All U.S. irony is based on an implicit “I don’t really mean what I say.” So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That it’s impossible to mean what you say? That...

He had the tendency, unfortunate for a new member of the committee, to like if not the rich themselves, at least their activities and surroundings, and to dislike the poor; a woman in rags toting...

I cannot say much for this Monarch’s Sense–Nor would I if I could, for he was a Lancastrian. I suppose you know all about the Wars between him and the Duke of York who was...

to travel faster than a speeding bullet is not much help if you and it are heading straight towards each other

Nay, but prithee, with sprinkles ‘pon it instead,” I said solemnly, “and frosting of white.

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...

The irony was not lost on any of us that despite the theme there was a robot on the throne.

For with dandies, a joke is the only way of making yourself respected.

When did I start feeling so safe with him? I guess knowing that my friends wouldn’t set me up with some psycho criminal helps.

Funny, though, I don’t feel too bad.

I’m being ironic. Don’t interrupt a man in the midst of being ironic, it’s not polite. There!

As the ironist does not have the new within his power, it might be asked how he destroys the old, and to this it must be answered: he destroys the given actuality by the given...

If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others.

I am beginning to believe that nothing is quite so uncertain as facts. (Edward Curtis)

… And I wondered if we had disappointed God so much, that he wrote us off as pets, just alive to entertain.

In order to grow, I promise you’ll have to let go of some habits. 10 times out of 10, they’ll be the habits you’re most in love with.

It is sometimes easier to be happy if you don’t know everything.

In our native terms, the ironic style is often compounded with the sardonic and the hard-boiled; even the effortlessly superior. But irony originates in the glance and the shrug of the loser, the outsider, the...

There is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.

The funny thing is if in England, you ask a man in the street who the greatest living Darwinian is, he will say Richard Dawkins. And indeed, Dawkins has done a marvelous job of popularizing...

Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life’s cruelest irony.

Since ideology, particularly in it’s shallower versions, is peculiarly destructive of the capacity to apprehend and appreciate irony, I suggest that the recovery of the ironic might be our fifth principle for the restoration of...

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.

There are elements of irony in my work, of course.

I hear Mr. Palmer tell Hannah that it was an electrical fault. Five arsonists in one school and it ends up being something so technically boring.

It’s funny how a person can be right all the time and still be wrong.

For ‘wellness’, naturally is no cause of complaint–people relish it, they enjoy it, they are at the furthest pole from complaint. People complain of feeling ill–not well. Unless, as George Eliot does, they have some...

Soon, she and the rest of them would be ironic much of the time, unable to answer an innocent question without giving their words a snide little adjustment. Fairly soon after that, the snideness would...

A DEAD STATESMANI could not dig: I dared not rob:Therefore I lied to please the mob.Now all my lies are proved untrueAnd I must face the men I slew.What tale shall serve me here amongMine...

I don’t want to hurt anyone” Laszlo fiddled with a button on his tux jacket. “Can’t we convince the CIA that some of us are peaceful?” “we’ll have to try” Angus folded his arms across...

It wasn’t long after the discovery of modern anesthesia that people began to die of it.

The more people I am with, Dorrigo thought, the more alone I feel.

The Cinderella story in reverse. I only wish there were ashes in the fireplace so I could order you to sweep them out.

Are we not all actors playing parts in another person’s play?

I didn’t think that Herefordshire Social Services would be best pleased about me dumping a poorly socialised pre-teen with mind control powers on them.

Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it. -Andrew Young, author, civil rights activist, US congressman, mayor, and UN ambassador (b. 1932)

Frankly speaking, I’m not afraid of death. I don’t endeavour to avert its advent. But I don’t want to be a witness of it.

Sarcasm.

I had never seen a real live dead person.

Being a woman is worse than being a farmer there is so much harvesting and crop spraying to be done: legs to be waxed, underarms shaved, eyebrows plucked, feet pumiced, skin exfoliated and moisturised, spots...

The robots came bearing a gift and the name of it was “Plenty.”Plenty is a habit-forming drug. You do not cut the dosage down. You kick it if you can; you stop the dose entirely....

Irony is just honesty with the volume cranked up.

Irony is about contradictions that do not resolve into larger wholes, even dialectically, about the tension of holding incompatible things together because both or all are necessary and true. Irony is about humour an serious...

There are fascinating possibilities in this situation. I’d get it down on paper if I were you.

Irony of the day: arthritis medication with a cap that old people can’t get off, because of their arthritis.

…one of the roles of man is to shut his eyes and keep them shut to see if he can continue into the night of his old age the dream curtailed in the night of...

The irony is, nothing is more frightening than being frightened.

You know,’ she begins, ‘you fellas ought to be looking after each other.’ Her comment makes me realise that through the lies, the greatest irony is that we are looking out for each other. It’s...

TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORTTo make a long story shortI leave all my possessionsto the Municipal Slaughterhouseto the Special Unit of the Police Departmentto Lucky Dog LottoSo now if you want you can shoot

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