Irreverent Quotes

It was journalism at its best: irreverent, mischievous and beholden to no one. ~ Toby Young

John Lennon was very irreverent and very intelligent. ~ Brenda Lee

Birdscapes moves rather like those swallows, dipping and swerving to pick up all sorts of items of interest. Mynott tells plenty of good birding tales, but these serve mainly to set off trains of reflection ... Reading Birdscapes is like going birding with a learned, witty, and somewhat irreverent companion who isn't satisfied just to check things off ... [D]elightful to read on a journey or a housebound day, and [opens] fascinating new horizons for anyone who wants to enlarge his or her interest in birds. ~ Robert O. Paxton

But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness(2Timothy 2:16). ~ Euginia Herlihy

God is not a static thing ... but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance. ~ C.S. Lewis

Not everything on TV can be edgy and irreverent, otherwise you'd end up with weather presenters shouting, 'Listen up bitches!', after which the whole of middle England would spin off its axis and someone would get strangled with a tea towel. ~ Richard Porter

Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible. ~ Richard Feynman

I think I definitely want to blame my parents on this one. One of the things about having a minister for a father, you do tend to develop an irreverent streak. Kinda goes with the territory. And Dad was as bad as I am, really . ~ Matt Ruff

First in violence, deepest in dirt, lawless, unlovely, ill-smelling, irreverent, new; an overgrown gawk of a - village, the "tough" among cities, a spectacle for the nation. ~ Lincoln Steffens

You've always called me irreverent. You've
branded me irreverent. In my mind you invented irreverent. ~ Chloe Caldwell

Onto Chastity Bjornsen's car radio came the drawling irreverent brass and subhip syncopation of a Herb Alpert arrangement, which Doc realized with growing horror was a cover of Ohio Express's "Yummy Yummy Yummy." He ~ Thomas Pynchon

Like other kinds of intelligence, the storyteller's is partly
natural, partly trained. It is composed of several qualities, most
of which, in normal people, are signs of either immaturity or
incivility: wit (a tendency to make irreverent connections);
obstinacy and a tendency toward churlishness (a refusal to
believe what all sensible people know is true); childishness (an
apparent lack of mental focus and serious life purpose, a fondness
for daydreaming and telling pointless lies, a lack of proper
respect, mischievousness, an unseemly propensity for crying
over nothing); a marked tendency toward oral or anal fixation
or both (the oral manifested by excessive eating, drinking,
smoking, and chattering; the anal by nervous cleanliness and
neatness coupled with a weird fascination with dirty jokes);
remarkable powers of eidetic recall, or visual memory (a usual
feature of early adolescence and mental retardation); a strange
admixture of shameless playfulness and embarrassing earnestness,
the latter often heightened by irrationally intense feelings
for or against religion; patience like a cat's; a criminal streak of
cunning; psychological instability; recklessness, impulsiveness,
and improvidence; and finally, an inexplicable and incurable
addiction to stories, written or oral, bad or good. ~ John Gardner

If there is any irreverence in my own work, I hope it is the irreverence I bear in mistrusting my own sincere self, which then sincerely mistrusts the irreverent me. If there is a bottom to this, I think it is a life's work. ~ Mary Ruefle

Original thought, original artistic expression is by its very nature questioning, irreverent, iconoclastic. ~ Salman Rushdie

I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the things which were sacred to other people. ~ Mark Twain

When you play a sax, that saxophone is irreverent. It's noisy; it's a trickster ... you cannot hide the saxophone in your hands, so it's a good teacher. ~ Joy Harjo

The Suyá reaction to my recording was one of the clearest statements I obtained about the importance of the different parts to the total sound. The melody line - the clearly organized tone and rythm being performed by the older men - was only part of the desired effect, which also included the apparently irreverent calls, shouts, and giggles. ~ Anthony Seeger

Time consecrates; and what is gray with age becomes religion. ~ Friedrich Schiller

We pray for those who have ceased to pray. We pray for those that need prayer more than ever, that have fewer and fewer seasons even of thought, that grow hard with years, that are less and less troubled by sin, and that are more and more irreverent of religion. We pray for the children of Christian parents who sometimes weep at the memory of father and mother, but who never have thought of God. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

The first time I heard him speak, I was sunk; his voice made my stomach do a skydive to my toes without a parachute. His voice reminded me of jazz and the bedroom and a strip tease: melodic, deep, soothing, slightly sandpapery, but with an irreverent, careless quality. I daydreamed about him reading me a book, the newspaper, a greeting card, an eviction notice - anything. ~ Penny Reid

I think I am really irreverent and I pretty much just talk to and about men the way men talk to and about women. ~ Kesha

In writing, they deem it irreverent to express the Supreme Being by any special name. He is symbolized by what may be termed the heiroglyphic of a pyramid, /. In prayer they address Him by a name which they deem too sacred to confide to a stranger, and I know it not. In conversation they generally use a periphrastic epithet, such as the All-Good. The letter V, symbolical of the inverted pyramid, where it is an initial, nearly always denotes excellence of power; as Vril, of which I have said so much; Veed, an immortal spirit; Veed-ya, immortality; ~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Cynicism is extremely contagious, and the most pious among us cannot long endure its potency. The gullible should be on their guard, however, since this endearing quality frequently masquerades as wit. ~ Mike Corbett

If our hard-earned liberty, our desire to be irreverent of the old and to question the new, can be reduced to one, basic and indispensable right, it must be the right to free speech. ~ Maajid Nawaz

She closed her eyes and felt him inside her skin. Where he was vibrant and smart and irreverent and loving. She saw his smile, heard his laugh. Felt his hands. Felt his body. Now he was gone. But he hadn't left. And she sometimes wondered if that was him, beating on her heart. And she wondered what would happen if he stopped. Every night she came here. Parked. And stared at the window. Hoping to see some sign of life. ~ Louise Penny

You'll have a hard time getting any Alchemist to admit that. But I can say you're okay for an irreverent party boy with occasional moments of brilliance."
"Brilliant? You think I'm Brilliant?" He threw his hands skyward. "You hear that world? Sage says I'm brilliant."
"That's not what I said!"
He dropped the cigarette and stamped it out, giving me a devil-may-care grin. "Thanks for the ego boost. I'm going to go and tell Clarence and Lee all about your high opinion."
"Hey, I didn't-"
But he was already gone. ~ Richelle Mead

Plato and his disciples approach,' announced irreverent Teddy, as Mr. March came in with several young men and women about him; for the wise old man was universally beloved, and ministered so beautifully to his flock that many of them thanked him all their lives for the help given to both hearts and souls. ~ Louisa May Alcott

Most poetry is the utterance of a man in some state of passion, love, joy, grief, rage, etc., and no doubt this is as it should be. But no man is perpetually in a passion and those states in which he is amused and amusing, detached and irreverent, if less important, are no less amusing. If there were no poets who, like Byron, express these states, Poetry would lack something. ~ W. H. Auden

Manners without sincerity, is called polite society ~ Josh Stern

I loved Adam Sandler's early stuff. I thought it was so cool how irreverent and weird he would get. ~ Adam DeVine

A big man stood looking out the window at the night. He had a close-cropped haircut, obviously military, and wore a camouflage uniform. Pink scalp showed through his light colored hair and his thick neck glowed red.

There's a stroke waiting to happen. Tara couldn't stop the irreverent thought. ~ D. L. Robinson Red Death

The real work of this life is not what we do every day from 9-5 ... The real work is to be passionate, be holy, be wild, be irreverent, to laugh and cry until you awaken the sleeping spirits, until the ground of your being cleaves and the universe comes flooding in. ~ Geneen Roth

I don't plan [my recordings], I really don't. It's so spontaneous I wish all rock lovers and rock journalist could witness a Ted Nugent recording session. It is so primal, it's like idiot kids in the garage with their first loud amplifiers, its intoxicating, it is irreverent, it is uninhibited. ~ Ted Nugent

The more irreverent one is, the greater is the expectation of reverence from others. ~ Alok Karkera

Toyin Falola has given us what is truly rare in modern African writing: a seriously funny, racy, irreverent package of memories, and full of the most wonderful pieces of poetry and ordinary information. It is a matter of some interest, that the only other volume A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt reminds one of is Ake, by Wole Soyinka. What is it about these Yorubas? ~ Ama Ata Aidoo

This is fan fiction, but it's the fan fiction of a classical scholar who knows his stuff, even if he is a touch irreverent and unorthodox. ~ Sarah Warning Potentially Off-Topic

Ancient poetry and mythology suggest, at least, that husbandry was once a sacred art; but it is pursued with irreverent haste and heedlessness by us, our object being to have large farms and large crops merely. We have no festival, nor procession, nor ceremony, not excepting our cattle-shows and so-called Thanksgivings, by which the farmer expresses a sense of the sacredness of his calling, or is reminded of its sacred origin. It is the premium and the feast which tempt him. He sacrifices not to Ceres and the Terrestrial Jove, but to the infernal Plutus rather. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The only movie I can watch on a loop, over and over, is 'Help', the Beatles movie. It's so funny and irreverent and great. ~ Emma Stone

I'm pretty irreverent. There is a lot of need to find humour in life. Although I'd never be as disrespectful to laugh at someone's expense. ~ Michael Bolton

...While many who have debated the image of female sexuality have put "explicit" and "self-objectifying" on one side and "respectable" and "covered-up" on the other, I find this a flawed means of categorization. [...] There is a creative possibility for liberatory explicitness because it may expand the confines of what women are allowed to say and do. We just need to refer to the history of blues music - one full of raunchy, irreverent, and transgressive women artists - for examples. Yet the overwhelming prevalence of the Madonna/whore dichotomy in American culture means that any woman who uses explicit language or images in her creative expression is in danger of being symbolically cast into the role of whore regardless of what liberatory intentions she may have. ~ Imani Perry

Speak not of guilt, speak not of responsibility. When the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners; when the senses shiver and shudder, it is only a fool and and an irreverent person that will keep his distance, who will not embrace the good cause, marching towards the conquest of pleasures and passions. All of morality's laws - poorly understood and applied - are nil and cannot stand even for a moment, when the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners. ~ C.P. Cavafy

Don't fall in love with a woman who reads, a woman who feels too much, a woman who writes...
Don't fall in love with an educated, magical, delusional, crazy woman. Don't fall in love with a woman who thinks, who knows what she knows and also knows how to fly; a woman sure of herself.
Don't fall in love with a woman who laughs or cries making love, knows how to turn her spirit into flesh; let alone one that loves poetry (these are the most dangerous), or spends half an hour contemplating a painting and isn't able to live without music.
Don't fall in love with a woman who is interested in politics and is rebellious and feel a huge horror from injustice. One who does not like to watch television at all. Or a woman who is beautiful no matter the features of her face or her body.
Don't fall in love with a woman who is intense, entertaining, lucid and irreverent. Don't wish to fall in love with a woman like that. Because when you fall in love with a woman like that, whether she stays with you or not, whether she loves you or not, from a woman like that, you never come back. ~ Martha Rivera-Garrido

God never gave man a thing to do concerning which it were irreverent to ponder how the Son of God would have done it. ~ George MacDonald

True friendship is trading photos from toilets. It's a willingness to be vulnerable and stupid and irreverent in a way that other people can't accept and that you can't accept from other people. ~ Mike Wehner

A book that is written for the quirky, mischievous, and decidedly irreverent-minded modern reader, Confessions from the Comments Section will appeal to anyone who enjoys a clever, no-holds-barred roast of our contemporary cultural chaos. ~ Jonathan Kieran

Comics write to their point of view. If you're an exceedingly irreverent comedian, you've got to see where that point of view fits or produces the most funny. ~ Jim Gaffigan

One of the many divine qualities of the Bible is that it does not yield its secrets to the irreverent and the censorious. ~ J.I. Packer

What had happened? Age, he guessed. And with it: Jobs. Money. Children. The things to forestall death, the things to ensure one's relevance, the things to comfort and provide context and content. The march forward, one dictated by biology and convention, that not even the most irreverent mind could withstand. But ~ Hanya Yanagihara

Are you threatening me?" He looked completely outraged at such a thing.
"You bet your incredibly attractive and probably hard enough to bounce a quarter off ass I am!" she snapped back.
An indescribable look flitted across his face. "You are the most irreverent woman I've ever met."
"And you're the handsomest man I've ever seen in my life, but that doesn't mean I'm going to lick you!" she yelled. ~ Katie MacAlister

In this quiet corner, the best wild flowers grow, and the first peepers are heard in the spring, even before the snow melts. Here, owls call from the treetops in the early morning, and the irreverent crows hold their noisy conventions. Here, the mother deer has her fawn, and the migrating geese come to rest. It is here that the fox is safe from the hunters. ~ Alice Provensen

I thought that I needed a church and hundreds of guests and music that
actually sounded like music, but I was wrong.
What I needed was a drunken priest, irreverent guests, and a companion
who learned to play piano from a goat."
"Then you got exactly what you needed."
"I suppose so. But then again, all I really needed was you. ~ Julia Quinn

None seemed irreverent enough to address the situation of being a baby, of caretaking a baby. Do castration and the Phallus tell us the deep Truths of Western culture or just the truth of how things are and might not always be? It astonishes and shames me to think that I spent years finding such questions not only comprehensible, but compelling. ~ Maggie Nelson

That a good man may have his back to the wall is no more than we knew already, but that God could have His back to the wall is a boast for all insurgents forever. Christianity is the only religion on earth that has felt that omnipotence made God incomplete. Christianity alone felt that God, to be wholly God, must have been a rebel as well as a king. Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point -- and does not break. In this indeed I approach a matter more dark and awful than it is easy to discuss; and I apologize in advance if any of my phrases fall wrong or seem irreverent touching a matter which the greatest saints and thinkers have justly feared to approach. But in the terrific tale of the Passion there is a distinct emotional suggestion that the author of all things (in some unthinkable way) went not only through agony, but through doubt. It is written, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." No; but the Lord thy God may tempt Himself; and it seems as if this was what happened in Gethsemane. In a garden Satan tempted man: and in a garden God tempted God. He passed in some superhuman manner through our human horror of pessimism. When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God. And now let the revolutionists cho ~ G.K. Chesterton

But I can say you're okay for an irreverent party boy with occasional moments of brilliance."
"Brilliant? You think I'm brilliant?" He threw his hands skyward. "You hear that, world? Sage says I'm brilliant."
"That's not what I said!"
...
"Come on, Sage. You understand how my mind works. You said I was brilliant, remember?"
Eddie glanced at me in surprise. "You did?"
"No! I never said that." Adrian's smile was infuriating. "Stop telling people that. ~ Richelle Mead

He could be so charming and irreverent and witty, and then-bam!-a switch flipped and he reverted right back to the cocky asshole everyone reported him to be. ~ Lauren Weisberger

The doves, as we know, must be killed according to the law before Mary's purification can be acknowledged and ratified. Any ironic or irreverent disciple of Voltaire will find it difficult to resist making the obvious remark that, things being what they are, purity can be maintained only so long as there are innocent creatures to sacrifice in this world, whether turtledoves, lambs, or others. ~ Jose Saramago

The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls. Some part of our being knows this is from where we came. We long to return. These aspirations are not, I think, irreverent, although they may trouble whatever gods may be. ~ Carl Sagan

I guess the tone of jokes is often, at best, irreverent, but it always comes from a place of deep love. ~ John Oliver

People think because 'Vice' is irreverent and because we're crazy, we're stunt journalists. You know what? I don't actually care. ~ Shane Smith

Invariably dressed in black, the Countess was one of those dowagers whose natural natural independence of mind, authority of age, and impatience with the petty made her the ally of all irreverent youth. ~ Amor Towles

I had hoped to be disliked by most, not by way of rebellion, but by way of excellence, disdain for the habitual, and the common man's inability to grasp this. The act of being scorned? I saw it as a victory, my irreverent boast against this world which could never fully quench me. ~ Coco J. Ginger

No, of course not," Belle said, playfully swatting him on the shoulder. "I never, never even once thought I was making a mistake. I was just a bit at odds with myself because my wedding wasn't exactly how I dreamed it was going to be."
"I'm sorry," John said softly.
"No, no, don't be. Just because it wasn't what I thought I wanted doesn't mean it wasn't absolutely perfect. Oh, dear, am I making any sense at all.?"
John nodded solemnly.
"I thought that I needed a church and hundreds of guest and music that actually sounded like music, but I was wrong. What I needed was a drunken priest, irreverent guests, and a companion who learned to play piano from a goat."
"Then you got exactly what you needed."
"I suppose so. But then again, all I really needed was you."
John leaned down to kiss her again, and they remained thus occupied for the next hour. ~ Julia Quinn

I'm a happy guy. I like to joke around. I'm irreverent. I love my family; I love my son. I was very happy with and proud of the birth of my son. I grew up a lot after he was born. I'm just an easy and happy guy. ~ Neymar

Everything I came up with seemed irreverent or irrelevant. ~ Patti Smith

Lucky Harris was getting to him. His sexy little captive had gotten under his skin. He wanted
her, and yet he could not bring himself to discipline and dominate her as he knew she secretly
desired. For the first time since the death of his traitor wife, Sebastian was afraid, afraid of his own
feelings. The bright-eyed blonde affected him as no woman ever had. It wasn't just her responsive
cries or her tempting body; it was her strong opinions, her outrageous attitude, that irreverent sense of humor. Lucky made him laugh, but it was more than that.

She made him feel alive. ~ Carol Storm

In the end, Buchanan was one of the paleocons to back Trump and many of those who formerly loathed most of what Yiannopoulos and what he represented decided to change their minds and back the winning horse, not only of Trump, but also of the new libertines of the online irreverent 'punk' right. Having lost Buchannan's conservative culture war, they were perhaps strategically right to calculate that the only way they can ever have at least some of their ideas heard again would be to back a groping, lecherous, godless presidential candidate and a libertine figure such as Yiannopoulos and his army of online racist, foul-mouthed, porn-loving nihilists, who in many ways represent everything people like Buchannan are supposed to stand against. The rise of Milo, Trump and the alt-right are not evidence of the return of the conservatism, but instead of the absolute hegemony of the culture of non-conformism, self-expression, transgression and irreverence for its own sake – an aesthetic that suits those who believe in nothing but the liberation of the individual and the id, whether they're on the left or the right. The principle-free idea of counterculture did not go away; it has just become the style of the new right. ~ Angela Nagle

As gay people, we always think outside of the box. The irreverent is always important to a drag queen and anyone else who lives outside the box. And this is why drag's important: remember to not take life seriously. It's always important to see the laughter in the illusion that we pretend is real. ~ RuPaul

They ended up in a amusement arcade on Old Compton Street, where Nora insisted Stephen join her on one of those dance-step machines, and as he stood next to her, stomping out a dance routine on the illuminated dance floor, he had a sudden anxiety that Nora might be one of those kooky, free-spirit types, the kind of irreverent life-force who, in the imaginary romantic comedy currently playing in his head, turns the hero's narrow life upside down, etc., etc. The acid test for free-spirited kookiness is to show the subject a field of fresh snow; if they flop on their backs and make snow-angels, then the test is positive. In the absence of snow, Stephan resolved to keep an eye open for other tell-tale kookiness indicators: a propensity for wacky hats, zany mismatched socks, leaf-kicking, a disproportionate enthusiasm for karaoke, kite - flying and light-hearted shoplifting, the whole Holly Golightly act. ~ David Nicholls

You learn history in school, and you have a reverential feeling toward it. But by being irreverent, it feels current. ~ Benjamin Walker

In America few people will trust you unless you are irreverent. ~ Norman Mailer

Eight years ago, I was drawn into Keats's world by Andrew Motion's biography. Soon I was reading back and forth between Keats's letters and his poems. The letters were fresh, intimate and irreverent, as though he were present and speaking. The Keats spell went very deep for me. ~ Jane Campion

...I tried to pretend that what we were enacting was nothing more than an intricate kind of handshake." ~Malcolm ~ Kathleen Maher

He committed suicide in 1794 because the Revolutionary authorities had made it clear that they planned to reward his irreverent wit with a visit to the guillotine. ~ Clive James

Kellogg's Pop-Tarts frequently uses cartoons as part of its visual content mix to tell a fun and irreverent story around people's cravings for Pop-Tarts. ~ Ekaterina Walter

I like this dirty Chase, this crude and irreverent man. I want to go where he's taking me. I need to be dragged down to where he is so we can build ourselves back up, together, stronger. ~ S.R. Grey

Avoid irreverent, empty speech, for this will produce an even greater measure of godlessness. 2 Timothy 2:16 ~ Beth Moore

There is a sort of mental treason
That smothers dreams outside of reason ~ Mike Corbett

My friend and I sang an a cappella rendition of Extreme's 'More Than Words' at one of our football pep rallies in a desperate attempt to look cool. For a while, I wore pink Converse All Stars because I thought it made me seem daring and irreverent. ~ Ed Helms

For me the most fun of my career is to bring a little bit of irreverence to characters. And, you know, I don't think that the producers were expecting me to be as irreverent as I am. ~ Dean Winters

Rock musicians are consistent in their disdain and irreverent treatment of Jesus Christ. ~ Tim LaHaye

I wanted to make youthful, irreverent anthems. Parents might not get it, but kids would. ~ Kesha

No quality imparts apparent strength to its possessors more effectively than faith. From hospital beds to battlefields, it is the iron that strengthens a man to confront his destiny. ~ Mike Corbett

I'm kind of desperately looking for those things that will ... you know, sort of show my wilder side, in a way, my much more irreverent, badly behaved side. ~ Rosamund Pike

I hate the irreverent rabble and keep them far from me. ~ Horace