It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a writer in possession of a good cliché will use it to death.
Tipped by the NYTimes I learned about SnowClones today, these (a formation from the adage about the many “Eskimo words for snow”). A snowclone is an adaptation of a saying to the point that it becomes a clichéd formula, with ever diminishing returns. “X is the new Y” seems to be the paradigmatic case. (“Orange is the New Black” “Matcha is the new Kombucha” “Facebook is the new Stasi“).
There is both a database and a wikipedia page for Snowclones.
Puts me in the mind of the New Yorker humorist Frank Sullivan, with his celebrated (couldn’t resist) cliche expert Mr. Arbuthnot.
A Few Reasonable Words 