A Quote by R. A. Lafferty

I write as clearly as I am able to. I sometimes tackle ideas and notions that are relatively complex, and it is very difficult to be sure that I am conveying them in the best way. Anyone who goes beyond cliche phrases and cliche ideas will have this trouble.

R. A. Lafferty

Quote Topics

Able Am Anyone Best Best Way Beyond Clearly Cliche Complex Conveying Difficult Goes Ideas Notions Phrases Relatively Sometimes Sure Tackle Them Trouble Very Way Will Write

Quote Author

R. A. Lafferty
American - Writer
November 7, 1914 - March 18, 2002

Cliche refers to words, commonplace to ideas. Cliche describes the form or the letter, commonplace the substance or spirit. To confuse them is to confuse the thought with the expression of the thought. The cliche is immediately perceivable; the commonplace very often escapes notice if decked out in original dress. There are few examples, in any literature, of new ideas expressed in original form. The most critical mind must often be content with one or the other of these pleasures, only too happy when it is not deprived of both at once, which is not too rarely the case.

Remy de Gourmont

The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over simple ideas, are chiefly these three: 1. Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which it gets all its ideas of relations. 3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made.

John Locke

You don't expect people to go, "music has just been reinvented!" But the hope is that people won't say, "this is the most boring cliché." I mean, that's one of my pursuits, is trying to not become a cliché, or get stuck in that. But even that's a cliché in itself! It's difficult! But I think it's worth it.... It's a real vicious circle there.

Carey Mercer

I probably have traveled and walked into more variety stores than anybody in America. I am just trying to get ideas, any kind of ideas that will help our company. Most of us don't invent ideas. We take the best ideas from someone else.

Sam Walton

I write from my knowledge not my lack, from my strength not my weakness. I am not interested if anyone knows whether or not I am familiar with big words, I am interested in trying to render big ideas in a simple way. I am interested in being understood not admired.

Lucille Clifton

Pretty That's what I am, I guess. I mean, people have been telling me that's what I am since I was two. Maybe younger. Pretty as a picture. (Who wants to be a cliché?) Pretty as an angel. (Can you see them?) Pretty as a butterfly. (But isn't that really just a glam bug?) Cliché, invisible, or insectlike, I grew up knowing I was pretty and believing everything good about me had to do with how I looked. The mirror was my best friend. Until it started telling me I wasn't really pretty enough.

Ellen Hopkins

If anything, my problem is, I'm not a genius, it's just that I can write songs very quick. I have a lot of ideas, let's put it that way - I have too many ideas. And my problem is, I stockpile ideas and I get lazy and I don't finish them, and next thing I know, I'm looking around and I've got a hundred song ideas, but are any of them any good? I don't know.

Gary Louris

May we all beware lest our innovative ideas appear very cliche before we even blink.

David Livermore

Without sounding too cliche, my part on 'Getting On' is the best role I've ever had. It is so rich, it is so well rounded, and I am happy to be right here. I feel like I lucked out and got one of the richest characters on TV because he is so complex.

Mel Rodriguez

I am often talking about the ideas collected in Normal Life in contexts that are not academic, or that are full of people who are not primarily engaging as theorists or theory-readers. Being able to make ideas visual, especially critical ideas about movements that can be difficult to hear because of attachments we have to certain national narratives, or because of ways that we see ourselves, is especially useful.

Dean Spade

Paris is an unsolved puzzle. She inspires me in a way that other places don't. And she demands more of me. Just try to write about her without bumping into cliche after cliche.

M. J. Rose

It's a cliche that music rises above it all, and it's a cliche for a reason - it's very often true.

Steven Wilson

It's not the subject that's cliché; it's cliché or not. But in fact, this is the way you're talking about it.

Stromae

The older your teenagers are, the more they will have their own ideas and opinions. If you take them seriously, rather than assuming your ideas are always best and the only ones, you will begin to grow a relationship that will extend beyond the hormone-group years.

Kevin Leman

Cat-Ideas and Mouse-Ideas. We can never get rid of mouse-ideas completely, they keep turning up again and again, and nibble, nibble-no matter how often we drive them off. The best way to keep them down is to have a few good strong cat-ideas which will embrace them and ensure their not reappearing till they do so in another shape.