Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship-be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles-is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clich?s, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

I am in this same river. I can't much help it. I admit it: I'm racist. The other night I saw a group (or maybe a pack?) or white teenagers standing in a vacant lot, clustered around a 4x4, and I crossed the street to avoid them; had they been black, I probably would have taken another street entirely. And I'm misogynistic. I admit that, too. I'm a shitty cook, and a worse house cleaner, probably in great measure because I've internalized the notion that these are woman's work. Of course, I never admit that's why I don't do them: I always say I just don't much enjoy those activities (which is true enough; and it's true enough also that many women don't enjoy them either), and in any case, I've got better things to do, like write books and teach classes where I feel morally superior to pimps. And naturally I value money over life. Why else would I own a computer with a hard drive put together in Thailand by women dying of job-induced cancer? Why else would I own shirts mad in a sweatshop in Bangladesh, and shoes put together in Mexico? The truth is that, although many of my best friends are people of color (as the cliche goes), and other of my best friends are women, I am part of this river: I benefit from the exploitation of others, and I do not much want to sacrifice this privilege. I am, after all, civilized, and have gained a taste for "comforts and elegancies" which can be gained only through the coercion of slavery. The truth is that like most others who benefit from this deep and broad river, I would probably rather die (and maybe even kill, or better, have someone kill for me) than trade places with the men, women, and children who made my computer, my shirt, my shoes.

When people have invested their identities into clich?s, the only counter argument they have is 'being offended'.

Most of us have learned to be dispassionate about evil, to look it in the face and find, as often as not, our own grinning reflections with which we do not argue, but good is another matter. Few have stared at that long enough to accept that its face too is grotesque, that in us the good is something under construction. The modes of evil usually receive worthy expression. The modes of good have to be satisfied with a cliche or a smoothing down that will soften their real look.

Hale." Kat sighed. "The headmaster's car? Really? That's not to cliched for you?

"Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clich?s, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

If someone thinks that peace and love are just a cliche that must have been left behind in the 60s, that's a problem. Peace and love are eternal.

You'll get over it?" It's the clich?s that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don't get over it because 'it" is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no-one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?

It may be a cliche but it's true - the build-up to Christmas is so much more pleasurable than the actual day itself.

Every day I try to do breathing exercises meditation and yoga. These things sound awfully cliche but they help me slow down and try to point to a truth.

Attempting to get at truth means rejecting stereotypes and cliches.

I hate the cliche of 'just have fun ' but what I've seen in today's sports especially with parents is they put so much pressure on the kids.

It sounds like a cliche but it... you do sing about what you know about. And I grew up in a small town and I grew up in a place where your whole world revolved around friends family school and church and sports.

If you want to use a cliche you must take full responsibility for it yourself and not try to fob it off on anon. or on society.

I like guys with a nice smile. I know it's cliche but it's so true! I like a guy with a nice smile and nice eyes.

It has become almost a cliche to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics.

If you have ever been in a real tragic or sad situation the words that come out are hopelessly inadequate and kind of cliched.

In terms of romantic films all-time romantic films I really like 'Gone With the Wind.' And I realize I sound so cliched saying that but there's something so absolutely romantic about it.

I never appreciated 'positive heroes' in literature. They are almost always cliches copies of copies until the model is exhausted. I prefer perplexity doubt uncertainty not just because it provides a more 'productive' literary raw material but because that is the way we humans really are.

The cliche is dead poetry.

Every day I've got to be thankful that I am alive and you never know - the cliche is I guess you could get hit by a bus tomorrow so you'd better be at peace with whatever you got going at the moment.

Every cliche about kids is true they grow up so quickly you blink and they're gone and you have to spend the time with them now. But that's a joy.

I was embarrassed that I even wanted to become an actress because coming from L.A. with two older sisters in the business and a mom who had been a ballet dancer it was such a cliche.

It sounds like a cliche but I also learnt that you're not going to fall for the right person until you really love yourself and feel good about how you are.