A Quote by Wolcott Gibbs

Our writers are full of cliches just as old barns are full of bats. There is obviously no rule about this, except that anything that you suspect of being a cliche undoubtedly is one and had better be removed.

Wolcott Gibbs

Quote Topics

About Anything Barns Bats Being Better Cliche Cliches Except Full Had Just Obviously Old Our Rule Suspect Undoubtedly Writers

Quote Author

Wolcott Gibbs
American - Writer
March 15, 1902 - August 16, 1958

When told a script was full of old cliches: Let's have some new cliches.

Samuel Goldwyn

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.

Martin Amis

Towns are full of people, houses full of tenants, hotels full of guests, trains full of travelers, cafés full of customers, parks full of promenaders, consulting-rooms of famous doctors full of patients, theatres full of spectators, and beaches full of bathers. What previously was, in general, no problem, now begins to be an everyday one, namely, to find room.

Jose Ortega y Gasset

Writers tell stories better, because they've had more practice, but everyone has a book in them. Yes, that old cliche.

Tanith Lee

Everybody is full of crap. The coin of the realm is being full of crap. The best people - being full of crap are our leaders and our superstars.

Dennis Miller

It is a cliche that most cliches are true, but then like most cliches, that cliche is untrue.

Stephen Fry

There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast. Some men, like bats or owls, have better eyes for the darkness than for the light. We, who have no such optical powers, are better pleased to take our last parting look at the visionary companions of many solitary hours, when the brief sunshine of the world is blazing full upon them.

Charles Dickens

I had this perverse gravitation towards using a terrible cliché sandwiched in between absurd non-clichés because I thought it gave the cliché a new resonance. It kills me when my lyrics are misquoted, but as long as people are quoting them right, I don't care what anybody has to say about them.

Paul Banks

On a court full of great writers, I shouldn't say full of - there have been some bad writers on the court over the years.

Dahlia Lithwick

I'm full of clichés - I was raised by a Southern black woman and they had a saying for everything.

Willie Parker

I look back at my old school journals, and they're full of self-hatred, full of me condemning myself for not being prettier, richer, more popular.

Jameela Jamil

This is in a nutshell, this is what's wrong with our media, and we see that really played out full in this election [2016], where this is undoubtedly the most toxic election that we've had in - certainly in my lifetime.

Jill Stein

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.

Geoff Dyer

It's a consoling notion that death is a very tiny hole, and you need to make yourself very small to get through it. One obviously needs to lighten off, and a rucksack full of bricks or a mantelpiece full of trophies will certainly have to be abandoned - the sooner the better, I say.

Michael Leunig

I suspect most politicians feel overwhelmed because people's lives are a real struggle, full of unhappiness, and you would probably feel powerless to do anything about it.