Hyperbole Quotes

“A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.”
― Raymond Chandler, Pearls are a Nuisance

“He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.
”
― Stephen Leacock

“I suppose that saves us from having to determine what to do with a butler who goes around killing people. It certainly reflects badly upon our domestic staff. Still, I shall miss him. There was a man who knew how to brew a good cup of tea.”
― Gail Carriger, Timeless

“I was shown into a room. A red room. Red wallpaper, red curtains, red carpet. They said it was a sitting-room, but I don’t know why they’d decided to confine its purpose just to sitting. Obviously, sitting was one of the things you could do in a room this size; but you could also stage operas, hold cycling races, and have an absolutely cracking game of frisbee, all at the same time, without having to move any of the furniture.
It could rain in a room this big.”
― Hugh Laurie, The Gun Seller

“My Hallway" remarked Lord Akeldama,"Has never seen such lively action. And That, my sugarplums, is saying something!”
― Gail Carriger, Timeless

“It was like I couldn't think of any words. Now I can think of about nine million."
"How many words are in the English language?"
"Not the point.”
― Sandy Hall, A Little Something Different

“She took a moment to lament her lack of parasol. Every time she left the house, she felt keenly the absence of her heretofore ubiquitous accessory.”
― Gail Carriger, Timeless

“It is probably always disastrous not to be a poet.”
― Giles Lytton Strachey, Elizabeth and Essex

“I look at him and my body reacts in a way that it never has before, even in the throes of passion. I look at him and I start aching so deep inside it takes all I can to think, to breathe, to speak. He’s like the brightest flame and it takes everything in me to resist its call.

I know that if I give in, I’ll get burned so deeply, there might be nothing left once I come out the other side.

But, god, I want to step into that flame.”
― D.L. Hess

“Turns out that once you kill a god, people want to talk to you. Paranormal insurance salesmen with special "godslayer" term life policies. Charlatan's with "godproof" armor and extraplanar safe houses for rent. But most notably, other gods...”
― Kevin Hearne

“A denial heralded the thrice crowing of a cock, and an insincerity was like the kiss of Judas.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“Truthful hyperbole’ is a contradiction in terms. It’s a way of saying, ‘It’s a lie, but who cares?’ ”
― Tony Schwartz

“I'd rather be in prison in California than free anywhere else.”
― Inez Haynes Irwin, The Native Son

“The risk is, as ever, that the hyperbole of IPL will simply smother the cricket; perhaps the members of the IPL's cheer squad should stop listening to each other and start listening to themselves.”
― Gideon Haigh

“In many ways, the vampire was spared the gross suffering of the werewolf but that is only because they suffered in many other ways at the hands of the supernatural doctrines of religion. They, however, were connected to the hyperbolic voice crying in the wilderness.”
― L.B. Ó Ceallaigh, Revenants, Retroviruses, and Religion: How Viruses and Disease Created Cultural Mythology and Shaped Religious Perspectives

“I satirize at all times, and my hyperboles are as nothing compared to the events to which they refer.”
― Marshall McLuhan

“Going to marry her? Impossible! You mean a part of her; he could not marry her all himself. It would be a case, not of bigamy but trigamy; there is enough of her to furnish wives for the whole parish. One man marry her! - it is monstrous! You might people a colony with her; or give an assembly with her; or perhaps take your morning's walk round her, always provided there were frequent resting places, and you were in rude health. I once was rash enough to try walking round her before breakfast, but only got half way and gave it up exhausted. Or you might read the Riot Act and disperse her; in short, you might do anything but marry her!”
― Sydney Smith

“I’ve long had reservations about the emancipatory rhetoric of past eras, especially the kind that treats liberation as a one-time event or event horizon. Nostalgia for prior notions of liberation—many of which depend heavily upon mythologies of revelation, violent upheaval, revolutionary machismo, and teleological progress—often strikes me as not useful or worse in the face of certain present challenges, such as global warming.”
― Maggie Nelson, On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint

“France, stop throwing awards at me! I have so many already, give them to people who need them.”
― Nuno Roque

“Don’t tell me Kinshasa, the poorest city in the poorest country in the world, a place where the average per capita income is one goat bell, two bootleg Michael Jackson cassette tapes, and three sips of potable water per year, thinks we’re too poor to associate with.”
― Paul Beatty, The Sellout

“I had a professional background in economic development and was fluent in the language of business - even while having fought and bled politically for organized labor in the auto industry.”
― Pete Buttigieg, Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future

“The President calls Congress savages and they call him a liar, just another productive day in Washington "doing the important work of the people.”
― Carmine Savastano

“My favorite part of election season is the end.”
― C.A.A. Savastano

“Sadly, it seems that hyperbole is having another moment in popular discourse.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“Coldmoon saw the early-morning glow of a café spilling onto the sidewalk and swerved toward it, not even bothering to ask his partner’s opinion. It was 6am and the café had apparently just opened.
“My dear Coldmoon—“ began Pendergast.
“If I don’t get some coffee,” said Coldmoon loudly, “I’m going to die.”
“Very well,” said Pendergast. “I wouldn’t want another corpse on my hands.”
― Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, Bloodless

“She said, "I could kill him for what he did to you!"
It was a curious phrase. I could kill... One I never used since I actually had killed before. I was a murderer, so for me it lost its hyperbolic quality. But like when you buy a car and then see that specific model everywhere, I noticed whenever anyone idly threw out murderous threats. And it was often. For me they stuck out like neon signsin otherwise dull common colloquialisms. People were always exclaiming, "I could kill you right now! or "I want to fucking kill her!" or the classic joke, "If I tell you, I'll have to kill you," and on and on and on. I heard something like that said at least once a week, and I nodded and smiled and understood, like a well-adjusted nonhomicidal person.”
― Sascha Rothchild, Blood Sugar

“She says there's been a few drops of snow in Yorkshire so the BBC are calling it a White Christmas. I say that's like calling me a vegetarian because I eat peas twice a week.”
― Ben Aitken, The Marmalade Diaries: The True Story of an Odd Couple

“Without in any way minimizing the role of violence in our lives, I am looking, simultaneously, at how a heightened rhetoric of threat that confuses doing nothing, normative conflict, and resistance with actual abuse, has produced a wide practice of over-
stating harm.”
― Sarah Schulman, Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair

“Hyperbole often reflects a culture's excesses and savagery or appetite.”
― Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir

“Brigham Young spoke... with extreme hyperbole. He even admitted as much in 1848 when he acknowledged, 'I frequently sa[y] 'cut his infernal throat'; I don't mean any such thing.”
― W. Paul Reeve, Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood