The exact meaning of irony is so narrow that the word is hardly worth using; in its broad, current definition, it’s a euphemism for sarcasm. ‘I’m not being sarcastic; I’m being ironic.’ No, you’re not. You’re evading the responsibility for being sarcastic.
Nothing can resist the person who smiles at life – I don’t mean the ironic and disillusioned smile of my grandfather, but the triumphant smile of the person who knows that he will survive, or that at least he will be saved by what seems to be destroying him.
My husband went through a phase of giving me vacuum cleaners, sewing machines and Mixmasters. It’s ironic. He is encouraging me to develop a hobby, I think.
It is pretty ironic that the so-called ‘least advanced’ people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us, while the richest and most powerful among us are the ones who are trying to drive the society to destruction.
Running a successful, growing company in Silicon Valley can create an ironic sort of depression and delusion. The better you’re doing, the higher the stakes, and higher expectations for you to win. Maybe that’s why people say it’s so hard. But that doesn’t make it hard. That just makes it distracting.
I went to my first CMA Music Fest when I was 14 and waited in line for two hours to meet two people: Taylor Swift and Hillary Scott from Lady Antebellum. It’s very ironic but not accidental that those two people refer to me as their ‘little sister’ now.
There are people, particularly in the United States with which I am most familiar, who would say how ironic that Tehran would be the sponsor of an anti-terrorism conference, because there are people who say that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism.
It’s quite ironic that at many interviews I have had professionals telling me that ‘I don’t look married because I don’t dress like a married woman!’ It’s shattering as I never knew being married came with apparels that would define one’s marital status!
It’s ironic – people used to want to suspend me and talk about how bad my behaviour was, but now they like it when I shout and scream.
The most ironic thing is that The Pirate Bay’s enemies include not just the U.S. government but also many European and the Russian one.
Sometimes you’ll see people give performances in comedy with an ironic detachment where they’ll sort of be remarking on the character from outside of it. They’re sort of commenting as they’re playing the character. I think it’s hard not to do that. I’ve certainly done that.
I certainly think it’s ironic that beach volleyball was first played in the 1930s in Santa Monica and tournaments of a high caliber have been happening in this country since the 1940s, and the FIVB, for many years, has ignored beach volleyball.
There is an actor’s responsibility in presenting the emotional content of the lyrics to an audience. But whether you do that in a straightforward fashion or an ironic fashion or a blase fashion is all about opportunities, and singers are missing opportunities as artists if they don’t pay attention to the lyric.
When I met Groucho Marx, I had butterflies in my stomach. And I met him at a Led Zeppelin party, which is ironic.
I think it is very ironic that most people think that the banjo is a southern white instrument. It came from Africa and even for the first years that white people played banjo they would put on blackface.
It is ironic that American women now need to be fortified by the inspiration of the women of the Arab Spring, who risked so much to win basic human rights.
It’s ironic that in our culture everyone’s biggest complaint is about not having enough time; yet nothing terrifies us more than the thought of eternity.
I have many friends who are both Mexican and Mexican-American and others who, I guess you would say, are somewhere in between. The ironic thing is that all three of those categories often exist inside of the same family.
I think coldness is chic among writers, and particularly ironic coldness. What is absolutely not allowable is sadness. People will do anything rather than to acknowledge that they are sad.
It’s just kind of ironic with how I came into the NBA with all the expectations. You would’ve thought coming in the way I did that my career would last long. You’d think I’d have my more peak years in the beginning or middle. Mine just came a little later.
When someone asks ‘what’s the use of philosophy?’ the reply must be aggressive, since the question tries to be ironic and caustic. Philosophy does not serve the State or the Church, who have other concerns. It serves no established power.
It’s ironic that when you go through a tragedy, you appreciate more. You realize how fragile life is and that there are so many things to still be thankful for.
Stephen King writes a lot of things that are really charming and quirky, and that are more ironic than horror.
‘The Golden Compass’ became a bad experience because the studio didn’t have faith in the strength of the ideas of the novel, which is ironic because it’s one of the greatest fantasy novels ever written, if not the greatest, and they took the religion out of it and tried to turn it into a popcorn movie.
On ‘Catfish,’ I’m a co-host and onscreen cameraman, maybe the second onscreen cameraman after Wes Bentley’s turn in ‘American Beauty,’ which is funny and ironic. But before that, I’d been doing a lot of creative nonfiction.
I don’t want to be the center of attention, which is ironic. I hate having all eyes on me – unless it’s for my job, and my job is playing football. I’m not that attention-hungry.
A comedy that is ironic, sometimes bitter, in some cases even dramatic, tragic: This is what Italian comedy is.
It’s kind of ironic that the only Super Bowl I’ve been to as a fan was when the Rams played the Titans. I was at that game. My grandpa, when he was still involved in the NFL, he got me tickets for my birthday.
I think it’s ironic when Plato makes the learned woman Aspasia Socrates’ teacher, but I think women crop up more in the Platonic dialogues than they do normally in texts of the period, and in an un-hysterical way.
It’s ironic that the growth of Scottish nationalism has precipitated in the English the sort of hand-wringing the Scots have always done over who they are.
I remember interviewing someone I actually felt bad for, and therefore didn’t want to take an ironic stance against him. It actually turned out to be a really funny piece.
It’s so ironic – when you finally achieve recognition, you hide behind dark glasses.
I would like all the trolls to look at their bodies instead of trolling others. What is ironic is the fact that it is easy to criticise sitting behind your computer, in complete anonymity, about other people. on the basis of their appearances but very difficult to introspect and look within themselves.
It is ironic that the United States should have been founded by intellectuals, for throughout most of our political history, the intellectual has been for the most part either an outsider, a servant or a scapegoat.
Donald Trump often appears on Fox, which is ironic because a fox often appears on Donald Trump’s head.
It’s ironic that no matter where I go, I meet people from Brooklyn. I’m proud of that heritage. It’s where I’m from, who I am.
It always seemed to me ironic that the McCain campaign kept referring sneeringly to Obama’s meager resume – ‘a mere community organizer!’ – before he entered electoral politics. It was Obama’s experience as a community organizer that proved such a killer app when he applied that skill to the Internet.
What ‘Scream’ was great at was presenting ironic detachment and then making you actually care about the people that were having it, and juxtaposing it with their situation, all in the service of making a great horror movie. It was fresh.
I don’t like the ironic tone that our pop culture, in the world, has taken. Everything is ‘ironic.’ Everything is ‘cool.’
It is ironic that the one thing that all religions recognize as separating us from our creator, our very self-consciousness, is also the one thing that divides us from our fellow creatures. It was a bitter birthday present from evolution.
It seemed ironic that Lowell Levine and I, who were both Jewish, were going over to identify the remains of a man who was so anti-Semitic.
It’s ironic, isn’t it, that one day you’re one of the most conservative members, and then some individual gets mad at you, and they decide to throw millions of dollars against you because you didn’t vote exactly the way they want every day.
I sometimes think it ironic for an ex-seaman, longshoreman, truck driver, policeman, bus driver, etc… to find success writing children’s novels.
It is ironic that so many politicians claim to defend traditional Christian values of ‘faith and family.’ In fact, a radical antifamily ideology permeates Christ’s teaching, and the early Christian tradition often set faith and family against each other.
As soon as I got off the plane in L.A., I heard they’d cast the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy and that it was all being shot in New Zealand! That was pretty ironic.
The stream of empty platitudes ordering troop worship is especially ironic considering the abysmal treatment veterans receive once they return home.
It’s ironic that at age 32, at probably the greatest moment of my career, with The Godfather having such an enormous success, I wasn’t even aware of it, because I was somewhere else under the deadline again.
