ~ Nick Hornby

For women to be supplying the soldiery with banners, flannel shirts and other material comforts was, superficially, all of a piece with their ministrations to their menfolk at home. Such contributions to the war effort were socially acceptable because they could be seen as an extension into the military sphere of the traditional female virtues of charity, nurture and needlework. Yet in reality what the women were doing represented the thin end of a far more radical wedge. Consciously or not, these female patriots were staking out a civic role for themselves. And many of them relished it. ~ Linda Colley

I think the scariest addiction on this planet is to alcohol. Because alcohol is a very addictive drug, and it ruins families, it ruins relationships. And it is socially acceptable, and it is easy to find. Controlled substances, other drugs are more difficult to get, and it's a crime to ... to buy them. But alcohol is everywhere. And if you are unfortunate enough to become addicted to it, it can be disastrous. And there is still a stigma attached to alcohol addiction, or addiction in general. It is perceived as ... an addict is perceived as somebody of weak moral fiber ~ Brian Molko

Arrogance is perhaps the most socially acceptable form of sin in the church today. In this culture of abundance, one of the only ways Satan can keep Christians neutralized is to wrap us up in pride. Conceit slips in like drafts of cold air in the winter. We don't see it, but outsiders can sense it. ~ David Kinnaman

Everybody in the GE used secondaries. It was part of the culture now; socially acceptable. There had been many attempts by the Brussels parliament to legislate against it, and the Tax Bureau certainly did its best. But of course, if a method had been found to clear up people's finances and put them on a hundred per cent legitimate, transparent basis, it would have worked for everyone, politicians and tax officials included. ~ Peter F. Hamilton

You've sinned, I suppose, but your punishment has been out of all proportion. They have turned you into something other than a human being. You have no power of choice any longer. You are committed to socially acceptable acts, a little machine capable only of good. And I see that clearly - that business about marginal conditionings. Music and the sexual act, literature and art, all must be a source now not of pleasure but of pain. ~ Anthony Burgess

they catch initials -- STD, PMS, OCD, HIV, etc., as if MTV teamed up with KFC and licensed the Latin alphabet to the pharmaceutical industry so OTCs could replace MDs. If Romeo and Juliet were alive today, they'd be put on antidepressants, sent for counseling, and bundled off to separate boarding schools to meet socially acceptable partners with money-back guarantees. ~ Paula Young Lee

IQ is a general measure of socially acceptable categorization and reasoning skills. IQ tests were designed in behaviorism's heyday, when there was little interest in cognitive structure. [...] In other societies, a normal distribution of some general measure of social intelligence might look very different; some "normal" members of our society could well produce a score that's a standard deviation from "normal" members of another society on that other society's test. ~ Scott Atran

When women's truths are denied, they have no recourse but to turn to a socially acceptable fiction; when the only means to achieve their ends are laced with falsehood, women embrace that means because they have to. ~ Lux Alptraum

It's just like calling homosexuals 'gays.' Gay means happy! You know, it's just to try to dilute it so that it becomes socially acceptable, and if you say anything against homosexual marriage or anything - 'Oh, you're not tolerant.' So we're supposed to prostitute our principles, on behalf of tolerance. ~ Ted Cruz

Intimacy blossoms anytime you let down your socially acceptable mask. ~ Deepak Chopra

I thought it was great fun to scare people. I also knew it was socially acceptable because there were a lot of horror movies out there. ~ Stephen King

Bluie, the blue stuffed bear I'd had since I was, like, one - back when it was socially acceptable to name one's friends after their hue. ~ John Green

Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness. ~ Richard Carlson

But, sadly, our manly struggle to conform to the slave-like work rhythms of present-day custom has led to the nap being replaced by that costly and damaging drink, coffee. As paracetamol is to the cold, so coffee is to the nap: a way of riding it out, a sort of competition with one's own body, a civil war. When we feel tired after lunch, the socially acceptable solution is to dose up on coffee and ride out the tiredness, rather than simply take a nap. The coffee may produce a temporary perking of the senses, but irritability will follow, not to mention a sleep debt later in the day. You cannot win the battle against sleep. Don't fight, surrender! ~ Tom Hodgkinson

A lot of people recoil from the word "drugs" - which is understandable given today's noxious street drugs and their uninspiring medical counterparts. Yet even academics and intellectuals in our society typically take the prototypical dumb drug, ethyl alcohol. If it's socially acceptable to take a drug that makes you temporarily happy and stupid, then why not rationally design drugs to make people perpetually happier and smarter? Presumably, in order to limit abuse-potential, one would want any ideal pleasure drug to be akin - in one limited but important sense - to nicotine, where the smoker's brain finely calibrates its optimal level: there is no uncontrolled dose-escalation. ~ David Pearce

The big ideas always come in flashes. I don't really craft stories that much. I genuinely don't know where these people come from, and I've often wondered if writing is just a socially acceptable form of madness. ~ Taiye Selasi

Widowhood conferred a mystery and status divorce lacked. The difference between returning World War II and Vietnam veterans. Both had been through a war, but a judgmental public conferred glory only on those who had been victimized in a socially acceptable manner. ~ Nevada Barr

A hush fell over them. For a long moment, while she was leaning her chin on her hand atop the piano lid, and his hands rested lightly on the keys, they stared at each other. The stage, the wings, the maw of the theater and its rows of seats and ornamental moldings, all receded. The air about them shimmered, drew in, coalesced into a bubble. They looked at each other, breathing together, long past a socially acceptable interval. It was far beyond the border where Erik normally would have dropped his gaze, cracked a joke or at least a smile.
She's peaceful, he thought, and her eyes widened slightly, as if she had heard him. ~ Suanne Laqueur

It's not anti-semitic to criticize Israel, but it's the most socially acceptable pastime of anti-semites. ~ Annoymous

The incidents that go unwitnessed definitely help to keep sexism off the radar, and unacknowledged problem we don't discuss. But so too do the regular occurrences that hide in plain sight, within a society that has normalized sexism and allowed it to become so ingrained that we no longer notice or object to it. Sexism is a socially acceptable prejudice and everybody is getting in on the act. ~ Laura Bates

I think it's a rule that it's socially acceptable to wet yourself when aliens enter your mind for the first time. If it wasn't already, it is now. ~ Orson Scott Card

Maybe we women gravitate toward comedy because it is a socially acceptable way to break rules and a release from our daily life. ~ Tina Fey

She was a tabula rasa when it came to appropriate behavior. To say Lucy was difficult is like saying lightening is hazardous. It's a statement of fact that will always be a given. ~ Patricia Cornwell

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. ~ E.L. Doctorow

I wish it were socially acceptable to brandish a knife. ~ Caroline Kepnes

Who even had the right to place singlehood on the list of pathetic stuff in the Encyclopedia of life? I often feel much happier if I am alone, at least until I remember that it's not very socially acceptable to be alone, single, and lonely. Sometimes I feel like even a harem would be more acceptable than a single person. Because something must be completely wrong with someone if nobody wants them. How stupid! Something is wrong with this person! She's happy when she's alone! She's happy to be by herself. Handle that, if you can. ~ Rose S. White

Sex prejudice is so ingrained in our society that many who practice it are simply unaware that they are hurting. It is the last socially acceptable prejudice. ~ Bernice Sandler

Authenticity is an "owning" of all experience, including emotions and thoughts that are not socially acceptable. ~ Mary Pipher

I don't have friends. I talk to people when I have to. I smile. I do the socially acceptable thing and tolerate people when I'm at work. But no one gets in my personal space. I don't need anybody! ~ Stevie J. Cole

As we get older, we tend to think it is less OK to be vulnerable and to feel what we feel. It's kind of bull. We all still feel things pretty deeply. It just becomes less socially acceptable to express that. ~ Gayle Forman

I've often wished that I had some suave and socially acceptable hobby that I could fall back on in times like this. You know, play the violin (or was it the viola) like Sherlock Holmes, or maybe twiddle away on the pipe organ like the Disney version of Captain Nemo. But I don't. I'm sort of the arcane equivalent of a classic computer geek. I do magic, in one form or another, and that's pretty much it. I really need to get a life, one of these days ~ Jim Butcher

The profound danger is that, as noted above, we start to think of feeling as weakness. With the exception of anger (which is a secondary emotion, one that only serves as a socially acceptable mask for many of the more difficult underlying emotions we feel), we're losing our tolerance for emotion and hence for vulnerability. ~ Brene Brown

Soft addictions are an alluring, seductive aspect of our culture - they are easy to attain and socially acceptable, they are even encouraged in many cases. Yet they are lethal to the spirit. ~ Judith Wright

I love chicken. I would eat chicken fingers on Thanksgiving if it were socially acceptable. ~ Todd Barry

A person who said, "All the ills of markets can be cured by more markets" would be lampooned as the worst sort of market fundamentalist. Why the double standard? Because unlike market fundamentalism, democratic fundamentalism is widespread. In polite company, you can make fun of the worshippers of Zeus, but not Christians or Jews. Similarly, it is socially acceptable to make fun of market fundamentalism, but not democratic fundamentalism, because market fundamentalists are scarce, and democratic fundamentalists are all around us. ~ Bryan Caplan

I find it difficult to judge myself, but people say that I have become a bit more socially acceptable over the years in terms of my material; which apparently at the beginning - though I never really intended it to be - was man hating and now is just a bit more cuddly. ~ Jo Brand

If black males are socialized from birth to embrace the notion that their manhood will be determined by whether or not they can dominate and control others and yet the political system they live within (imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy) prevents most of them from having access to socially acceptable positions of power and dominance, then they will claim their patriarchal manhood, through socially unacceptable channels. They will enact rituals of blood, of patriarchal manhood by using violence to dominate and control. ~ Bell Hooks

I've made my life's work spotting assholes. And you know, I think it's harder now than ever before because there's so many socially acceptable ways to exhibit a pathological lack of empathy. ~ Merrill Markoe

In a consumerist culture, people rebel by buying a different brand, and instead of staging a real rebellion, which requires secret planning and stealthy strikes, American pseudo-radicals are constantly fingering themselves as soon as they hit the sidewalk. It's a fashion thing. In this illusionistic and narcissistic society, it's imperative that you look a certain way if you want to be slotted into one of the socially acceptable subgroups. It's all cosplay, all the time, for even the nerd look has been commodified and imbued with irony. ~ Linh Dinh

It has become almost a cliche to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics. ~ Richard Dawkins

tantrum. I don't want to have a baby but sometimes I want to be a baby because it's socially acceptable for them to cry and scream in public. ~ Jen Kirkman

... the repression of primitive, violent impulses in favor of civilized behavior was a control mechanism for the more shrewdly aggressive dominators who successfully channeled *their* primitive, violent impulses into a socially acceptable form known as 'ruthlessness,' while monopolizing the right to use outright violence as a last resort for maintaining an otherwise indefensible accumulation of power and wealth. ~ R.U. Sirius

Pride is one of the socially acceptable sins in some corners of the evangelical culture. It's just straight-out ego gratification - how important I am; whether my name gets on the building or on the TV program or in the magazine article. ~ Richard Foster

Beauty shouldn't be about changing yourself to achieve an ideal or be more socially acceptable. Real beauty, the interesting, truly pleasing kind, is about honoring the beauty within you and without you. It's about knowing that someone else's definition of pretty has no hold over you. ~ Golda Poretsky

Dragnets that indiscriminately sweep up personal data fall squarely into the gray area between what is legal and what is socially acceptable. ~ Julia Angwin

Reading is a socially acceptable form of hallucination. ~ Laura Furman

Writing books is a socially acceptable form of getting naked in public. ~ Paulo Coelho

The hierarchy is disturbing. Women being enslaved to men. Women have fought against such treatment for hundreds of years and yet here - "

"Yet here they willingly and bravely choose to explore those aspects of their sexuality that are less than socially acceptable. ~ Tiffany Reisz

She doesn't know," Cate said. "Kellen is a secret. I didn't think my mother would approve."
"Why wouldn't your mother approve?" Pugg asked.
"It's my job," Kellen said. "I kill people. It pays well, but it's not universally socially acceptable. ~ Janet Evanovich

The world around us sends us messages about ourselves as women - about our guilt, and our difference, our accountability and our flaws. It gives us endless reminders of the vulnerability and victimization of women. It lets us know that it is normal and common for women to experience assault and harassment and rape. And it tells us that we deserve it. And all the while we are conditioned to be passive and pleasant, not to make a fuss - to be ladylike and compliant and socially acceptable. Before we experience violence we are conditioned to expect it - and to accept it. ~ Laura Bates

Sometimes I feel like a windup doll, like I have to reach behind and turn my golden key to produce a greeting, a laugh, whatever the socially acceptable reaction should be. ~ Jessica Knoll

Mr. Jones's book is a cleareyed examination of the British class system, and it poses this brutal question: 'How has hatred of working-class people become so socially acceptable?' His timely answers combine wit, left-wing politics and outrage. ~ Dwight Garner

The most important question for every client is "W X ho are you?" I'm not as interested in an answer as I am in teaching a process that the girl can use for the rest of her life. The process involves looking within to find a true core of self, acknowledging unique gifts, accepting all feelings, not just the socially acceptable ones, and making deep and firm decisions about values and meaning. The process includes knowing the difference between thinking and feeling, between immediate gratification and long-term goals, and between her own voice and the voices of others. The process includes discovering the personal impact of our cultural rules for women. It includes discussion about breaking those rules and formulating new, healthy guidelines for the self. The process teaches girls to chart a course based on the dictates of their true selves. The process is nonlinear, arduous, and discouraging. It is also joyful, creative and full of surprises. ~ Mary Pipher

Most people in our culture deny their grief. A few days or weeks to feel sad is considered socially acceptable, and then we are expected to snap back to "normal", as though nothing has happened. We are not taught that grieving is a natural part of life, that feelings of loss are to be honored, and that, yes it takes time. ~ Laurie McConnachie

Rather than being taught to accept ourselves, we were trained to make ourselves socially acceptable. And whenever we fail, we suffer inside. ~ George Robinson

What's a handshake, after all, except a socially acceptable way to make sure the other guy doesn't have a knife behind his back. ~ Noah Hawley

JOIN THE CIRCUS OF CHAOS ... juggling, stilt walking, and other skills for socially acceptable procrastination. ~ Pat Murphy

Seafood is simply a socially acceptable form of bush meat. We condemn Africans for hunting monkeys and mammalian and bird species from the jungle yet the developed world thinks nothing of hauling in magnificent wild creatures like swordfish, tuna, halibut, shark, and salmon for our meals. The fact is that the global slaughter of marine wildlife is simply the largest massacre of wildlife on the planet. ~ Paul Watson

I've been benefited from a dictionary definition I found that reads: "Rationalization is giving a socially acceptable reason for socially unacceptable behavior, and socially unacceptable behavior is a form of insanity. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous

You do need an outlet to release all of those fears. You build it up and then, when you go to a movie theater, it's the last place that it's socially acceptable to be terrified. It's saying that, for the next 90 minutes, you're allowed to be afraid and you're not a coward for feeling that way. ~ Eli Roth

Eccentricity, to be socially acceptable, had still to have at least four or five generations of inbreeding behind it. ~ Osbert Lancaster

Verbal abuse is the use of language to shame, scare or hurt another. Dysfunctional parents routinely use name-calling, sarcasm, and destructive criticism to overpower and control their children. Verbal abuse is as commonplace in the American family as homework and table manners. It is modeled as socially acceptable in almost every sitcom on television. ~ Pete Walker

In Judith Barrington's striking collection, Horses and the Human Soul, human emotions come ushered and accompanied by animal companions, especially the horses this speaker loves. Here they are witnesses, companions to the spirit, and as vulnerably mortal as human beings. Socially and politically alert, lamenting and celebrating, Barrington's passionate poems inscribe the broad range of her affections. ~ Mark Doty