Irony Quotes

“Nobody steals books but your friends.”
― Roger Zelazny, The Guns of Avalon

“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book. I'll waste no time reading it.”
― Moses Hadas

“It was growing late, and though one might stand on the brink of a deep chasm of disaster, one was still obliged to dress for dinner.”
― Georgette Heyer, April Lady

“Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my poor nerves.

"You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They
are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration
these last twenty years at least.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance - a misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well−informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people.”
― Terry Pratchett, Maskerade

“People often say that the English are very cold fish, very reserved, that they have a way of looking at things – even tragedy – with a sense of irony. There’s some truth in it; it’s pretty stupid of them, though. Humor won’t save you; it doesn’t really do anything at all. You can look at life ironically for years, maybe decades; there are people who seem to go through most of their lives seeing the funny side, but in the end, life always breaks your heart. Doesn’t matter how brave you are, how reserved, or how much you’ve developed a sense of humor, you still end up with your heart broken. That’s when you stop laughing. In the end there’s just the cold, the silence and the loneliness. In the end, there’s only death.”
― Michel Houellebecq, The Elementary Particles

“Our world will not die as the result of the bomb, as the papers say, it will die of laughter, of banality, or making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke at that.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which to look out
Christ's compassion to the world
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.”
― St. Teresa of Avila

“Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of health; everything absolute belongs to pathology.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

“It’s awful, telling it like this, isn’t it? As though we didn’t know the ending. As though it could have another ending. It’s like watching Romeo drink poison. Every time you see it you get fooled into thinking his girlfriend might wake up and stop him. Every single time you see it you want to shout, 'You stupid ass, just wait a minute,' and she’ll open her eyes! 'Oi, you, you twat, open your eyes, wake up! Don’t die this time!' But they always do.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.”
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, Or, the New Pilgrims' Progress

“The ballot is stronger than the bullet.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“You could write a book about things that you can't find on-line.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Linger

“What a refreshing mind you have, young man. There really is nothing quite like total ignorance, is there?”
― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

“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

“The world isn't fair? What a huge revelation! Some people in power abuse those they have power over? Amazing! When did this start happening?”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“So, now I've been to see a drug counselor who told me I need to lay off the drugs and talk about my feelings, and a shrink who heard what I had to say and immediately put me on drugs.”
― Libba Bray, Going Bovine

“I often wonder why the whole world is so prone to generalise. Generalisations are seldom if ever true and are usually utterly inaccurate.”
― Agatha Christie, Murder at the Vicarage

“girls
please give your
bodies and your
lives
to
the young men
who
deserve them

besides
there is
no way
I would welcome
the
intolerable
dull
senseless hell
you would bring
me

and
I wish you
luck
in bed
and
out

but not
in
mine

thank
you.”
― Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

“To paraphrase Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear, and all those guys, "I wish I had known this some time ago.”
― Roger Zelazny, Sign of the Unicorn

“That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“For the whole earth is the tomb of famous men; not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions in their own country, but in foreign lands there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men. Make them your examples, and, esteeming courage to be freedom and freedom to be happiness, do not weigh too nicely the perils of war."

[Funeral Oration of Pericles]”
― Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

“The thing about changing the world... Once you do it, the world's all different.”
― Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home

“Give the People what they want - and they'll get what they deserve.”
― The Kinks

“War is always an adventure to those who've never seen it.”
― Anthony Ryan, Blood Song

“The struggle for a free intelligence has always been a struggle between the ironic and the literal mind.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“I would rather be an artist than a leader. Ironically, a leader has to follow the rules.”
― Criss Jami, Venus in Arms

“I pound on the glass, screaming my head off. Everyone ignores me except for some Capitol attendant who appears behind me and offers me a beverage.”
― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games