When you hear men talking,” said Cornelia, “all they ever do is speak ill of women. … And I don’t quite know how they managed to make this law in their favour, or who exactly...

[Women] complain about many clerks who attribute all sorts of faults to them and who compose works about them in rhyme, prose, and verse, criticizing their conduct in a variety of different ways. They then...

Comedy is hard to do. All the cliches about it are true.

When people dis fantasy—mainstream readers and SF readers alike—they are almost always talking about one sub-genre of fantastic literature. They are talking about Tolkien, and Tolkien’s innumerable heirs. Call it ‘epic’, or ‘high’, or ‘genre’...

I know, I know…there’s something cliché about that. The heroine initially wanting to clobber a protagonist male, but later realizing that he’s grown on her and she actually really likes him. Technically, I’m not supposed...

[J]ust the sight of this book, even though it was of no authority, made me wonder how it happened that so many different men – and learned men among them – have been and are...

[T]he more clamour we make about ‘the women’s point of view’, the more we rub it into people that the women’s point of view is different, and frankly I do not think it is —...

Morris Weissman [on the phone, discussing casting for his movie]: “What about Claudette Colbert? She’s British, isn’t she? She sounds British. Is she, like, affected or is she British?

Clichés so often befall vain people.

I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.

Is it possible to say “It was a beautiful morning at the end of November” without feeling like Snoopy?

God bids you not to commit lechery, that is, not to have sex with any woman except your wife. You ask of her that she should not have sex with anyone except you — yet...

Cliches are what make you understand something.

In reaction against the age-old slogan, “woman is the weaker vessel,” or the still more offensive, “woman is a divine creature,” we have, I think, allowed ourselves to drift into asserting that “a woman is...

Come on, it’s an American tradition. Apple soup? Mom’s homemade chicken pie?’ She chuckled in spite of herself, then winced. ‘It’s apple pie and Mom’s homemade chicken soup. But you didn’t do badly, for a...

When a man gives his opinion, he’s a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she’s a bitch.

i do not say ‘good-bye.’ i believe that’s one of the bullshittiest words ever invented. it’s not like you’re given the choice to say ‘bad-bye’ or ‘awful-bye’ or ‘couldn’t-care-less-about-you-bye.’ every time you leave, it’s supposed...

Two clichés make us laugh. A hundred cliches move us. For we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, and celebrating a reunion.(Casablanca, or, The Clichés Are Having a Ball)

[Y]ou are not ashamed of your sin [in committing adultery] because so many men commit it. Man’s wickedness is now such that men are more ashamed of chastity than of lechery. Murderers, thieves, perjurers, false...

You need cliches. Cliches are what people respond to.

What’ll Geoffrey do when you pull off your First, my child?” demanded Miss Haydock.”Well, Eve — it will be awkward if I do that. Poor lamb! I shall have to make him believe I only...

In a typical college romance novel, he’d be a gorgeous but troubled sex god who’d cure all my deep-seated psych issues with a good hard fuck. I’d smell his misogyny and abusive tendencies from miles...