Irony Quotes - Page 22

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

  John Perry Barlow

  Thinking, Tolerance, Determined

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• As you watch the world crumble, try taking your Armageddon with this sprinkling of irony: Over the last three decades, business has got virtually everything it wanted, and its doomsday scenario from the 1970s has come true because of it.

  Thomas Frank

  Trying, Watches, Three

  "Wrecking, Wrecking, Wrecked" by Thomas Frank, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 30, 2008.

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• Advertisers like that because they want you to feel their product isn't normal - this perfume isn't normal, this set of lingerie isn't normal. The irony is that they are appealing to normal people to buy the product because they want them to identify with an exotic life that they don't lead.

  Cary Cooper

  People, Exotic, Want

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• Suppose we took a thousand negatives...
  combining the elegances, the squalor, the curiosities, the monuments, the sad faces, the triumphant faces, the power, the irony, the strength, the decay, the past, the present, the future of a city - that would be my favorite picture.

  Berenice Abbott

  Past, Cities, Curiosity

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• When a library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me.

  Mark Twain

  Lying, Book, Age

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.234, Courier Corporation

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• The irony of multitasking is that it's exhausting: when you're doing two or three things simultaneously, you use more energy than the sum of energy required to do each task independently. You're also cheating yourself because your're not doing anything excellently. You're compromising your virtuosity. In the words of T. S. Elliot, you're 'distracted from distractions by distractions'.

  Twyla Tharp

  Cheating, Two, Energy

  Twyla Tharp, Mark Reiter (2003). “The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life”, Simon and Schuster

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• The irony about selling out is that they only call you a sell-out when your stuff finally sells - I've had products bearing my name since I was 14, but nobody was buying them then.

  Tony Hawk

  Names, Stuff, Buying

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• The mystery of life--its inexplicability, beauty, cruelty, tenderness, folly . . . has occupied the greater part of my waking thoughts; and in reverence or rage or irony, as the moment or situation might dictate, I have pondered and even demanded of cosmic energy to know Why.

  Theodore Dreiser

  Energy, Might, Waking

  Theodore Dreiser (1977). “Theodore Dreiser: a selection of uncollected prose”, Wayne State Univ Pr

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• The last and most painful irony is that the two longtime rival armies in the securitization market - the investment banks and the GSEs - would end up magnifying each other's sins rather than keeping each other in check.

  Bethany McLean

  Army, Two, Rivals

  Bethany McLean, Joe Nocera (2011). “All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis”, p.189, Penguin

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• It is one of history's ironies that Communism, advertised as a classless society, tended to breed a privileged class of feudal proportions.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Class, Communism, Proportion

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• 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

  Philosophical, Attention, Pay

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• Humor, together with irony,forms a safeguard against idolatry.

  Krister Stendahl

  Together, Form, Theologian

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• 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.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Perfection, Dull, Aim

  W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

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• I wish people who have trouble communicating would just shut up.

  Tom Lehrer

  Inspirational, Funny, Work

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• Joyfully celebrating the killing of a killer who joyfully celebrated killing carries an irony that I hope will not be lost on us. Are we learning anything, or simply spinning harder in the cycle of violence?

  Brian D. McLaren

  Killers, Spinning, Violence

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• With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very common phenomenon.

  Albert Einstein

  Stupid, Memorable, Ironic

  Albert Einstein (2013). “Albert Einstein, The Human Side: Glimpses from His Archives”, p.8, Princeton University Press

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• It's one of the tragic ironies of the theatre that only one man in it can count on steady work - the night watchman.

  Tallulah Bankhead

  Work, Women, Memorable

  Tallulah Bankhead (1952). “Tallulah: My Autobiography”, p.8, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Postmodern irony and cynicism's become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. Few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what's wrong, because they'll look sentimental and naive to all the weary ironists. Irony's gone from liberating to enslaving. ... The postmodern founders' patricidal work was great, but patricide produces orphans, and no amount of revelry can make up for the fact that writers my age have been literary orphans throughout our formative years.

  David Foster Wallace

  Writing, Artist, Years

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• Irony ... may be defined as what people miss.

  Julian Barnes

  Writing, People, Missing

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

  Joseph Conrad

  Ironic, Dull, Safe

  Joseph Conrad (1905). “Lord Jim”, p.210, McClure, Phillips & Company

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• Not every book has to be loaded with symbolism, irony, or musical language, but it seems to me that every book-at least every one worth reading-is about something.

  Stephen King

  Book, Reading, Writing

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• Irony - The modern mode: either the devil’s mark or the snorkel of sanity.

  Julian Barnes

  Ironic, Devil, Sanity

  Julian Barnes (1984). “Flaubert's parrot”, Vintage

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• So, I'm on Sesame Street, walking around with all these monsters, Elmo and his buddies, a whole bunch of chickens, a whole bunch of penguins and a number four dancing about. It was just pure joy, simple, ridiculous fun, stupid joy. There's no irony. Sesame Street is just a crazy great place to be.

  Feist

  Fun, Stupid, Crazy

  "Headed for the top". Interview with Alexis Petridis, www.theguardian.com. April 25, 2008.

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• What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.

  Georges Bernanos

  Teenage, Knowing, Bird

  Georges Bernanos, Rémy Rougeau (2002). “The Diary of a Country Priest”, p.123, Da Capo Press

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• All in all, I think that out of all musical genres, the world of metal is the most escapist one. Metal is also music for people who think for themselves. I think metalheads are smart people who possess a healthy dose of self-irony and a good sense of humor, and that appeals to me. I felt a strong affinity with the scene from the first moment on.

  Tuomas Holopainen

  Music, Strong, Smart

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