“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

Review of Ulysses by James Joyce, p. 444
The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000 (2001)

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Martin Amis 136

Welsh novelist 1949

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Liner Notes

“Be Nice. Contrary to the cliché, genuinely nice guys most often finish first or very near it.”

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Context: Be Nice. Contrary to the cliché, genuinely nice guys most often finish first or very near it. I admit it's not easy when you've got a gripe. To be agreeable while disagreeing — that's an art.
Be natural — write the way you talk.