“Polarization is normal. Skepticism about liberal democracy is normal. And the appeal of authoritarianism is eternal.”

“So, "normal" is really what society dictates as normal and if we're born in that world, we would see that as normal. But if you think about it for a second, is it really?”

“However democracy is not always a matter of unilateral decisions, but normally a business of opinion formation of many.”

“The stakes are nothing less than the future of liberal democracy. We are engaged in a new war of ideas, not communism versus capitalism, but authoritarianism versus democracy and representative government.”

“I’m not the person to ask about what’s normal,’ Denise answered. ‘I’ve mainly seen normal in the rearview mirror.”

“There is no standard normal. Normal is subjective. There are seven billion versions of normal on this planet.”

“The function of music is to liberate in the soul those feelings which normally we keep locked up in the heart.”

“Liberal democracy itself is under threat notably in the USA, in eastern Europe and perhaps here. Authoritarians and extremists of both right and left are on the march.”

“Korean nationalism has not only energized the North’s march to nuclear armament, but also exerted a growing appeal on people in the South — the ideological discourse of which republic has received even less attention than the North’s. The average American knows only that in the 1980s liberal democracy replaced authoritarianism here”

“Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”