Quotes About Understatement

#1. The gift of comedy is often best delivered on the wings of understatement.

Tony Bulmer

#2. Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, is an expert of understatement in his leadership of Linux development community. When eager programmers would ask him, '"What part of Linux should I work on?' his answer would usually be, '"Let me know when you find out' (p.286).

Dan Woods

#3. Only in summer-phase is it carnivorous.
If there was an award for understatement, I thought, the Tyr would trounce all competition.

C.S. Friedman

#4. To say my friends were living a soap opera was an understatement. They almost made my dangerous relationship with Adrian look boring.

Richelle Mead

#5. You are the finest, loveliest, tenderest, and most beautiful person I have ever known - and even that is an understatement.

F Scott Fitzgerald

#6. Understatement has become part of the tradition. A proposal to build a history room to house the football team's memorabilia was immediately shelved when many former players complained. What makes this program so special is what you carry in your heart, they argued, not what you hang on the wall.

Neil Hayes

#7. He does seem to have a lot of willpower." "That is an understatement," I agreed. "Tall, blond, and stubborn.

Chloe Neill

#8. That transformation is to lose everything is an understatement so vast as to be without meaning. One has to lose everything, and one has to lose the one who has lost everything ...

Steven Harrison

#9. To say that my dad pushed me is an understatement. I was never naturally drawn to football.

Thierry Henry

#10. Jordan, the shy Runner with the copper braids, asks me twice if I'm okay. I just shrug her off. Yeah, something's wrong. Isn't that the understatement of the year.

Marie Lu

#11. You know, it's dangerous to touch me like that." He gazed
down into my eyes.
"You didn't seem to mind."
"That's because I can control myself better than others. You have
a date with danger or something?"
That was an understatement. It was more like death.

Lynn Mullican

#12. One of the many lessons to emerge from Hurricane Katrina is that Americans are not accustomed to seeing unattended bodies on the streets of a major city." Understatement of the century, Doctor.

Caitlin Doughty

#13. A lot of men who have accepted - or had imposed upon them in boyhood - the old English public school styles of careful modesty in speech, with much understatement, have behind their masks an appalling and impregnable conceit of themselves.

J.B. Priestley

#14. Richard [Carrier] takes the extremist position that Jesus of Nazareth never even existed, that there was no such person in history. This is a position that is so extreme that to call it marginal would be an understatement; it doesn't even appear on the map of contemporary New Testament scholarship.

William Lane Craig

#15. Yeah, something was wrong. That was the understatement of the year.

Marie Lu

#16. A discerning eye needs only a hint, and understatement leaves the imagination free to build its own elaborations.

Russell Page

#17. Holy fucking understatement of the year, Batman

Marie Sexton

#18. Kalona's back. The spell worked. One of Neferet's hostages got out. And to say Neferet's pissed is like saying Louis Vuitton makes cute purses. Hello, understatement of the decade.

P.C. Cast

#19. To say that I am organized is an understatement, but my car tells a different story.

Emily Procter

#20. Nothing in a language is less translatable than its modes of understatement.

George Steiner

#21. To say I didn't have great luck in the guy department was like saying Ryan Seacrest didn't have great luck in the height department: total understatement.

Gemma Halliday

#22. Shut up, idiot," he growled.
"Oops," Ian replied, looking uncomfortable. "I feel stupid, now."
Peter shook his head. "That's the understatement of the year.

Rose Wynters

#23. You look amazing."
"Thank you. You look pretty good." Understatement.
"Oh this old thing? Shucks," he said.
"Dork."
"Goddess.

Chelsea M. Cameron

#24. Is Understatement 101 a course in medical school?"
"Of course. It's the prereq for Lying Through One's Teeth.

Jodi Picoult

#25. Crude at first [the short story] received a literary polish in the press, but its dominant quality remained. It was concise and condense, yet suggestive. It was delightfully extravagant - or a miracle of understatement

Bret Harte

#26. The quotation-business is booming. No subdivision of the culture seems too narrow to have a quotation book of its own ... It would be an understatement to say that these books lean on one another. To compare them is to stroll through a glorious jungle of incestuous mutual plagiarism.

James Gleick

#27. I was, in the 1960s, in a marriage. To use the word 'bad' would be perhaps the understatement of the year. It was dreadful.

Sherwin B. Nuland

#28. To say I live a cursed life is an understatement. I have to get up every day and work with people who are not as successful as me nor will they ever be as successful as me. Nobody knows the struggles I go through.

Zach Braff

#29. Whatever I'd say would be an understatement. I can only say my life was made much better by knowing him. He was one of the greatest people I've ever known, as a man, a friend, and a musician.

John Coltrane

#30. To say I have frizzy hair is an understatement. It is kinky, more pubic than cranial, and whitish blond, breaking off easily, like hay.

Kathryn Stockett

#31. Emo means different things to different people. Actually, that's a massive understatement. Emo seems solely to mean different things to different people - Like pig latin or books by Thomas Pynchon, confusion is one of its hallmark traits.

Andy Greenwald

#32. Kenney knows two essential truths about melodrama: First that it is most powerful when combined with irony and understatement; and second that it is a salient feature of modern life.

Stefan Kanfer

#33. The understatement, the self-ridicule, the delight in the foreignness of foreigners, the complete denial of any attempt to enlist the sympathies of his readers in the hardships he has capriciously invited.

Evelyn Waugh

#34. She was a cutter. Only saying she was a cutter might be an understatement. She was a destroyer of beautiful things.

Jaden Wilkes

#35. In 1975, I left the burning city of Beirut for the quiet insanity of England. To say that short, frail and wispy 15-year-old me didn't fit in would be such an understatement as to be a joke.

Rabih Alameddine

#36. When you hear that China is overcrowded, that's an understatement. I was shocked at the number of people. Even in the rural areas. I was also shocked at the poverty and at the living conditions.

Rosemary Mahoney

#37. The word, 'issues,' is perhaps a misnomer, a gross understatement, or a pale and withered description for very real psychological illnesses and emotional losses. Nevertheless, "post-adoption issues" is a catch-all phrase, and at least it avoid pathologizing adoptees.

Laura Dennis

#38. Who said that clothes make a statement? What an understatement that was. Clothes never shut up.

Susan Brownmiller

#39. To say a tiger is an "outside" animal is an understatement that is best appreciated when a tiger is inside.

John Vaillant

#40. I'm pretty blessed when it comes to clear skin. I owe that to being Cape Verdian. My whole family has great skin. My grandfather is 80 but doesn't look a day over 50. And we all love the sun, too, so blessed is an understatement!

Amber Rose

#41. However old-fashioned and right-wing this may sound, the American genius for language lies in understatement, in saying things simply, pointedly and quickly, and in making new and clean and swift what otherwise might be ponderous, round and slow.

Walter Kirn

#42. To say the loaner was not pretty was an understatement. It was a 1907's olive-green Buick Century with a white top. Lindsay felt like she was driving her living-room couch, but despite the looks, the engine purred and it glided over potholes in the road like butter
on toast.

Jenn McKinlay

#43. The English have no soul; they have the understatement instead.

George Mikes

#44. To say that O began to await her lover the minute he left her is a vast understatement: she was henceforth nothing but vigil and night.

Pauline Reage

#45. Gillard is as likeable as Rudd is charmless. She is self-deprecating; he is ludicrously vainglorious. She is a mistress of understatement; he is a ranter.

Germaine Greer

#46. I don't like being flattered. It doesn't suit my English sensibilities. Remember, we are the great country of understatement.

Martin Parr

#47. Baikida Carroll, whose balance of bravada and tenderness, facility and understatement mark him as a player to be reckoned with.

Jon Pareles

#48. Jealousy is a terrible thing. "It doth mock the meat it feeds upon" is an understatement. Jealousy is completely consuming, totally irrational, and absolutely debilitating. The most wonderful people in the world are nothing but raging animals when trapped in the throes of jealousy.

Arthur C. Clarke

#49. We look our best in subdued colors, sophisticated cuts, and a general air of sleek understatement.

Jil Sander

#50. Wow," I said, brilliant as always.
He chuckled. "Understatement of the millennium."(Sabina/Adam)

Jaye Wells

#51. The understatement is the English contribution to comedy.

Jim Davis

#52. I hated the term "heartbroken." It was such an understatement. "Broken" typically implied you were talking about something you could put back together. Or replace. My heart didn't feel like it was broken. It felt like it had been tossed into the blender and liquidized at 180 MPH.

Rachel K. Burke

#53. Brody cannot believe the size of the creature, and with a classic, practical understatement tells Quint his assessment: You're gonna need a bigger boat. Awestruck, they all view the full-sized, massive shark circling the boat. Quint estimates it is 25 feet long: Three tons of him.

Roy Scheider

#54. Meet my cat, Felipe. I should probably mention, he doesn't like strangers. * Understatement of the year. The gigantic, furry, striped monster with saber teeth and red glowing eyes was her cat? "Holy fuck, woman. He's the size of a bloody car.

Eve Langlais

#55. Yes, they're a little biased there, I agree. Mike smiles at this understatement, knowing as I do that saying they're a little biased in Mudd's favor at the Mudd-family-run Mudd home in Maryland is like saying cheese steaks are kind of associated with Philadelphia.

Sarah Vowell

#56. If you'd stop chattering, we could go get lunch." "You're the one who started the conversation by asking why I wear my purse." "How was I to know you'd give me a full inventory of what you carry? Other women keep that a secret." "I'm not like other women." There's an understatement. "I have noticed.

Cathy Marie Hake

#57. The beer came and I said, "Joe, I'm thinking that there is something larger here than an attorney's zealous defense of his client." The master of understatement.

Robert Crais

#58. So then do you think it's true that he killed someone? And what about the part where he wishes he could die?"
"If it IS true that he killed someone, that's bad."
In any case, "it seems like something is bothering Shuji" was now a contender for the Understatement of the Century.

Mizuki Nomura

#59. Hours is an understatement. I honestly don't know how the director and editor decide each week what actually makes it on the air. There's of course director and cast commentary on each episode on the DVD. We had a blast recording that.

Joel McHale

#60. I first decided that I wanted to act when I was 9. And I was at a very bizarre prep school at the time; to say 'high Anglo-Catholic' would be a real English understatement.

John Hurt

#61. Calling MacKenzie a mean girl is an understatement. She's a cobra with hoop earrings, blond hair extensions, and a spray-on tan.

Rachel Renee Russell

#62. It was not, they observed with exquisite understatement, a cry for help.

Jojo Moyes

#63. Emptiness and boredom: what a complete understatement. What I felt was complete desolation. Desolation, despair and boredom.

Susanna Kaysen

#64. People used to say obvious things ironically or as a form of understatement, but in the last few decades they seem to say it with a sense of discovery, and it worries me.

Kevin Hearne

#65. Deceivingly, Miss Neville, the word vodka means 'little water.' The Russians are masters of the understatement. - Lord Nash

Liz Carlyle

#66. To say it was a dark and stormy night would be a gross understatement. It was colder than witch's kiss, wetter than a spring swamp, and blacker than a tax collector's heart. A sane man would have been curled up in front of a fire with a cup of mulled wine and a good boo-, ah, a willing wench.

Hilari Bell

#67. To say that Sputnik gave rise to some concern in the United States would be the understatement of the century. The truth is that the US went apeshit

John Naughton

#68. Whether you are sixteen or over sixty, remember, understatement is the rule of a fine makeup artist.

Helena Rubinstein

#69. My father was a really funny guy. He lived a good long life. And he was the reason I wanted to be funny and become a comedian and a comedy writer, so to say that he's somewhat of a mythic figure in my life would be an understatement.

Carol Leifer

#70. To say that from the moment her lover had left, O began to await his return would be an understatement. She turned into pure vigil, darkness in waiting expectation of light.

Pauline Reage

#71. To say she was attractive would be an understatement. Calling her 'attractive' would be like calling the Taj Mahal a marble grave.

Mallika Nawal

#72. Between overstatement and understatement lies one hundred percent.

Sten Nadolny

#73. To ask if I am mischievous is the understatement of all time.

Malcolm Gets

#74. Understatement is overrated

Leigh Bardugo

#75. I'm a coyote shapeshifter playing in a world of werewolves and vampires
outmatched is an understatement.

Patricia Briggs

#76. The way you walk is slash and burn.
Like understatement's now a crime.

Justin Quinn

#77. It is an understatement to say that in this society injustices abound: In truth it is itself the quintessence of injustice.

Emil Cioran

#78. Richard Stark writes a harsh and frightening story of criminal warfare and vengeance with economy, understatement and a deadly amoral objectivity-a remarkable addition to the list of the shockers that the French call roman noirs.

Anthony Boucher

#79. It would be gross understatement to say that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is not a model of clarity. It is in many important respects a model of ambiguity or indeed even self-contradiction.

Antonin Scalia

#80. In 2007, when I was governor of New York, I proposed that our state once again permit undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver's license. To say the proposal lit a firestorm in the political arena is an understatement.

Eliot Spitzer

#81. To say that George Lucas cannot write a love scene is an understatement; greeting cards have expressed more passion.

Roger Ebert

#82. I think time management and dedication are the main factors along with being an organized person. To say I was highly ambitious would be an understatement. I'm never one to sit around, I always have to be creating in various facets to keep myself entertained.

Ashley Purdy

#83. Kitten, this is my best mate, Charles, but you can call him Spade. Charles, this is Cat, the woman I've been telling you about. You can see for yourself that everything I've said is ... an understatement.

Jeaniene Frost

#84. To say that the vote fraud conspiracy theorists are tilting at windmills is an understatement. They're using a legitimate public process to pursue an agenda that is, at best, grasping at straws and, at worse, partisan.

George Voinovich

#85. Cristal go by the cases, wait hold up that was racist
I would prefer the Aces, ain't no different when you taste it.
A 40 ounce to chase it, that's just an understatement.

ASAP Rocky

#86. Verbal description of everything, however, must remain infinitely distant from the thing itself, overstatement and understatement sometimes hitting off the truth better than a flat assertion of bare fact.

Anthony Powell

#87. To say that a writer's hold on reality is tenuous is an understatement-it's like saying the Titanic had a rough crossing. Writer's build their own realities, move into them and occasionally send letters home. The only difference between a writer and a crazy person is that a writer gets paid for it.

David Gerrold

#88. How many Elysiums have you been to?"
"Three," I said immediately. "At least ... this will be my third one."
"And how many Elysiums do you think I've been to?"
"Um. More than three?"
"I do appreciate your gift for the understatement.

Julie Kagawa

#89. Art begins when an observer's sensibilities engage with the understatements of a calculating craftsman.

Sara Genn

#90. I'm such a nobody.

Vincent Van Gogh

#91. Haydon was more than his model, he was his inspiration, the torch-bearer of a certain kind of English calling which - for the very reason that it was vague and understated and elusive - had made sense of Guillam's life till now.

John Le Carre

#92. Aye, aye, it must be so. I've oversailed him. How, got the start? Aye, he's chasing ME now; not I, HIM
that's bad

Herman Melville

#93. Unbutton, unzip, unclip, untie, undo, undress."
"Understood," she replied.

Michael Faudet

#94. Without question, his picture did not do him justice, but again, he was dead when it was taken

Loren D. Estleman

#95. 3053Geography also gave Russia a rich choice of potential enemies.

Margaret MacMillan