Quotes About Banality

Il mondo non verrà distrutto da una bomba atomica, come dicono i giornali, ma da una risata, da un eccesso di banalità che trasformerà la realtà in una barzelletta di pessimo gusto.

Ce monde ne mourra pas d'une bombe atomique, comme le disent les journaux, il mourra de rire, de banalité, en transformant tout en farce et, de plus, en mauvaise farce.

mundo no se morirá de una bomba atómica como dicen los diarios, se morirá de risa, de banalidad, haciendo un chiste de todo, y además un chiste malo.

Television, my dear Daniel, is the Antichrist, and I can assure you that after only three or four generations, people will no longer even know how to fart on their own and humans will return to living in caves, to medieval savagery, and to the general state of imbecility that slugs overcame back in the Pleistocene era. Our world will not die as a result of the bomb, as the papers say, it will die of laughter, of banality, of making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke at that.

Die meisten Menschen interessieren einen wirklich nicht, habe ich die ganze Zeit gedacht, fast alle, denen wir begegnen, interessieren uns nicht, sie haben uns nichts zu bieten als ihre Massenarmseligkeit und ihre Massendummheit und langweilen uns dadurch immer und überall und wir haben naturgemäß für sie nicht das geringste übrig.

supunerea fata de legamantul de a crede numai probabilul, mediocrul, banalul si ceea ce este sarac in semnificatii, de a renunta la tot ce e strain si insemnat si de a reduce la obisnuit tot ce e neobisnuit. Existau doar... orizonturi de o ingustime apasatoare si pustiul nesfarsit al rutinei.

We would accept anything in the world, any devil or any hell, than accept ourselves in our particular concreteness. That is the thing of which we are most afraid. You see, that being is not even very sinful, not even superb in its sins - just hellishly banal and of a low order, not interesting at all. We would prefer superb sins than to be ourselves with all the banality which we represent.

The room had the rather sinister tedium which some bedrooms have, a sort of weary banality which is a reminder of death. A dressing table can be a terrible thing.

The echo of a platitude.

Banality is a terribly likely consequence of the underuse of a good mind.

We live under continual threat of two equally fearful, but seemingly opposed, destinies: unremitting banality and inconceivable terror. It is fantasy, served out in large rations by the popular arts, which allows most people to cope with these twin specters.

You've gotta be very careful that grace and politeness do not merge into a banality of behavior, where we're just nice, sort of 'death by cupcake.'

Maledetti noiosi. Su tutta la Terra. Che diffondono altri maledetti noiosi. Che spettacolo dell'orrore. La Terra ne brulicava.

But in all that suffering, the most painful suffering of all was the consciousness that it was banal, had all been discovered a long time ago, and was known to all the generations past, all just a repeated series, stamped out by our genes, That the universe was filled to its edges groans as alike as two notes, that those particular groans formed one great groan similar to the shrill parliament of the sparrows and that groan became an interstellar roar, the inaudible groan of the aging cosmos.

Banality is a symptom of non-communication. Men hide behind their cliches.

There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a talking man having nothing to say.

It's just like the reviews promised—other people's ordinariness is more rewarding than your own. Their banality is soothing to your own sense of failure. Because being you is so much more interesting than being me.

Thoreau's philosophy: If you read about one train wreck, you've read about them all.

The banality of cancer seems to irk him almost as much as its lethality. Lacking any dialectical substance, it affords few opportunities to escape platitude or avoid cliché. It's a big subject, but it's essentially small talk

I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and now have succumbed to something so predictable and banal that it bores even me.

When all the archetypes burst out shamelessly, we plumb Homeric profundity. Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés move us because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion. Just as the extreme of pain meets sensual pleasure, and the extreme of perversion borders on mystical energy, so too the extreme of banality allows us to catch a glimpse of the Sublime.

Maybe there is a point to this banality after all. If I travel to see my mother on the train now the fare is £2.70 for a day return, a tenfold increase on 1970 adult prices; but in the 91/92 season it now cost £8 to stand on the terraces at Arsenal, a thirty-two-fold increase.

My advice to a budding literary critic would be as follows. Learn to distinguish banality. Remember that mediocrity thrives on ideas. Beware of the modish message. Ask yourself if the symbol you have detected is not your own footprint. Ignore allegories. By all means place the how above the what but do not let it be confused with the so what. Rely on the sudden erection of your small dorsal hairs. Do not drag in Freud at this point. All the rest depends on personal talent.

The repetition of words and phrases, the intonation of obsession, the hundred percent banality of every word, the vulgar soapbox eloquence mark these elements of Dostoevski's style.