Irony's Quotes

#1. Really?"
"No. I'm being ironic. Or is it sarcastic? I can never remember."
"Irony's cleverer, so you're probably being sarcastic.

Jonathan Stroud

#2. You're screwed, scum, and not in the way you'd like, either. Irony's a bitch, isn't it?"
"You wouldn't say that if you knew who I am."
Vol's bounty hunter laughs. "Trust me, I've seen an asshole before. Drop the sword now.

Nenia Campbell

#3. She fixed him with a long careful, searching stare that was not devoid of irony's intelligent sparkle

Milan Kundera

#4. If we chose to refuse irony, we risk becoming irony's dupe.

Janet Beizer

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

Christopher Moore

#6. I don't think irony's meant to synergize with anything as heartfelt as
sadness.

David Foster Wallace

#7. I really think [the Bush Administration]'s foreign policy agenda is to spread irony through the world.

Jon Stewart

#8. Melodrama is one of the most stunning art forms. These are stories where the emotions are big, and the situations are big, and the artists believe in the situation dramatically. There's no irony or distance.

James Gray

#9. They say a woman's loyalty only lasts as long as it takes her to hang up and dial again.

Kim Gatlin

#10. But one place ain't no different from no place else. People try and make it like everything's new only to find the devil done followed you wherever you moved and all you can do is hold him off whiles you catch your breath

Amina Gautier

#11. To say "He was a young fool, and now he's an old fool" is to make a distinction without a difference.

Gary Inbinder

#12. I should learn patience, it's a shame there's no time for that.

Maija Haavisto

#13. What's fair and what's true often bear no resemblance to each other.

Garon Whited

#14. Irony is a treacherous servant; unless it's very carefully watched over, it has a tendency to expose the foolishness of its apparent master.

Mark O'Connell

#15. There is at least one advantage to being an Indonesian citizen: With this country's expanse of land and even greater expanse of sea, it's not difficult finding space for one's grave.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer

#16. It's an irony that growing inequality could mean more money for philanthropy. In the U.S., quite a few of the ultra-rich have taken to heart the 19th century industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie's comment that it's a disgrace to die wealthy.

Geoff Mulgan

#17. He looks at you like you're someone he's never met before, much less someone he once loved with high passion. The irony is, you can hardly blame him. I mean, check yourself out. You're a pathetic mess, unrecognizable even to your own eyes.

Elizabeth Gilbert

#18. You're not going to tell me they built fifty-foot-high killer golems, are you?"
"Only a man would think of that.
It's our job," said Moist. "If you don't think of fifty-foot-high killer golems first, someone else will.

Terry Pratchett

#19. The irony is that when we're standing across from someone who is hidden or shielded by masks and armor, we feel frustrated and disconnected. That's the paradox here: Vulnerability is the last thing I want you to see in me, but the first thing I look for in you. If

Brene Brown

#20. Hindsight is usually more tragic than helpful.

Linda S. Godfrey

#21. All the pathos and irony of leaving one's youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveller learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.

Paul Fussell

#22. People are complex, and I think it's a huge element of what I do, because you have to balance out the fact that you talk about quite serious things with a sense of irony and tongue-in-cheek humor. That's my personality as well.

Marina And The Diamonds

#23. I still couldn't imagine that she was really, truly pregnant; maybe this was an hysterical pregnancy. But Sarah was never hysterical. Enthusiastic, yes, ironic on occasion. I couldn't imagine a doctor saying, No, it's just an ironic pregnancy.

James Lileks

#24. The accident was a horrible thing - but that horrible thing made Chris, at the end of his life, Superman. It's a happy irony if there is such a thing. I'm proud to have known him.

Morgan Freeman

#25. Pessimism is a funny thing, isn't it? Madison thought as she looked at Judith's furrowed face. I like a bit of pessimism as much as the next man, but when I'm bombarded with it I suddenly became an eternal optimist.

Melissa Kite

#26. Although my life is far from perfect, the irony is that in a divorced parent's custody schedule - with days on and days off - instead of like it was before, when I felt ragged and still oddly guilty all the time, now I feel guilty but not ragged.

Sandra Tsing Loh

#27. The machine captured that old sense of irony in death: you can know how it's going to happen, but you'll still be surprised when it does.

Ryan North

#28. That's the difference between irony and sarcasm. Irony can be spontaneous, while sarcasm requires volition. You have to create sarcasm.

Christopher Moore

#29. Humor is everywhere, in that there's irony in just about anything a human does.

Bill Nye

#30. It's tough, man. Unless it's a tentpole, sequel, remake, or over-the-top comedy, that's all the studios are even doing. They've kind of admitted they're not in the business of doing anything else. The slightest level of irony or intelligence and, boom, you're out of the league, you're done.

Richard Linklater

#31. And it was strange, I thought, that sorrow lasts and can make a man look forward to death, but the mood of victory fills a moment and then is over

V.S. Naipaul

#32. It's funny how a person can be right all the time and still be wrong.

Louis Sachar

#33. Oooh, intrigue?' Sylvie said playfully. 'Want to know a secret? I am someone else. Nobody knows the real me.'
Jess opened the door, sick of being toyed with, wanting to get away. Her voice was flat. 'You're a girl. It's the same for all of us.

Kirsty Eagar

#34. What would we do without irony? Check out your own daily reliance on it, the foul-weather friend who's there for you when nothing else is.

Robin Morgan

#35. It's the irony of woman's life in that she tends to turn her assets to her own detriment in that while her psyche seeks to see her man strong; her instinct tries to weaken him.

BS Murthy

#36. It's just like an alcoholic to think he's doing the Zombie Apocalypse wrong.

Michele W. Miller

#37. Irony--it's funny until it happens to you.

Bill Morris

#38. Here's the irony in what I do: When I go out to eat, I like classic French food. I like amazing Japanese food that has such a history that it goes back hundreds of years. And I also like really innovative food as well.

Grant Achatz

#39. I never take out clients. It's bad policy. He looked me straight in the eyes as he said it. Reaching across for the glove compartment, his arm accidentally brushed my leg.

Gabrielle Black

#40. Regent's Park was looking to the Met for an injection of integrity, it was in serious danger of an irony meltdown.

Mick Herron

#41. Oh the irony life sometimes throws our way. It's almost like fate plays a sadistic joke on us just because she's in a mood that day - fickle bitch that she is.

Suzanne Steele

#42. Religious people were big on saying "the tongue is a mighty weapon, so use it wisely," and then forsaking this claim when the music director slept with the minister's wife or when the youth minister did what he did.

Tiffany King

#43. Irony is finally you found the perfect one, but there's so many obstacles to make the perfect one yours.

Nina Ardianti

#44. In Jewish folk music, despair is disguised as the dance. And so, truth's disguise was irony.

Julian Barnes

#45. Strong people stand up for themselves. Stronger people stand up for others. The irony is that while sleep sometimes brings nightmares, it's the reality of my waking hours that can cause me the greater fear.

Chris Gardner

#46. My career progressed slowly. Real slow at a time. The irony of it was I had the best part of my career between when I was 45 and 49 years old. That's when most people are in their twilight, waiting to get to the Champions Tour. And that's when I made most of my hay.

Fred Funk

#47. Nobody ever goes to that store to shop because it's too crowded.

Sol Luckman

#48. I don't like the word ironic. I like the word absurdity, and I don't really understand the word 'irony' too much. The irony comes when you try to verbalize the absurd. When irony happens without words, it's much more exalted.

David

#49. And it's really very difficult to kill someone when all your inner instincts would oblige you to take off your hat first!

Susan Kay

#50. I don't think irony is about judgment; I think irony is something like, "Oh, that's interesting," because it's not something I think one starts off to achieve. I think it's just something that presents itself. And if it does, I find it's usually optimistic, not negative in its terms.

Jeff Koons

#51. I didn't know who to
believe
but
one thing I do
know: when a man is
living
many claim relationships
that are hardly
so
and after he dies, well,
then it's everybody's
party.

Charles Bukowski

#52. She talks about how she can't exercise because of the ailments-a bad back, sore knees, breathing difficulties-all caused by her weight gain.

A.S. King

#53. There's nothing wrong with giving up all your principles for a suitable financial reward. It is indeed the basis of our society.

Manny Rayner

#54. I gather they are even vaguely pacifist, not on moral grounds but from an ingrained habit of belittling anything that concerns the great mass of their fellow men and from a dash of purely fashionable and literary communism.

C.S. Lewis

#55. And we'll call you ... hmmm. Pudge."
"Huh?"
"Pudge," the Colonel said. "Because you're skinny. It's called irony, Pudge. Heard of it? Now, let's go get some cigarettes and start this year off right.

John Green

#56. But though it had prevailed against such fierce adversaries as fire and flood, it had fallen victim softly and swiftly to television in the 1960's.

Kate Morton

#57. I have this one little life to live with, it's not the plan I had in mind but I can accept its the calling of my soul. The irony in gaining freedom through the heartbreak of stillness.

Nikki Rowe

#58. The more power you have, the less you can truly say. That's the irony.

Michael Soll

#59. Certainly, it seems true enough that there's a good deal of irony in the world ... I mean, if you live in a world full of politicians and advertising, there's obviously a lot of deception.

Kenneth Koch

#60. Yes, of course that's true but you know, the irony of all that is that before the accident, I'd pretty much lost interest in playing drums.

Rick Allen

#61. Aujourd'hui, rien.
That's what Louis XVI wrote in his diary on the day of the storming of the Bastille.

Jo Walton

#62. That was the last cruel irony of Tobias's life: that he doomed the woman he would have died to save.

Cassandra Clare

#63. The kind of funny irony is that a lot of people talk about ethical meat eating as if it's a way to care about things, but also not to alienate yourself from the rest of the world. But it's so much more alienating than vegetarianism.

Jonathan Safran Foer

#64. When I'm not around you that is when I feel breathless. I liken it to being a fish, and you are my water. When I'm not around you, I feel as though I cannot breathe. And you have to understand the irony in that because I've never in my entire existence ever needed to.

S.L. Naeole

#65. It's an irony of our times that men seeking peace must make war.

Mark Lawrence

#66. But the people only talked about how ugly her face looked. No one even bothered to mention what a sweet, kindhearted girl she was. Now, don't be amazed! That is just the nature of humans, to notice the one flaw among a person's ten good qualities.

Janaki Sooriyarachchi

#67. One of life's ironies is that the more honest and vulnerable you are, the more others try to discredit you as a fraud and a fake. Shut them up by not caring.

Dan Pearce

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

Michael Connelly

#69. I think, in a written novel, the way in which you play with the readers' emotion or the way in which you engage the readers' emotions can be very indirect. You could come at it through irony or comedy, etcetera, and you could capture people's sympathies and feelings kind of by stealth if you like.

Salman Rushdie

#70. When readers don't like the book, it's usually because they feel that romantic love is pass or somehow needs more irony.

Charles Baxter

#71. Irony sucks, you know?"
Roger nodded. "That it does. Safely confined to the pages of novels, it's an interesting rhetorical device; encountered loose in the real world, it's a beast with steel claws and mirrors for eyes.

John Langan

#72. If she's really psychic," Zack said when he saw Tanisha's photo at school, "why does she need a doorbell?

Joan Bauer

#73. I'd love to see the Iron Jackal's face when he finds out I'm already dead," he said with half a grin. "Now that's irony." "No it ain't, Cap'n. It's just some shit that happened.

Chris Wooding

#74. The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating -- in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around like rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.

Anne Morris

#75. It seems we would rather have a past filled with great scientists than just great artists and writers who could dream up these wonderful and awe-inspiring creations. It's a strange irony: we're spending our time trying to find the truth in our past, but creating myths of ourselves in the present.

Aditya Iyengar

#76. The best way to hold on to something is to pay no attention to it. The things you love too much perish. You have to treat everything with irony, especially the things you hold dear. There's more of a chance then that they'll survive.

Dmitri Shostakovich

#77. They had supported him ... for freedom's sake, they would have said; meaning as do all men who mouth that catchword, freedom for themselves and their own class.

Margaret Butler

#78. You know,' she begins, 'you fellas ought to be looking after each other.' Her comment makes me realise that through the lies, the greatest irony is that we are looking out for each other. It's just that in the end, we're letting her down. That's what injures us.

Markus Zusak

#79. It makes me sad, the way human beings talk smack. It's why I don't like irony. People are too gleeful to put some teeth into something.

Ian MacKaye

#80. The White House has now put together a website for kids. It's a website to teach kids how to manage a budget responsibly. The website is called ' Irony.gov. '

David Letterman

#81. You know, there's a real irony in U.S. assistance programs. First of all, I think it's misnamed. We're not so much trying to help people as we're trying to help ourselves. So let's be clear about this. So these are - in my view, they're cold calculations of national security and not aid programs.

Richard Armitage

#82. imagine there's no heaven..." he said. "Apparently someone is taking that personally.

E.J. Copperman

#83. Richard Branson once said: 'Tony's very good at selling bands and he's very good at making television programmes. But he'll never be great at either, until he decides which one he wants to do.' I entirely accept that. That doesn't matter to me very much. I like the irony of the two lives.

Tony Wilson

#84. There's no more delicious irony on the face of the Earth than environmental protesters being led away in plastic handcuffs that have a biodegradability horizon line of, like, 40,000 years.

Dennis Miller

#85. I do love irony. It's so ... complicated and coincidental.

Cassandra Kemper

#86. Royal Young's writing is that rare blend of irony and beauty.

Simon Van Booy

#87. It's shameful for a devil to be good.

Ljupka Cvetanova

#88. The irony of man's fate reflected in his image: that all men, from beggar to emperor, from harlot to queen, from ragged clerk to Pope, must come to this. No matter what their poverty or power in life, all is vanity, equalized by death.

Barbara W. Tuchman

#89. Rich people making their houses bigger in order to make their lives happier wind up hurting their own marriages. There's a deep irony here. Do the couples perceive that irony?

Tucker Carlson

#90. I think that you can fall into bad habits with comedy ... It's a tightrope to stay true to the character, true to the irony, and allow the irony to happen.

Ben Kingsley

#91. The definition of irony - A Pope who refuses to give law enforcement the names of hundreds (or maybe thousands) of predatory homosexual pedophile priests around the world, then claiming that gay marriage will be the world's undoing. (Speaking of Benedict the XVI.)

Dave Champion

#92. I love Sell Out, I think it's great. I love the jingles. The whole thing as an album is a wonderful piece of work. The cover. Everything about it. It's got humor, great songs, irony.

Roger Daltrey

#93. These were the moments I wished I were dead, when I was too weak to do anything about it. It was nature's cruel irony, stringing me along.

Pepper Winters

#94. Im.' The monosyllable was heavy with contempt. 'E's a twat.'
'Is he?'
'Yeah, 'e is. Ask Kieran.'
She gave the impression that she and Kieran stood together, sane, dispassionate observers of the idiots populating Lula's world.

Robert Galbraith

#95. The irony of the human heart is that it's tormented both by the presence and absence of it's own soul's counterpart.

Crystal Woods

#96. Is this irony, hypocrisy, or a contradiction? I'm never sure which term is appropriate." "Call it all three if you want," Andreas said. "Chutzpah. That's a fourth term.

Jonathan Franzen

#97. So we came to say hello. To the world's grouchiest person. Because that's such fun.

Molly Ringle

#98. I'm most interested in finding the strangeness and irony in reality. That's my forte.

Mary Ellen Mark

#99. There's always a 'she'. Isn't there?

Dennis Lehane

#100. Commercial comedy's often set up to feature an ironist making
devastating sport of someone who's naive or sentimental or pretentious or
pompous.

David Foster Wallace