Dramatic Irony Quotes

Simply put, dramatic irony is when a person makes a harmless remark, and someone else who hears it knows something that makes the remark have a different, and usually unpleasant, meaning. For instance, if you were in a restaurant and said out loud, "I can't wait to eat the veal marsala I ordered," and there were people around who knew that the veal marsala was poisoned and that you would die as soon as you took a bite, your situation would be one of dramatic irony. ~ Lemony Snicket

Wait a second," said Ash. "How is there a 'moon in springtime before the start of the new year'? I think it's a riddle. It makes no sense."

"Yes, it does," said Jared. "The new year was in March in England until the 1700s, when the pope introduced a new calendar."

Everyone stared at him. Jared flushed slightly, scar thrown into relief, and muttered, "I read a lot of old books."

"Well done," said Jon. "See where learning gets you, lads? So much better than messing around with girls or playing those video games which one hears are full of violence."

Kami, as a witness to many of her father's video game marathons, gave him a long judgmental stare. "You total hypocrite."

"Hypocrisy is what being a parent is all about," Jon said. "Well done for cracking the books, Jared and Holly. You see how it pays off."

Holly smiled and the light of her smile seemed to spill all over the room, reflections of light refracted all over everywhere.

"It's true reading is a wonderful thing," Rusty observed. "I read a Cosmo a year ago, and I still remember how to keep my nails in perfect condition and also ten top tips on how to dress to accentuate my ass."

Now everybody was staring at Rusty. Unlike Jared, he did not blush.

"Those tips are working," he said. "Don't pretend you haven't all noticed. I know the truth."

Kami rolled up a magazine on the table - sadly, for the sake of dramatic irony ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

As you and I listen to Uncle Monty tell the three Baudelaire orphans that no harm will ever come to them in the Reptile Room, we should be experiencing the strange feeling that accompanies the arrival of dramatic irony. This feeling is not unlike the sinking in one's stomach when one is in an elevator that suddenly goes down, or when you are snug in bed and your closet door suddenly creaks open to reveal the person who has been hiding there. For no matter how safe and happy the three children felt, no matter how comforting Uncle Monty's words were, you and I know that soon Uncle Monty will be dead and the Baudelaires will be miserable once again. ~ Lemony Snicket

I don't mean to bum you out but... we're all going to die. The thing is, very few of us actually believe it. We look at pictures of people who have died and marvel at the pathos. 'Ah, there's Jean all smiling. She didn't know she'd be dead in three months.' Well, maybe Jean knew and maybe she didn't. But what she didn't do was go around hoping to provide someone else with a satisfying sense of dramatic irony. Nobody lives like that and it's odd that we do it to the dead sometimes. ~ Robert Webb

Dramatic uprising of stupidity can start from nowhere and only be seen when it reaches it's climax. ~ Auliq Ice

Don't you love fall?" Stacey asked. "All the little festivals, the changing leaves, kids in Halloween costumes, the dead spewing up out of their graves to haunt the living ... ~ J.L. Bryan

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

I was never the class clown or anything like that. When I was growing up and doing theatre in Seattle I was always doing very dramatic work. Now I can't get a dramatic role to save my life! ~ Anna Faris

Knee-Jerk Irony: The tendency to make flippant ironic comments as a reflexive matter of course in everyday conversation. ~ Douglas Coupland

The irony didn't escape her, that after years of reading with fascination about swindlers and cheats caught by the authorities, she should be the victim of one. Crime lost a great deal of its appeal when it happened to you. ~ Sabrina Jeffries

If you look at Stan Lee and the Marvel comics, yes, there's a lot of awesome, serious and dramatic action that takes place. ~ David Dastmalchian

The second reason why we haven't observed the growing gap is that our historical and social science analyses have concentrated on what has been happening within the 'middle classes' - that is, to that ten to fifteen percent of the population of the world-economy who consumed more surplus than they themselves produced. Within this sector there really has been a relatively dramatic flattening of the curve between the very top (less than one percent of the total population) and the truly 'middle' segments, or cadres (the rest of the ten to fifteen percent). ~ Immanuel Wallerstein

Now obviously, in peacetime a one-legged catcher, like a one-armed outfielder (such as the Mundys had roaming right), would have been at the most a curiosity somewhere down in the dingiest town in the minors - precisely where Hot had played during the many years that the nations of the world lived in harmony. But it is one of life's grisly ironies that what is catastrophe for most of mankind, invariably works to the advantage of a few who live on the fringes of the human community. On the other hand, it is a grisly irony to live on the fringes of the human community. ~ Philip Roth

All this Second Amendment shit is a money grab for these people. Follow the damned money! ~ Mark M. Bello

I have far more enthusiasm in life than I have actual energy. In my excitement, I routinely take on more that I can physically or emotionally handle, which causes me to break down in quite predictable displays of dramatic exhaustion. You will be the one burdened with the job of mopping me up every time I've overextended myself and then fallen apart. This will be unbelievably tedious. I apologize in advance. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

But the Egotist is stuck somewhere between his hidden triad of pride, fear, and insecurity; he is forever fighting to prove himself, instigating battles the Humbleman has unwittingly conquered, already sealed some time ago. Yes, the day he finally accepts face-to-face such an irony as humility - the irony that humility is indeed the mother of giants, that great men, having life so large, as needed, can afford to look small - the world will then know peace. ~ Criss Jami

We give up our power to the very people who took it away from us in the first place. ~ Patti Digh

I think I would explode in flames of irony if I were to option an idea that I was satirizing in a novel. ~ Jess Walter

Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage. ~ Lewis Hyde

Let the cut tell the story. Otherwise you have not got dramatic action, you've got narration. ~ David Mamet

I'm coming. I'm coming." Michaels rose up on his knees, gripped Judge's hips and yanked him into him, sat him on his rod while his orgasm made its dramatic appearance. His back went ramrod straight, the rapture consuming him. Michaels came on a silent yell. His volume was lacking, but his load was heavy and deep as it flowed inside his partner. Gave Judge all his power. "Damn. I feel you, Austin. So warm," Judge breathed. His partner was floating beneath him. He knew exactly what Judge was feeling. That flooding of warm come, filling him up and searing him inside. Even in the outdoors, the air was thick with their combined scents. More pungent and masculine than the sweet aromas of lavender and lilies. Michaels ~ A.E. Via

Khrushchev first denounced Stalin's purges at the Soviet Communist Party's 20th Congress. After his dramatic speech, someone in the audience shouted out, asking what Khrushchev had been doing at the time. Khrushchev responded by asking the questioner to please stand up and identify himself. The audience remained silent. Khrushchev replied: "That is what I did, too. ~ Avinash K. Dixit

A great irony of sleep is that, while it is meant to revitalize, one is never really at the controls of the dreams it broadcasts to oneself. Sleep is the ultimate proof of man, not as a dreamer, but as a gambler. ~ Prateek Goorha

Few photographers have ever considered the photography of wild animals, as distinctly opposed to the genre of Wildlife Photography, as an art form. The emphasis has generally been on capturing the drama of wild animals IN ACTION, on capturing that dramatic single moment, as opposed to simply animals in the state of being. ~ Nick Brandt

One day I am at home, watching dramatic images of Iraqi Yazidis fleeing for their lives being aired nonstop on 24-hour news channels. Days later, I am there, staring at tens of thousands of displaced Iraqis and feeling a 35-millimeter frame cannot capture the scope of devastation and heartbreak before me. ~ Lynsey Addario

Women are interchangeable as sex objects; women are slightly less disposable as mothers. The only dignity and value women get is as mothers: it is a compromised dignity and a low value, but it is all that is offered to women as women. Having children is the best thing women can do to get respect and be assured a place. The fact that having children does not get women respect or a place is almost beside the point: poor women don't get respect and live in dung heaps; black women don't get respect and are jailed in decimated ghettos; just plain pregnant women don't get respect and the place they have is a dangerous one - pregnancy is now considered a cause of battery (stress on the male, don't you know): in perhaps 25 percent of families in which battery occurs, it is a pregnant woman who has been battered. In fact, having children may mean both increased violence and increased dependence; it may significantly worsen the economic circumstances of a woman or a family; it may hurt a woman's health or jeopardize her in a host of other ways; but having children is the one social contribution credited to women - it is the bedrock of women's social worth. Despite all the happy smiling public mommies, the private mommies have grim private recognitions. One perception is particularly chilling: without the children, I am not worth much. The recognition is actually more dramatic than that, much more chilling: without the children, I am not. ~ Andrea Dworkin

The Internet has destroyed irony in the world, or at least wounded it considerably. What are we to do about an invention whose end result is that starving people in China are looking up things on marthastewart.com? ~ Douglas Coupland

I have enough drama in my career, and then always playing dramatic roles and storylines ... I like to lead a very low profile. ~ Jessica Lowndes

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

I'm known as a kind of dramatic, serious, almost humorless actor and the fact is, I'm a funny guy, and I spend most of my life trying to find a lighter side of things, and on stage was given plenty of opportunity to do that. ~ Campbell Scott

A short poem from my new book, The Lost Journal of my Second Trip to Pergatory,
Thorny Crowns
Of course the gold one was for special occasions, weddings, etc,
silver for family reunions, office-casual type affairs.
Bronze was a everyday choice; during yard work its burnished surface shone in sunlight.
There were various colors and holiday appropriate ones.
I could never find the hatboxes they were stored in.
But the wooden one was reserved for the long suffering caused by family.
Stevie's funeral, my hospital trips and sister's rebellion rated real wood.
One tip filed extra sharp produced a fine and dramatic line of blood droplets on her brow. ~ Michelle Hartman

Even You-Know-Who can't split himself into seven. ~ J.K. Rowling

Abortion is one of the most shocking, yet entirely logical, extensions of this obsession with comfort, convenience and luxury. Less dramatic, but just as deadly to millions of lost souls in our world, is our unwillingness to make even small sacrifices to reach them with the Gospel. ~ K.P. Yohannan

God-fucking-damn but he was seriously good-looking. "Have you ever had the stuffed pancakes here? They're evil. I highly recommend them."
"Heh. The cop is recommending evil," I said. "Too funny."
To my surprise, Ivanov chuckled. "You've discovered my dark side. ~ Diana Rowland

On a micro level, if we're not terribly lucky, this sort of thing can happen to us quite frequently - the political becoming the personal in dramatic and irreparable ways. I remember the first time I went out into the desert, passing by all these mine fields and getting the history on them from my guide and realizing all these murderous mechanisms were real, were just sitting out there waiting for a victim, and some of them had been for sixty, seventy, eighty years. ~ Ron Currie Jr.

I know a dramatic role is going to happen, but you just got to be patient, you know? It's going to happen when it's supposed to happen. I'm not rushing it. I'm not trying to make it happen tomorrow. ~ Kevin Hart

Is that all we mortals are? The victims of tortured irony to amuse an insane murder of gods?

A murder of crows, a murder of gods-I like that, lass. ~ Steven Erikson