Self Irony Quotes

I have great faith in fools - self-confidence my friends will call it. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

The naive is what is or appears to be natural, individual, or classical to the point of irony or to the point of continuous alternation of self-creation and self-destruction. If it is only instinct, then it is childlike, childish, or silly; if it is only intention, it becomes affectation. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

In a nutshell, I am not unaware of my failings. Neither am I a stranger to irony. ~ Mordecai Richler

That Jim Crow there in the window," answered the urchin, holding out a cent, and pointing to the gingerbread figure that had attracted his notice, as he loitered along to school; "the one that has not a broken foot. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

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

But what use is the unicorn to you if your intellect doesn't believe in it? ~ Umberto Eco

We're not obsessed by anything, you see," insisted Ford.
" ... "
"And that's the deciding factor. We can't win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win."
"I care about lots of things," said Slartibartfast, his voice trembling partly with annoyance, but partly also with uncertainty.
"Such as?"
"Well," said the old man, "life, the Universe. Everything, really. Fjords."
"Would you die for them?"
"Fjords?" blinked Slartibartfast in surprise. "No."
"Well then."
"Wouldn't see the point, to be honest. ~ Douglas Adams

In the end, the Labour party could cease to represent labour. Stranger historic ironies have happened than that. ~ Enoch Powell

It was an exquisite irony: Just when we stopped wanting to kill ourselves, we started to die. Just when we were feeling strenght, it was taken from us. ~ David Levithan

The further humans move from hunters to horticulturists to agriculturists to urbanisation to industrialists, the further the sacred recedes, first to heaven, then condensed to monotheism and finally it dies in irony. ~ Lierre Keith

The irony of environmental opposition to the Keystone XL project is that stopping the pipeline to the U.S. will not stop production in the oil sands of Canada. Instead of coming to the United States, the oil will still be produced and shipped by rail or a pipeline similar to the Keystone XL to Canada's Pacific Coast. ~ John Hoeven

For the secret irony pervading these arguments is that they would never have occurred to consciences that had not in some profound way been shaped by the moral universe of a Christian culture. ~ David Bentley Hart

Hail, Columbia! Home of the six inch cockroach and the stadium-sized lecture hall. A reservation for rich white people guarded by poor brown people in a sea of urban decay. Where nobody on the faculty has ever spent ten minutes in the freshman dorm, but everybody talks about humanism and compassion. They teach you that military people are scum, trash, the lowest of the low
and then they assign Homer's ILIAD just to develop your sense of irony. Where else can you see three suicides a month dismissed as slightly above average, but better than Smith or Brown? ~ Ted Rall

The South has more of a disproportionate amount of irony on T-shirts than any other region in the country. ~ David Cross

Some people tell me that they like what I do, which is great, of course. The perfect irony and truth is that I need them much more than they need me. ~ Henry Rollins

And it never even occurs to them their certainty that they are different is what makes them the same. ~ David Foster Wallace

They had supported him ... for freedom's sake, they would have said; meaning as do all men who mouth that catchword, freedom for themselves and their own class. ~ Margaret Butler

It would be the last thing he did if he beat my dog. ~ Holly Hood

I'm meeting the attic before I meet the girl. ~ Colleen Hoover

Suddenly, she employed those very English weapons: devious good manners and a rapid change of subject. ~ Patricia Duncker

Apart from the pleasure of looking at her and listening to her
of enjoying in her what others less discriminatingly but as liberally appreciated
he had the sense, between himself and her, of a kind of free-masonry of precocious tolerance and irony. They had both, in early youth, taken the measure of the world they happened to live in: they knew just what it was worth to them and for what reasons, and the community of these reasons lent to their intimacy its last exquisite touch. ~ Edith Wharton

Irony is chock-full of fiber. ~ Qwen Salsbury

It is one of the ironies of history that reformers so often misjudge the consequences of their reforms. ~ John W. Gardner

There's something about Vonnegut's deadpan irony that I really like. And I like Borges' puzzle structure. ~ Ruth Ozeki

It is both an irony and an indictment of the feminine mystique that it often forced the unhappy ones, the ugly ducklings, to find themselves, while girls who fitted the image became adjusted 'happy' housewives and have never found out who they are. ~ Betty Friedan

The Emperor, you see, protects ... He protects mankind, through the Legions, through the Martial corps, through the war machines of the Mechanicum. He understands the dangers. The inconsistencies. He uses you, and all the instruments like you, to protect us from harm. To protect our physical bodies from murder and damage, to protect our minds from madness, to protect our souls ... There are insane dangers in the cosmos, dangers that mankind is fundamentally unable to comprehend, let alone survive. So he protects us. There are truths out there that would drive us mad by one fleeting glimpse of them. So he chooses not to share them with us. That's why he made you ... Remember, Garviel. The Emperor is our truth and out light. If we trust in him, he will protect. ~ Dan Abnett

The novel, arguably the author's best, had a disquieting power, like a sleeping crocodile. ~ Roberto Bolano

When people realize it is the living God you are presenting and not some idol that makes them feel good, they are going to turn on you, even people in your own family. There is a great irony here: proclaiming so much love, experiencing so much hate! But don't quit. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

It's ironic, isn't it? How hope keeps us breathing just to kill us in the end. ~ Nicole Lyons

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising. ~ Mark Twain

Many people think making a film about history ... about war ... about the Holocaust, it might be heavy, dramatic and traumatic. I don't see things like that ... you can find irony everywhere. It's how I look at life. ~ Arnon Goldfinger

I'd love to see the Iron Jackal's face when he finds out I'm already dead," he said with half a grin. "Now that's irony." "No it ain't, Cap'n. It's just some shit that happened. ~ Chris Wooding

She heard irony in his tone and the bitter pain gliding, sharklike, beneath it. ~ Nancy Baker

And if a diversion is needed, why not arrest a general? Arthur Dillon is a friend of eminent deputies, a contender for the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front; he has proved himself at Valmy and in a halfdozen actions since. In the National Assembly he was a liberal; now he is a republican. Isn't it then logical that he should be thrown into gaol, July 1, on suspicion of passing military secrets to the enemy? ~ Hilary Mantel

Shut the door, they're coming through the window, shut the window, they're coming through the door, are the words to an old song. They fit my lifestyle with newly arriving butcher/censors every month. Only six weeks ago, I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from the novel. Students, reading the novel which, after all, deals with censorship and book-burning in the future, write to tell me of this exquisite irony ... ~ Ray Bradbury

You seem disappointed that I am not more responsive to your interest in "spiritual direction". Actually, I am more than a little ambivalent about the term, particularly in the ways it is being used so loosely without any sense of knowledge of the church's traditions in these matters.

If by spiritual direction you mean entering into a friendship with another person in which an awareness and responsiveness to God's Spirit in the everydayness of your life is cultivated, fine. Then why call in an awkward term like "spiritual direction"? Why not just "friend"?

Spiritual direction strikes me as pretentious in these circumstances, as if there were some expertise that can be acquired more or less on its own and then dispensed on demand.

The other reason for my lack of enthusiasm is my well-founded fear of professionalism in any and all matters of the Christian life. Or maybe the right label for my fear is "functionalism". The moment an aspect of Christian living (human life, for that matter) is defined as a role, it is distorted, debased - and eventually destroyed. We are brothers and sisters with one another, friends and lovers, saints and sinners.

The irony here is that the rise of interest in spiritual direction almost certainly comes from the proliferation of role-defined activism in our culture. We are sick and tired of being slotted into a function and then manipulated with Scripture and prayer to do what someone has decided (often wi ~ Eugene H. Peterson

Haw! Haw! Inconceivable stupidity is just what you're going to get! (Brigadier-General Henry Wilson, on being challenged in 1910 about the likelihood of a European war) ~ Max Hastings

I will take all my rights! Can you deliver them to my house? ~ Ljupka Cvetanova

Hey, look, I thought with a miserable laugh, this day just got worse. ~ Diana Rowland

It's just like an alcoholic to think he's doing the Zombie Apocalypse wrong. ~ Michele W. Miller

Irony is a gift of the gods, the most subtle of all the modes of speech. It is an armour and a weapon; it is a philosophy and a perpetual entertainment; it is food for the hungry of wit and drink to those thirsting for laughter ... ~ W. Somerset Maugham

He would show them that ... that he ... that he was of managerial timber! (pg. 613) ~ Stephen King

You know the great irony is that people think you have to have money to enjoy fine food, which is a shame. ~ Ted Allen

Psychologists have shown the irony of the process of thought control: the more energy you put into trying to control your ideas and what you think about, the more your ideas end up controlling you. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

There's been this strange irony to my whole life. All my original bandmates have died, when I was the most wild and most reckless of us all. But I'm still here. ~ Nile Rodgers

And in the most brutal irony of all ironies, the esteemed high priest was mocking him, the one who wrote the law itself. The one appointed to offer sacrifices for blood atonement was despising the Lamb of God. Did they know that for centuries of the sacrificial system they'd been rehearsing the slaughter of the Messiah? ~ Matt Chandler

If you don't understand it, it's art. ~ Ljupka Cvetanova

Royal Young's writing is that rare blend of irony and beauty. ~ Simon Van Booy

Those darling byegone times, Mr Carker,' said Cleopatra, 'with their delicious fortresses, and their dear old dungeons, and their delightful places of torture, and their romantic vengeances, and their picturesque assaults and sieges, and everything that makes life truly charming! How dreadfully we have degenerated! ~ Charles Dickens