Formulaic Quotes & Sayings

Modern formulaic society will try to make you "normal," rushing to call pseudoscientific anything you can do that they can't. — Sahara Sanders

Structure doesn't make a story formulaic. The writer does. — Peter Arpesella

My favorite movie of all time is probably 'The Thing Called Love.' It's a formulaic film but it's got River Phoenix, who is like a god to me. I could watch that once a week. — Shiloh Fernandez

Sometimes directors get hired into TV shows, and it's so formulaic and they're a slave to whatever everybody wants them to do. But everyone came in with their own style, and it blended together with the Helix style that was set, and at the same time, they're bringing their own ideas and their own input. It was really fun working with all of them. — Kyra Zagorsky

Ideologically, I have a lot of problems with that, especially when people toss around that form of story as realism. What's called "realism" is actually highly formulaic. — Lucy Corin

Critics used to say that ABBA were formulaic or that our songs were rubbish. We never had time for those comments, though. We were sincere and devoted to what we did. — Bjorn Ulvaeus

I'm confused that there is a lack of faith in listening to and deciding what is a great song and instead going for these formulaic, bad songs over and over again. But that's what happened when people from beverage companies bought record labels and radio stations as opposed to people who love music owning record labels. — Patty Griffin

It is comparatively easy to become a writer; staying a writer, resisting formulaic work, generating one's own creativity - that's a much tougher matter. — Brian Aldiss

I did Air America for two reasons: to be in a movie with Mel Gibson and to make a bunch of money. And then underneath there was the hope that in doing this formulaic thing I would be launched into a whole new realm of opportunity to do A-list movies. By the time we were done, the only positive thing was meeting Mel Gibson. — Robert Downey Jr.

Imagine how a man's life would be if he trusted that he was loved by God. How could he interact with the poor and not show partiality, he could love his wife easily and not expect her to redeem him, he would be slow to anger because redemption was no longer at stake, he could be wise and giving with his money because money no longer represented points, he could give up on formulaic religion, knowing that checking stuff off a spiritual to-do list was a worthless pursuit, he would have confidence and the ability to laugh at himself, and he could love people without expecting anything in return. It would be quite beautiful, really. — Donald Miller

Too many films today feel formulaic and familiar. I prefer it when the familiar is made to feel strange. — Nicolas Roeg

It took me twenty years to get Steven Parrino's work. From the time I first saw his art, in the mid-eighties, I almost always dismissed it as mannered, Romantic, formulaic, conceptualist-formalist heavy-metal boy-art abstraction. — Jerry Saltz

Organic farming appealed to me because it involved searching for and discovering nature's pathways, as opposed to the formulaic approach of chemical farming. The appeal of organic farming is boundless; this mountain has no top, this river has no end. — Eliot Coleman

How do I make sense of the miracles Jesus chooses to perform and those he seems to overlook? Blessings are not formulaic. They are not a + b = c. There is no "if this, then that." There is no "If I do this, then Jesus will do that." There is no "If I don't do this, then Jesus will not allow that." We can't make sense of grace, miracles, and answers. Sometimes Jesus says yes, and sometimes he says no. We ask God to do something big, but the truth is, he already has. We pray for healing, but I wonder if we really know what we're asking for. — Tricia Lott Williford

When I finally got tired of arguing with her and decided to write a novel as if I was some kind of formulaic, genre writing drone, just to prove to her how awful it would be, I wrote the first book of the Dresden Files. — Jim Butcher

It sounds formulaic now, but at the time, I was interested in the difference between the thing and the representation of the idea of the thing - the space between the two. — David Salle

Shared public meaning gives soldiers a context for their losses and their sacrifice that is acknowledged by most of the society. That helps keep at bay the sense of futility and rage that can develop among soldiers during a war that doesn't seem to end. Such public meaning is probably not generated by the kinds of formulaic phrases, such as "Thank you for your service," that many Americans now feel compelled to offer soldiers and vets. Neither is it generated by honoring vets at sporting events, allowing them to board planes first, or giving them minor discounts at stores. If anything, these token acts only deepen the chasm between the military and civilian populations by highlighting the fact that some people serve their country but the vast majority don't. In Israel, where around half of the population serves in the military, reflexively thanking someone for their service makes as little sense as thanking them for paying their taxes. It doesn't cross anyone's mind. — Sebastian Junger

After its defeat in the Second World War, Japan, unlike Germany, failed to show true contrition or give a fulsome apology, though it showered its neighbours, including China, with generous economic assistance. Only in 1995 did it finally offer an apology, but this was of the most limited and formulaic kind. — Martin Jacques

It's more like can I build a group of characters and can I tell some universal truths that feel real and aren't formulaic in the spirit of filmmakers gone by who've told American stories that were personal and universal as well. — Cameron Crowe

In hip-hop, what you have is you have a lot of formulaic-type bands or rappers that come up. They saw something on the radio, and they want to mimic that formula. And that's just boring. I don't wanna record something just to make money; I want to record something to enjoy it and have fun because I'm a music lover. — Sir Mix-a-Lot

I want young Indian composers to be able to do more than just film music. I want to give them the skills that will enable them to create their own palette of sounds instead of having to write formulaic music. It doesn't matter if they become sound engineers, producers, composers or performers - I want them to be as imaginative as they like. — A.R. Rahman

Various books revolutionised what I think about novels and showed me that they're not strict, formulaic things. 'Coming Through Slaughter' by Michael Ondaatje was one of them. — Sarah Hall

We are at a point in the video game industry that the industry is hollowed out. It is out of touch with the zeitgeist, creating sequels and formulaic games over and over again. The energy comes from the indies. — Mitch Lasky

People get caught up in formulaic answers. When one doesn't work, they just go on to the next. — James A. Champy

If businesses are to redeem themselves in the eyes of the public and regain the trust that they have lost, they should worry a lot more about what they stand for and entrust those with expertise in communication a much freer rein to express this in ways that people might recognise as being sincere and sympathetic, rather than stilted and formulaic. — Nick Baker

The publishing scene in India is evolving rapidly, and the key challenge is to keep reinventing oneself so that one does not become formulaic. Sometimes it is safer to deal with the consequences of failure than the fruits of success. Remaining on one's toes is critical, and often one finds that success makes one complacent. — Ashwin Sanghi

As an actor, you want new challenges. U.S. TV can be very formulaic. So when something gets a reaction, as 'The Slap' has, that's great. The sense I get is that it's not about me or my performance. More than anything it's the subject matter that people are focused on.' — Jonathan LaPaglia

I like people to be surprised by the turn of events. I don't want things just to be pat and formulaic. If there's some sort of internal combustion in the character or a desire to change the way things are going, that makes for conflict, which is the essence of drama. — Miranda Richardson

It's the formulaic studio movies the make money, and when they do, the actors in them are automatically movie stars. — Mickey Rourke

I think often in film we limit our imaginations a little - well, quite a lot, actually ... things get quite formulaic. — Hugo Weaving

Southern food has been riding a long wave of popularity that has elevated cooking in Southern cities. But it has also led to a formulaic culinary canon laden with house-cured pork products, bespoke grits and lots of food served in Mason jars. The cooks who defined the style were mostly men in tourist-heavy towns like Atlanta, Nashville and Charleston, S.C. Chefs who didn't cook like that risked losing business. — Anonymous

This wisdom is not formulaic and cannot be captured in words, for it has gone beyond words to a place where direct realization rather than conceptual verbalization is the essential mode of being. — Mu Soeng

Fantasy gets a mixed reception - a lot of fantasy is formulaic but most of the award-winning fantasy on the contrary tends to be the stuff at the edges of the genre, rather than swimming in the middle. — Graham Joyce

Porn is now so deeply embedded in our culture that it has become synonymous with sex to such a point that to criticize porn is to get slapped with the label anti-sex.
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But what if you are a feminist who is pro-sex in the real sense of the word, pro that wonderful, fun, and deliciously creative force that bathes the body in delight and pleasure, and what you are actually against is porn sex? A kind of sex that is debased, dehumanized, formulaic, and generic, a kind of sex not based on individual fantasy, play, or imagination, but one that is the result of an industrial product created by those who get excited not by bodily contact but by market penetration and profits? Where, then, do you fit in the pro-sex, anti-sex dichotomy when pro-porn equals pro-sex? — Gail Dines

The danger, I find, is that you can become too formulaic, like some commissioned portrait painters who develop a methodology. — Jamie Wyeth

If you've ever been to a poetry slam, you know that the highest scoring emotion is self-righteous indignation: how dare you judge me. So in that way, the poem, 'What Teachers Make,' is an absolutely formulaic slam poem designed to allow me to get up on my soap box and say, 'Let me tell you what really makes me angry.' — Taylor Mali

Just watch any husband arguing with his wife about something insignificant; listen to what they say and watch how their residual emotions manifest when the fight is over. It's so formulaic and unsurprising that you wouldn't dare re-create it in a movie. All the critics would mock it. They'd all say the screenwriter was a hack who didn't even try. This is why movies have less value than we like to pretend - movies can't show reality, because honest depictions of reality offend intelligent people. — Chuck Klosterman

Thanksgiving is not some formulaic action based on a tedious ledger that neatly tallies everything I have received so I can determine if being thankful is warranted or not. Rather, it's appreciating the fact that I have already received the privilege of living life which in and of itself will fill the whole of my ledger for the whole of my life. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

I put away that stuffed God I had all stitched up with my human understandings and fears. God is less formulaic and quantifiable as he once used to be, but experiencing the reality of his love is infinitely better than dragging that other one around. — Jim Palmer

Journalists in newspapers and in many magazines are not permitted to be subjective and tell their readers what they think. Journalists have got to follow a very strict formulaic line, and here we come, these non-fiction writers, these former journalists who are using all the techniques that journalists are pretty much not allowed to use. — Lee Gutkind

[The business is] more corporate and more formulaic and less experiential. — Alan Arkin

Unlike typical romantic comedies, Definitely Maybe is not formulaic or predictable and it spans a decade while being set against a political background. Also, the audience doesn't know who ends up with who until the very end, which makes it a sort of "romantic mystery comedy". — Isla Fisher

So many movies are so formulaic because you've got to get it done in an hour and a half. On a TV series, that's where the really interesting stuff can happen. — Billy Campbell

Schools were designed by Horace Mann and Barnard Sears and Harper of the University of Chicago and Thorndyke of Columbia Teachers College and some other men to be instruments of the scientific management of a mass population. Schools are intended to produce through the application of formulae, formulaic human beings whose behavior can be predicted and controlled. — John Taylor Gatto

A lot of young black people in America, and even in Africa and Brazil, would say that they are telling their story, but most of the films are like application forms with the formulaic ideas of Hollywood. — Haile Gerima

The formulaic repetitiveness of filing and stuffing envelopes appeals to me in some fundamental life-affirming way. — Paul Beatty

I feel like a lot of people look at pop music with a very formulaic perspective in numbers and patterns, but an outsider would think that the process is very natural. It is, but there are a lot of times where people treat it like a sport - there are tricks you can pull, different combinations that make something better. I don't really think I approach it that way, but I definitely have a love for the science that is pop song writing. — Halsey

I stray away from formulaic, the formatted. — Christina Aguilera

As a songwriter, pop music really is a love and a joy and a science, and I feel like a lot of people look at pop music with a very formulaic perspective in numbers and patterns, but an outsider would think that the process is very natural. — Halsey

I don't want to say that most rock bands live these formulaic biography existences - but they kinda do. There's always a divorce. There's always an OD. There's always a bad business manager. — Dave Grohl

Even if I believe my opinion to be true, and am highly confident about its truth, unless it is 'fully, frequently and fearlessly' discussed, I will end up holding it as a dead dogma, a formulaic and unthinking response. — Nigel Warburton

If 'formulaic' is somebody who is unlikely to succeed starting down a process and succeeding - then isn't that what most films are about? And art films are about people who aren't likely to succeed and then don't succeed. — Ridley Scott

American mass media culture, with its celebrities, shopping hysteria, sound bites, formulaic plots, received ideas, and nauseating repetitions, depresses me. — Siri Hustvedt

Science fiction is not formulaic. — Octavia E. Butler

I'm nowhere with country music. I don't hear much of it, so I shouldn't venture an opinion, but when it finds me, it seems formulaic. — Emmylou Harris

I certainly don't want to be formulaic. I want to be honest and authentic and everything else. — Stephen Fry

There are many forms of writing that are common, but also very formulaic, such as annual reports or economic studies. In those areas, people would probably be relieved not to have to write those kinds of things because they are mundane and drudgery. — Philip M. Parker

Most women's pictures are as boring and as formulaic as men's pictures. In place of a car chase or a battle scene, what you get is an extreme closeup of a woman breaking down. — Frances McDormand

I don't listen to much rap, really. I can rarely listen to a whole record of it, because musically, it's very formulaic, and oftentimes it doesn't have the best hooks on every track. — Nellie McKay

The American independent cinema is as formulaic as Hollywood and one genre is what you might call the 'inaction movie'. The setting is invariably a decaying town in a regional backwater where a catalytic stranger or returning native meets up with a group of sad, eccentric outsiders. — Philip French

The materials of genre - specifically the paired genres of horror and the fantastic - in no way require the constrictions of formulaic treatment, and in fact naturally extend and evolve into the methods and concerns of its wider context, general literature. — Peter Straub

You can't break through Hollywood formulaic points of view. I've tried, and I think I was more successful than anybody at doing it. — Roseanne Barr

There is a real formula to writing music, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge. It's very formulaic. The subject matter that you can address in pop music is somewhat restricted. It just doesn't allow that same emotive quality that you can put into poetry. — Edgar Winter