Nick Davies

Once, the world was full of mysteries, some of them frightening, some of them wonderful, some of them merely fascinating. Now, it can be a banal and predictable place, the tracks of daily life so well-beaten and defined, our culture awash with the imbecile obvious, our existence suffocating in safety. But mysteries remain.

British Journalist

Alison Gopnik

The thing that is most important is having people who are involved and engaged with the kids and also are not stressed and can be involved with them. And that's actually not boring and banal. That actually takes a lot of work to make that happen, and it's not something that our society does very well at all.

American Psychologist

Geoff Dyer

The lesson of travel seems to be so banal, but so great, which is that people are just so amazingly decent the world over. Given the disparity of income and wealth, it's amazing not just that you don't get robbed everywhere - it's amazing you don't get eaten.

English Writer

Peter Weir

There's almost a fear that if you understood too deeply the way you arrived at choices, you could become self-conscious. In any case, many ideas which are full of personal meaning seem rather banal when you put words to them.

Australian Director

Matthew Pearl

Poe was plagued and haunted most of all by something pretty banal: poverty. Probably the most eccentric decision in life was to become a writer in an age when making a living at it was nearly impossible.

American Novelist

Robert Rinder

Serious crime is very, very rare, and I think all of us are interested because they are rare and unusual. If they were banal and everyday, we wouldn't be interested in them at all.

English Judge

Zadie Smith

It's difficult to tell the truth about how a book begins. The truth, as far as it can be presented to other people, is either wholly banal or too intimate.

British Novelist

Raoul Vaneigem

Everything has been said yet few have taken advantage of it. Since all our knowledge is essentially banal, it can only be of value to minds that are not.

Belgian Philosopher

Geraldine McCaughrean

It isn't that I don't tackle issues; it's just that they're secondary to giving somebody an escape route from the banal routine of everyday life.

Lee Radziwill

Paris is life-enhancing for all those reasons we know and all those words that have become so banal.

American Celebrity

Use 'banal' to express disapproval of things that lack freshness or novelty due to being predictable.

Predictability Problem

'Banal' often carries a negative tone, implying a disinterest or frustration with the unoriginality.

Negative Tone

In literature, 'banal' is used to criticize works that lack depth or innovation.

Literary Critique

 I could see how often in my own life, when I felt down, I tried to remedy it with some kind of show-offy, grand external solution. And I could see why that did not work well for me. I also thought, isn't this kind of obvious? Isn't this almost like banal, right? If I said to everyone here,

This could be why you're...

 Too many buildings that you see outside that are so banal tell you a story, but the story is very short, which says, "We have no story to tell you." So the important thing actually, is to introduce the actual architectural dimensions, which might be totally inexplicable in words,

Daniel Libeskind's 17...

 they help us relate to one another and help me understand these people as human beings just like you and me. And so, I think that, you know, we've become attuned to thinking that, you know, the positive, the good, the beautiful stories are just banal, they're boring.

Photographing the Beauty...

 these coordinated efforts are tied to lunar cycles and sometimes accompanied by religious rituals the UNESCO site encompasses five different clusters of rice terraces in the area the banal a

Soar Over the Lush Rice...

 Secrecy is enforced and shame is a close shadow. In the law, intersex people fall outside of categorization, and more importantly, protection. This concerns the banal tasks --

What it means to be...

 And, of course, it's one that's dear to my heart, because all of these sentiments -- some banal, some a bit more profound -- all originally had come out of my diary.

Stefan Sagmeister:...

 Now astrology -- we remove the banal idea that your life could be predicted; that you'll, perhaps today, meet a lucky man who's wearing a hat. That is gone.

Robin Ince: Science...

 some objects suggest that the world is actually basically banal and kind of perfunctory and ho-hum and they invite kind of indifference I think it's what

Watching This Will Make...

 Actually, I have them on stage with grapevines, magnolias -- truly stunning. Poetry matters. Poetry is what elevates the banal and neglected object

It's not fair having 12...

 Now, to close, we heard a couple of days ago about the value of making individual heroism so commonplace that it becomes banal or routine.