The use of cliché [is] the use of ready-made, prefabricated… - Northrop Frye

" "
The use of cliché [is] the use of ready-made, prefabricated formulas designed to give those who are too lazy think the illusion of thinking...If our aim is only to say what gets by in society, our reactions will become almost completely mechanical. That's the direction cliché takes us in...it's no more a product of a conscious mind than the bark of a dog.

Northrop Frye

Sources available for members. Sign up free to see where this quote comes from

English

Collect this quote

About Northrop Frye

Herman Northrop Frye (14 July 1912 – 23 January 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century.

All quotes from Northrop Frye Similar Quotes by other Originators

Originators like Northrop Frye:

Umberto Eco Jorge Luis Borges George Steiner Novalis Aldous Huxley

Additional quotes by Northrop Frye

Even the biggest book is fragmentary: to finish anything, you have to cut your losses. Nobody ever writes his dream book. (33.54)

The worst thing we can say about God is that he knows all. The best thing we can say of him is that, on the whole, he tends to keep his knowledge to himself. (2:568)

Metaphor is the language of immanence; metonymy of transcendence. (11C.21)

The use of cliché [is] the use of ready-made, prefabricated formulas designed to give those who are too lazy think the illusion of thinking...If our … - Northrop Frye

About Northrop Frye

Additional quotes by Northrop Frye