Understatement Quotes - Page 2

• The English have no soul; they have the understatement instead.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humorous, Soul

  George Mikes (1973). “How to be an Alien: A Handbook for Beginners and Advanced Pupils”, Penguin UK

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing in a language is less translatable than its modes of understatement.

  George Steiner

  Language

  George Steiner (1987). “George Steiner: A Reader”, p.153, Oxford University Press on Demand

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• A lot of men who have accepted - or had imposed upon them in boyhood - the old English public school styles of careful modesty in speech, with much understatement, have behind their masks an appalling and impregnable conceit of themselves.

  J. B. Priestley

  School, Men, Style

  18 Copy quote

• It's no understatement that the church has done a poor job in teaching our young people that reason and faith are not opposites, and that atheists are far from being on the side of reason. You can find on our website a chart which I use to demonstrate the various worldviews work out, and which one, Christianity, is rational. Many kids, however, who grow up huddled in a Christian environment find themselves in the university setting completely unequipped to defend the rationality of the Christian faith against the secular humanist worldview so prevalent on college campuses.

  Charles Colson

  Christian, Atheist, Jobs

  8 Copy quote

• People used to say obvious things ironically or as a form of understatement, but in the last few decades they seem to say it with a sense of discovery, and it worries me.

  Kevin Hearne

  Discovery, Obvious Things, People

  Kevin Hearne (2014). “The Iron Druid Chronicles 6-Book Bundle: Hounded, Hexed, Hammered, Tricked, Trapped, Hunted”, p.274, Del Rey

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Emo means different things to different people. Actually, that's a massive understatement. Emo seems solely to mean different things to different people—Like pig latin or books by Thomas Pynchon, confusion is one of its hallmark traits.

  Andy Greenwald

  Emo, Latin, Book

  Andy Greenwald (2003). “Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo”, p.1, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Kitten, this is my best mate, Charles, but you can call him Spade. Charles, this is Cat, the woman I’ve been telling you about. You can see for yourself that everything I’ve said is…an understatement.

  Jeaniene Frost

  Cat, Kitten, Spades

  4 Copy quote

• I'm glad you're still upright, Charles, and the only reason you are is because she didn't have any silver. She'd have staked you right and proper otherwise. She has a tendency to shrivel someone first and then introduce herself afterwards." "That's uncalled for!" I said, insulted at the suggestion that I was homicidal. "Right." Bones let that go. "Kitten, this is my best mate, Charles, but you can call him Spade. Charles, this is Cat, the woman I've been telling you about. You can see for yourself that everything I've said is... an understatement.

  Jeaniene Frost

  Cat, Firsts, Suggestions

  4 Copy quote

• Then Drew shuffles into the dining hall. I drop my toast, and my mouth drifts open. Calling him “bruised” would be an understatement. His face is swollen and purple. He has a split lip and a cut running through his eyebrow. He keeps his eyes down on the way to his table, not even lifting them to look at me. I glance across the room at Four. He wears the satisfied smile I wish I had on.

  Veronica Roth

  Running, Eye, Cutting

  4 Copy quote

• If you want to call yourself my friend, you should know that position comes with boundaries." Sabine frowned. "I'm no good with boundaries." "Yes, and the ocean is damp. Can we be done with the understatements now?

  Rachel Vincent

  Ocean, Want, Done

  "Before I Wake". Book by Rachel Vincent, June 26, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• She reached up and curled her fingers into mine. “He should take you to dinner.” To say that the mere thought horrified me would have been a grievous understatement. I threw up a little in my mouth then swallowed hard. I told Taft when I recovered, “Just please, for the love of God, find a girl good enough to take home to your mother. And do it soon.” “And stop dating skanks.

  Darynda Jones

  Girl, Mother, Home

  4 Copy quote

• Yeah, something was wrong. That was the understatement of the year.

  Marie Lu

  Years, Yeah

  8 Copy quote

• I'm a coyote shapeshifter playing in a world of werewolves and vampires---outmatched is n understatement.

  Patricia Briggs

  Vampire, Coyotes, World

  Patricia Briggs (2010). “Silver Borne: Mercy Thompson”, p.10, Hachette UK

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Cristal go by the cases, wait hold up that was racist
  I would prefer the Aces, ain't no different when you taste it.
  A 40 ounce to chase it, that's just an understatement.

  ASAP Rocky

  Hip Hop, Waiting, Different

  Song: Goldie, 2013

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is an understatement to say that the time has arrived for a serious and open international dialogue regarding the possibility of future interplanetary relations. In no other area of human experience has so much evidence existed for so long, and yet been attended by such a paucity of serious research and analysis - at least in the civilian domain. While the subject matter of UFOs itself is extraordinary, it is the absence of a serious human response to it that is most extraordinary.

  Steven M. Greer

  Long, Analysis, Research

  25 Copy quote

• To say that Sputnik gave rise to some concern in the United States would be the understatement of the century. The truth is that the US went apeshit

  John Naughton

  United States, Would Be, Sputnik

  John Naughton (2015). “A Brief History of the Future”, p.83, Hachette UK

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• Brody cannot believe the size of the creature, and with a classic, practical understatement tells Quint his assessment: You're gonna need a bigger boat. Awestruck, they all view the full-sized, massive shark circling the boat. Quint estimates it is 25 feet long: Three tons of him.

  Roy Scheider

  Believe, Assessment, Views

  54 Copy quote

• Elizabeth Taylor is, in my opinion, the greatest actress in film history. She instinctively understands the camera and its nonverbal intimacies. Opening her violet eyes, she takes us into the liquid realm of emotion, which she inhabits by Pisces intuition. Richard Burton said that Taylor showed him how to act for the camera. Economy and understatement are essential. At her best, Elizabeth Taylor simply is. An electric, erotic charge vibrates the space between her face and the lens. It is an extra-sensory, pagan phenomenon.

  Camille Paglia

  Eye, Film History, Space

  Camille Paglia (2011). “Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays”, p.16, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• To say that New York came up to its advance billing would be the baldest of understatements. Being there was like being in heaven without going to all the bother and expense of dying.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  New York, Heaven, Dying

  9 Copy quote

• Baikida Carroll, whose balance of bravada and tenderness, facility and understatement mark him as a player to be reckoned with.

  Jon Pareles

  Player, Balance, Mark

  4 Copy quote

• How rare it is to come across a piece of writing that is unambiguous, unqualified, and also unblurred by understatements or subtleties, and yet at the same time urbane and tolerant. It is a vice of the scientific method when applied to human affairs that it fosters hemming and hawing and a scrupulousness that easily degenerates into obscurity and meaninglessness.

  Eric Hoffer

  Writing, Vices, Obscurity

  "Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook" by Tom Bethell in Harper's Magazine, July 2005.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Richard Stark writes a harsh and frightening story of criminal warfare and vengeance with economy, understatement and a deadly amoral objectivity-a remarkable addition to the list of the shockers that the French call roman noirs.

  Anthony Boucher

  Writing, Objectivity, Criminals

  4 Copy quote

• My modus operandi has always been understatement and that just doesn't really work in pop.

  Ben Watt

  Modus Operandi, Pops

  Source: thequietus.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The same failure of liberalism is evident in Western Europe, where the dogma of multiculturalism has left a secular Europe very slow to address the looming problem of religious extremism among its immigrants. The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists. To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization.

  Sam Harris

  Religious, Europe, Civilization

  "The End Of Liberalism?" by Sam Harris, samharris.org. September 19, 2006.

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• To only call Wizards, Aliens, and Starships engaging would be a real understatement--it is a delightful, funny, and immensely interesting romp through science and fiction. From candlepower to teleportation, all the way to the fate of the cosmos in the span of a googol years, this is a cornucopia of teachable material. It is also a reminder of the simple thrill of applying science to the world around us, real or imagined. A new classic.

  Caleb Scharf

  Real, Fate, Simple

  4 Copy quote