[...] there is something like an ideal linguistic entity dominating the speech habits of the members of each group, that the [...] freedom which each individual feels in the use of his language is held in leash by a tacitly directing norm.
- Sapir (1921), Pag. 147

One individual plays on the norm in a way peculiar to himself, the next individual is nearer the dead average in that particular respect in which the first speaker [...] departs from it but in turn diverges from the average in a way peculiar to himself, and so on.
- Sapir (1921), Pag. 147

If all the speakers of a given dialect were arranged in order in accordance with the degree of their conformity to average usage [...] they would constitute a very finely intergrading series clustered about a well-defined center or norm.
- Sapir (1921), Pag. 148

What prevents us from saying that [...] untypical individuals speak distinct dialects is that their peculiarities, as a unified whole, are not referable to another norm than the norm of their own series.
- Sapir (1921), Pag. 148

Isolated individuals may be found who speak a compromise between two dialects of a language, and [...] they may even end by creating a new dialectic norm of their own, a dialect in which the extreme peculiarities of the parent dialects are ironed out.
- Sapir (1921), Pag. 149

Dialects do belong [...] to very definitely circumscribed social groups, homogeneous enough to secure the common feeling and purpose needed to create a norm.
- Sapir (1921), Pag. 150

If there were no breaking up of a language into dialects [...] each language [...] would still be constantly moving away from any assignable norm, developing new features [...] and gradually transforming itself into a language so different from its starting point as to be in effect a new language.
- Sapir (1921), Pag. 150