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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.
--
Interview in Alien Critic (August 1973)

 

R. A. Lafferty

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My experience is that journalists report on the nearest-cliche algorithm, which is extremely uninformative because there aren’t many cliches, the truth is often quite distant from any cliche, and the only thing you can infer about the actual event was that this was the closest cliche.... It is simply not possible to appreciate the sheer awfulness of mainstream media reporting until someone has actually reported on you. It is so much worse than you think.

 

Eliezer Yudkowsky

 

Like Bradley Pearson in The Black Prince, 'N', as he is called, uses quotation marks for such vulgarisms as 'sulks,' 'commuters' and 'worthwhile activities', as well as for phrases like 'too good to be true', 'the wrong end of the stick' and 'keep in touch.' The reader reflects that a cliché or approximation, wedged between two inverted commas, is still a cliché or approximation. Besides, you see how it would 'get on your nerves' if I were to 'go on' like this 'the whole time'...

 

Martin Amis

 

It occurs to you that Ulysses is about cliché. It is about inherited, ready-made formulations - most notably Irish Catholicism and anti-Semitism. After all, prejudices are clichés: they are secondhand hatreds . . . Joyce never uses a cliché in innocence.

 

Martin Amis

 

Because there was no industry or parts for Latin women when I came here, there was really no competitiveness. Jennifer Lopez and I were the first, and I think Jennifer was my partner at the beginning. I think it was important for others to see two of us, because maybe then we could be thought of as a social phenomenon. Because she doesn't have a foreign accent, Jennifer tried out for parts I couldn't get. There are now others with accents — Penelope Cruz, Antonio Banderas — but mind you, Antonio and Penelope are from Europe, not Mexico. It's only now that the taboo on Mexicans is lifting as Americans realize we're a little bit more than migrant workers. I hear some Latinos say, "Oh, no, no, no, the cliché that we are gang members, that's so bad — we have to show everyone that we're family people." Hello? That's another cliché! It's getting yourself out of one box to put yourself in another. The way to fight a cliché is not by creating another one. What breaks the cliché is the emergence of strong individuals. That's the way to say, "You don't really know us — so when you look at me, or when you look at my sister, just be completely open for whatever. You have no clue who we are!"
Here people don't know what box to put me into. I'm not from the Bronx, I'm not from East L.A., so they don't know how to take me or what to call me!

 

Salma Hayek

 

I haven't found it difficult because I find this very enjoyable. It's really challenging. And I'm really proud of the record because it's a really good record. There's nothing harder than to write a pop record with meaning. I think it's much easier to be alternative. It's much easier to be different and take a different path outside of a commercial context. To try and write a pop song that is not cliché, to try and write a pop song that has meaning and fits in under three minutes and five seconds and has a hook that people want to listen to is the most difficult thing in the world to do. So in lieu of that you have to write what you know and what you like, what you're feeling. That's all I can basically do. I don't begrudge the other people that don't write their songs. And I don't judge them. I'd like to see more people writing their own songs, because that's just personally what I like. Just for me, as an artist, so many people only care about being popular right now. Whatever happened to trying to write a song that means something? When I was growing up, artists meant something. They had opinions, they looked different than the person working at the store on your street. They opened your eyes and taught you something about life. And I would like to aspire to be that kind of artist.

 

Colleen Fitzpatrick