Beware of clichés. Not just the clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought - even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation.
To idealize: all writing is a campaign against cliché. Not just clichés of the pen but clichés of the mind and clichés of the heart.
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.
Two cliches make us laugh. A hundred cliches move us. For we sense dimly that the cliches are talking among themselves, and celebrating a reunion.
Rees's First Law of Quotations: When in doubt, ascribe all quotations to George Bernard Shaw.
We sometimes think of quotations as extracts from larger texts, but some quotations originated complete unto themselves.
A wide range of quotations are necessary for the repertoire of a well-rounded speaker. Quotations are able to illustrate in a few words what is difficult to explain in many.
Not everything that can be extracted appears in anthologies of quotations, in commonplace books, or on the back of Celestial Seasonings boxes. Only certain sorts of extracts become quotations.
With all deference to Chairman Mao and other authors whose quotations derive from longer works, it seemed that I was becoming the world's first writer of self-contained ready-made quotations.
Well named, Quotology contains everything you always wanted to know about quotations, quoters, quotees, quotation books, 'quoox' (quotations out of context), and their fascinating history.
Clichés are what good writing is all about. Because our lives are basically clichés.
I'm not a guy who likes cliches. I don't think that stereotypes and cliches are the end of the line, when it comes to a performance.
There are no worse cliches than southern cliches. They make my skin crawl.
The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication.
When told a script was full of old cliches: Let's have some new cliches.
I'm sick of the old cliches. Bring me some new cliches.