Irony Quotes

I've often heard it said, a preacherMight learn, with a comedian for a teacher.

~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

[sic] his reaction was a sign of civilization. Nobody reaches for a gun anymore, just for his lawyer.

~ Peter F. Hamilton

The newly-minted captain is told to let nothing stop him but to do nothing that would risk his ship or his crew.

~ Patrick O'brian

And now none of it could be undone. That was the exquisite irony: the act that had undone everything could not itself be undone.

~ Paul Russell

I wonder if the highlighter was highlight of the career for the person who invented it?

~ Ryan Lilly

Peace ain't worth fighting for.

~ Brian Spellman

All U.S. irony is based on an implicit I don't really mean what I say. So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That it's impossible to mean what you say? That maybe it's too bad it's impossible, but wake up and smell the coffee already? Most likely, I think, today's irony ends up saying: How very banal to ask what I mean. Anyone with the heretical gall to ask an ironist what he actually stands for ends up looking like a hysteric or a prig. And herein lies the oppressiveness of institutionalized irony, the too-successful rebel: the ability to interdict the question without attending to its content is tyranny. It is the new junta, using the very tool that exposed its enemy to insulate itself.This is why our educated teleholic friends' use of weary cynicism to try to seem superior to TV is so pathetic.

~ David Foster Wallace

Peter, who broke his enemies on the rack and hanged them in Red Square, who had his son tortured to death, is Peter the Great. But Nicholas, whose hand was lighter than that of any tsar before him, is Bloody Nicholas. In human terms, this is irony rich and dramatic, the more so because Nicholas knew what he was called.

~ Robert K. Massie

I do love irony. It’s so…complicated and coincidental.

~ Cassandra Kemper

We are dancing on our irony as upon the top of glowing sparks.

~ Anaïs Nin

In spite of her superficial independence, her fundamental need was to cling.All her life was an attempt to disprove it; and so proved it. She was like a sea anemone -- had only to be touched once to adhere to what touched her.

~ John Fowles

I had made a friend. My second one in fourteen years. I was on a roll

~ James Patterson

God’s in His heaven—All’s right with the world!

~ Robert Browning

Soon, she and the rest of them would be ironic much of the time, unable to answer an innocent question without giving their words a snide little adjustment. Fairly soon after that, the snideness would soften, the irony would be mixed in with seriousness, and the years would shorten and fly.

~ Meg Wolitzer

He gave me a warm smile, and I blinked, realizing he was cute. I'd never really hadthe luxury of noticing cuteness or lack thereof in guys. Mostly it was the lethal/nonlethal distinction that I went with

~ James Patterson

In the grounds of the château was a churchsaid to date from the year 1000, and he went to look at it, but he had never really understood what people saw in oldchurches.

~ Ken Follett

In the grounds of the château was a church said to date from the year 1000, and he went to look at it, but he had never really understood what people saw in old churches.

~ Ken Follett

She feels Brutal Dynasty actually may become the Great American Novel she and her fellow critics have been looking for so long.

~ Clyde Brion Davis

I would never dream of killing an excellent tailor, not even to keep a secret that could endanger my life.

~ Charlie Huston

Maia screamed and woke. 'Serenity?' Cala's voice, Cala's angular shape outlined against the window. ' 'Tis an ironic title, in sooth,' Maia said feebly, realizing that the entangling garments of the nightmare were merely his bedsheets. His heart was hammering, and he was clammy with sweat.

~ Katherine Addison

Do you care for any contemporary authors?” Matthew inquired. “I adore Jane Austen.” Matthew nodded. “I find her portrait of British society so accurate and yet so dreadful.” “I agree. It must be awful to be so bound by what society expects,” Lisbeth answered. “I am so glad to have been born in America, where one has freedom.

~ Laila Ibrahim

You ought to give up detecting and try fantasy writing, Strike

~ Robert Galbraith

Imagine a factory staffed by Alphas—that is to say by separate and unrelated individuals of good heredity and conditioned so as to be capable (within limits) of making a free choice and assuming responsibilities. Imagine it!

~ Aldous Huxley

Funny, though, I don't feel too bad.

~ Suzanne Collins

To condemn slavery was one thing—that I could do in my own individual heart—but female ministers!

~ Sue Monk Kidd

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

Wouldn't it be ironic if everyone who got a radio up and running just sat around waiting for everyone else to transmit a message?

~ Patricia Hamill

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

Doakes had a first name! It was Albert - had anyone ever really called him that? Unthinkable. I had assumed his name was Sergeant.

~ Jeff Lindsay

I think this goes more to the idea of 'relentless irony' than 'divine providence.

~ Donna Tartt

But it was a matter of great consolation to her, that what brought evil to herself would bring good to her sister; and Elinor, on the other hand, suspecting that it would not be in her power to avoid Edward entirely, comforted herself by thinking, that though their longer stay would therefore militate against her own happiness, it would be better for Marianne than an immediate return into Devonshire.

~ Jane Austen

Pretty average headlines for a worldwide catastrophe,” Jane remarked as she read from Hollywood's Highest. “Some man in Africa claimed to have found the cure for AIDS, yet another politician said something about the president and now formally regrets it, and a pop star OD'd while an actress lost fifteen pounds overnight, and here's how you can, too!” She continued reading. “Oh, wow. The 'Celebrititties' section says she was in a car accident and her arms had to be amputated. Damn.

~ Bryant A. Loney

You ought to be ironical the minute you get out of bed. You ought to wake up with your mouth full of pity.

~ Ernest Hemingway

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

~ Louis Sachar

VLADIMIR: Moron!ESTRAGON: Vermin!VLADIMIR: Abortion!ESTRAGON: Morpion!VLADIMIR: Sewer-rat!ESTRAGON: Curate!VLADIMIR: C

~ Samuel Beckett

Oh - a diamond ring - and Rhett, do buy a great big one!

~ Margaret Mitchell

The next morning I had Twentieth-Century American Poetry at MCC. This old woman gave a lecture wherein she managed to talk for ninety minutes about Sylvia Plath without ever once quoting a single word of Sylvia Plath.

~ John Green

Wrath: look at how their folklore portrays our species. There's Dracula for Christ's sake, an evil bloodsucker who preys on the defenseless. There's piss-poor B movies and porn. And don't get me started on the whole Halloween thing. Plastic fangs. Black capes. The only thing the idiots got right are that we drink blood and that we can't go out in daylight. The rest is bullshit, fabricated to alienate us and stimulate fear in the masses. Or just as offensive, the fiction used to create some kind of mystique for bored humans who think the dark side is a fun place to visit.

~ J.r. Ward

«Such is the irony of life,» Kruppe proclaimed, raising one pastry-filled hand over his head, «that one learns to distrust the obvious, surrendering instead to insidious suspicion and confused conclusion. But, is Kruppe deceived? Can an eel swim? Hurrah, these seeming muddy waters are home to Kruppe, and his eyes are wide with wonder.»

~ Steven Erikson

Haw! Haw! Inconceivable stupidity is just what you're going to get! (Brigadier-General Henry Wilson, on being challenged in 1910 about the likelihood of a European war)

~ Max Hastings