“Clichés are the armature of the Absolute.”
Source: Alfred Jarry, Selected Works, edited by Roger Shattuck and Simon Watson Taylor. Cape, London, 1965
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Alfred Jarry 7
French writer 1873–1907Related quotes
“It is a cliché that most clichés are true, but then like most clichés, that cliché is untrue.”
1990s, Moab is My Washpot (autobiography, 1997)
Variant: It is a cliché that most clichés are true, but then like most clichés, that cliché is untrue.
O interview (2003)
Context: 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!
Review of Ulysses by James Joyce, p. 444
The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000 (2001)
“Important things are inevitably cliché.”
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (2003)
Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto
On how mothers are typically portrayed in “Alfre Woodard Redefines Black Motherhood On Screen In ‘Juanita’” https://shadowandact.com/alfre-woodard-redefines-black-motherhood-on-screen-in-juanita in Shadow and Act (2019 Mar 11)
“Forever poised between a cliché and an indiscretion.”
Newsweek, 30 April 1956.
Macmillan's description of the role of the Foreign Secretary, a job he held in 1955.
1920s-1950s
“Clichés so often befall vain people.”
Source: Walks with Men