Understatement Quotes

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

Russell Page

Art, Eye, Imagination

Russell Page (2010). “The Education of a Gardener”, p.84, Random House

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

Helena Rubinstein

Artist, Makeup, Sixteen

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

Emily Procter

Car, Different, Stories

60 Copy quote
We look our best in subdued colors, sophisticated cuts, and a general air of sleek understatement.

Jil Sander

Cutting, Air, Color

54 Copy quote
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

Jesus, Would Be, Maps

YouTube Channel "drcraigvideos"/"Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? (William Lane Craig vs Richard Carrier)", www.youtube.com. December 24, 2010.

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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

Father, Long, Guy

Carol Leifer (2009). “When You Lie About Your Age, the Terrorists Win: Reflections on Looking in the Mirror”, p.3, Villard

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It isn't very serious, I have this tiny little tumor on the brain.

J. D. Salinger

Brain, Littles, Tiny

J.D. Salinger (1951). “The Catcher in the Rye”

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

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Love, Beautiful, Wedding

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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

Music, Men, Knowing

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The understatement is the English contribution to comedy.

Jim Davis

Comedy, Contribution

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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

Self, Mistress, Likeable

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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

Powerful, Two, Essentials

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Emptiness and boredom: what an understatement. What I felt was complete desolation. Desolation, despair, and depression. Isn't there some other way to look at this? After all, angst of these dimensions is a luxury item. You need to be well fed, clothes, and housed to have time for this much self-pity.

Susanna Kaysen

Self, Luxury, Clothes

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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

New York, Political, Arena

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... 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

Self, Denial, Hardship

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

Susanna Kaysen

Boredom, Despair, Emptiness

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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

Crazy, Moving, Home

David Gerrold (2002). “The Martian Child: A Novel About A Single Father Adopting A Son”, p.113, Forge Books

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

Susan Brownmiller

Clothes, Shut Up, Said

Susan Brownmiller (2013). “Femininity”, p.86, Open Road Media

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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

Thinking, Dedication, Creating

Source: marleymagazine.com

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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

Book, Would Be, Culture

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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

Miracle, Quality, Stories

Bret Harte (2001). “The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Writings”, p.218, Penguin

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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

Struggle, Successful, People

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Muffled lives explode in understatements.

Paul Gray

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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

Lost Everything, Transformation, Loses

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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

Self, Important, Would Be

"Bells Lose High Court Ruling" by Joanna Glasner, www.wired.com. January 25, 1999.

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