Best 841 quotes in «irony quotes» category

It is an oversimplification to say that the opposite of irony is oversimplification.

It is an unfortunate irony that music-making intended in part to attract new listeners is usually the least well rehearsed and motivated.

It is a strange irony that the principles of science should seem to deny the necessary conviction of common sense.

It is one of history's greatest ironies that, over the centuries, the pursuit of pleasure has resulted in more pain than enjoyment.

It is one of the ironies of biographical art that some details are more relevant than others, and many details have no relevance at all.

It is respectable to have no illusions, and safe, and profitable and dull.

It turns out that President Obama has acid reflux. He had a sore throat, went to the hospital, and they diagnosed it as acid reflux. Talk about irony -- it's not covered by Obamacare.

It's a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon "launder" became a dirty word.

It's an astonishing skill that people can read, and read well. Very few people can read well. For instance, I have to be very careful with irony, saying something while meaning the exact opposite.

Listen: our culture is saturated with irony whether we know it or not.

I was not interested in irony; I wanted to emphasize the primacy of the idea in making art

I wonder if Bettie Page original gay cult had something to do with the ironies inherent in her image, as well as her innate fabulousness as an image.

Language and, presumably, literature are more ancient and inevitable, more durable than any form of social organization. The revulsion, irony, or indifference often expressed by literature toward the state is essentially the reaction of the permanent-better yet, the infinite-against the temporary, against the finite.

Life is full of ironies and paradoxes.

Life is that perfect fine line between ironies.

Most of us start from that position of irony now and what I wanted to do - really felt like I had to do if I was going to write another novel - was move towards something like sincerity.

Love: the sickest of Irony’s sick jokes. The place where logic and order go to die.

Mann is widely recognized as a master of irony and ambiguity, yet it's remarkable how quickly people foreclose options he carefully leaves open. Lots of readers - including eminent critics - jump to conclusions: that Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy is a central background text, that Aschenbach is an inferior writer, that he's never been attracted by pubescent male beauty before, that he dies of cholera.

Maybe the desert wisdom of the Dakotas can teach us to love anyway, to love what is dying, in the face of death, and not pretend that things are other than they are. The irony and wonder of all of this is that it is the desert's grimness, its stillness and isolation, that brings us back to love.

My father could be very witty, even if the humor was always on the darker side of irony.

My friend "M" says the irony of being a zombie is that everything is funny, but you can't smile, because your lips have rotted off.

Neither irony nor sarcasm is argument.

Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.

Okay, so maybe I'm romantic... but somebody is supposed to be romantic. Some warrior is supposed to go to war against the imperial forces of cynicism and irony. I am a sentimental soldier.

Never joke with the press. Irony does not translate into newsprint.

Nobody gets irony anymore, as we are now living in the post-ironic age. Once George Bush gets a library, our irony is dead.

Nobody these days holds the written word in such high esteem as police states do.

On a throne at the center of a sense of humor sits a capacity for irony. All wit rests on a cheerful awareness of life's incongruities. It is a gentling awareness, and no politician without it should be allowed near power.

One of the bitterest ironies of life is that one truly appreciates a blessing only after having been deprived of it or imagining that.

One of the bitter ironies of the 20th century was that communism, which began as an egalitarian doctrine accusing capitalism of selfishness and calloused sacrifices of others, became in power a system whose selfishness and callousness toward others made the sins of capitalism pale.

One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence.

One of the ironies of the stock market is the emphasis on activity. Brokers, using terms such as 'marketability' and 'liquidity,' sing the praises of companies with high share turnover... but investors should understand that what is good for the croupier is not good for the customer. A hyperactive stock market is the pick pocket of enterprise.

One of the ironies of courage, and the reason why we prize it so highly, is that we find it easier to be brave for someone else than we do for ourselves alone.

One of the persistent ironies of reform is the impossibility of predicting the full consequences of change.

Part of the irony of environmentalism is questing for solutions when you know you're part of the problem.

Our universities are so determined to impose tolerance that they'll expel you for saying what you think and never notice the irony

Sacred cows make great hamburgers.

Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.

Perhaps the saddest irony of depression is that suicide happens when the patient gets a little better and can again function sufficiently.

Sadness is the matrix from which wit and irony spring; sadness is uncomfortable and creative, which is why consumer society cannot tolerate it.

Some of Mr. Gregory's poems have merely appeared in The New Yorker ; others are New Yorker poems: the inclusive topicality, the informed and casual smartness, the flat fashionable irony, meaningless because it proceeds from a frame of reference whose amorphous superiority is the most definite thing about it they are the trademark not simply of a magazine but of a class.

Solemnity and a complete absence of irony also mark kitsch.

Skype is a wonderful thing. The irony is that you never Skype when you're in the same country as someone.

The great thing about irony is that it splits things apart, gets up above them so we can see the flaws and hypocrisies and duplicates.

Some people tell me that they like what I do, which is great, of course. The perfect irony and truth is that I need them much more than they need me.

That's the irony in the work: the best stories are the worst things that happen. My best times were somebody else's worst.

The great irony to Dirk [Gently] is that he sees connections in everything, but the one thing he fails and struggles with most is connecting with other people.

That's the trouble with honorable mentions: they let everyone know you applied and didn't win.

The irony of Christmas is always upon the poor in heart; the mystery of the solstice is always upon the rest of us.

The irony about Charles II is not that he came to the throne because England needed a successor to Charles I, but because England needed a successor to Oliver Cromwell.