Embarrassingly Quotes & Sayings

She has embarrassingly inquired, of her children, whether there's a woman in his life, and has rejoiced at hearing no. Not because she doesn't want him to be happy, not because she has any right or even much inclination to be jealous anymore, but because it means there's some shadow of a chance that he still thinks, as she does more than ever, that they were not just the worst thing that ever happened to each other, they were also the best thing. — Jonathan Franzen

Driving through the refugee camp made us think about how embarrassingly frivolous most of our problems are. — Brad Van Orden

Guston tacked toward celebrating the crap of life not for its own ironic sake, but as the ever-present still life that surrounds the embarrassingly, even tragically human. No Duchampian object is ever tragic. Many if not most of Guston's objects, even the most hilarious, are. — Ross Feld

With an embarrassingly little amount of effort on his part, he twisted the Glock out of her fingers and flung it across the drive...
"Going so soon?" he asked.
"The company isn't to my liking. — Avery Flynn

Remember Ambrose Bierce's witty definition of the verb 'to pray': 'to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy'. There are athletes who believe God helps them win - against opponents who would seem, on the face of it, no less worthy of his favouritism. There are motorists who believe God saves them a parking space - thereby presumably depriving somebody else. This style of theism is embarrassingly popular, and is unlikely to be impressed by anything as (superficially) reasonable as NOMA. Nevertheless, — Richard Dawkins

Of all the alchemies of human connection-sex and childbirth and marriage and friendship-the strangest is this: You can stand up and tell a story that is made entirely, embarrassingly, of "I's," and a listening audience somehow turns each "I" into a "me." This alchemy, of self-absorption into shared experience, is the alchemy of all literature. — Adam Gopnik

I'm horrible at remembering names, embarrassingly bad. — Sam Trammell

Yes, one of the benefits of being embarrassingly rich is that you find out if you have syphilis much earlier than the average peasant would. — Abigail Barnette

Nobody likes me," he concluded at the tail end of a ten-minute pity fest.
"Can't imagine why," Quinn murmured. I turned my snort of laughter into a fake cough,
which was an embarrassingly feeble attempt at subterfuge when you consider the fact that
I didn't have any lungs. — Robin Wasserman

I focused, rather embarrassingly, on his chest which was rising and falling slowly.
I left teeth marks! — Kyra Lennon

Embarrassingly for Obama, it appeared that his administration had jumped the gun on banning the bullets. — John R. Lott Jr.

At a certain age our parents offhandedly start telling us things we've never heard before, about themselves and their families, their upbringing and history. They're turning their lives into stories, trying to make sense of them in retrospect and pass them on while there's still time. You begin, embarrassingly belatedly, to see them as people with lives long preceding your own. — Tim Kreider

It took Marvel Comics years to begin to put together any worthwhile superheroines. The first crop was, to a gal, embarrassingly disappointing. They had all the measly powers that fifties and sixties male chauvinism could contrive to bestow on a superwoman. — Michael Chabon

A re-read is more leisurely than a first read. I know the plot, after all, I know what happens. I may still cry (embarrassingly, on the train) when re-reading, but I won't be surprised. Because I know what's coming, because I'm familiar with the characters and the world of the story, I have more time to pay attention to them. I can immerse myself in details and connections I rushed past the first time and delight in how they are put together. I can relax into the book. I can trust it completely. I really like that. — Jo Walton

He not only fumbled badly in his attempts at impromptu oratory en route to the capital, but worst of all, ended his journey in the dead of night, embarrassingly fearful for his safety, after encouraging unseemly partisan demonstrations in friendly Northern cities. He was too conspicuous. He was too sequestered. He was too careless. He was too calculating. He was too conciliatory. He was too coercive. He was too sloppy. — Harold Holzer

Pinot, the most romantic of wines, with so voluptuous a perfume, so sweet an edge, and so powerful a punch that, like falling in love, they make the blood run hot and the soul wax embarrassingly poetic. — Renee Carlino

I was embarrassingly well-versed in Marvel lore, so it was pretty easy to slip into that world. But really, already, by the time I'd started writing superhero comics, my dream was really to be writing my own characters. — Brian K. Vaughan

A lot of my poems are about how ill I am and how I probably won't live beyond next week. I publish a poem and everyone says 'cluck cluck, how wonderful, how brave', but then embarrassingly I'm still here! You see the problem? — Clive James

You'd better touch me before something happens spontaneously that makes me look embarrassingly desperate."
"Really?" He lowered just close enough for his chest to graze the fabric covering her bra, squeezing a squeak from her throat. "I'd like to watch that. You're making abstinence sound fun. — Brynn Kelly

It didn't take Celeste long to realize that this was going to be the sort of book club where the book was secondary to the proceedings. She felt a mild disappointment. She'd been looking forward to talking about the book. She'd even, embarrassingly, prepared for book club, like a good little lawyer, marking up a few pages with Post-it notes and writing a few pithy comments in the margins. — Liane Moriarty

Don't get me wrong: I can and do waste time on the Internet with the best of them, but in some respects, I am an embarrassingly analog guy. I am not on Facebook. I write whole books on yellow legal pads. I do not own a cell phone. — Jonathan Dee

You can't know how weird your own life is until you get some distance on it. Everything seems mundane or boring or embarrassingly small. — Kyle Minor

Embarrassingly enough, at present there is no theory explaining the properties of these high-temperature superconductors. In fact, a Nobel Prize is awaiting the enterprising physicist who can explain how high-temperature superconductors work. (These high-temperature superconductors are made of atoms arranged in distinctive layers. Many physicists theorize that this layering of the ceramic material makes it possible for electrons to flow freely within each layer, creating a superconductor. But precisely how this is done is still a mystery.) — Michio Kaku

I'm empathetic to a fault. I really do - embarrassingly enough - tear up when someone squishes a bug in front of me. — Kristen Bell

The Saga of Dharmapuri is one of the great works of modern Indian literature. ( ... ) Set against Vijayan's heroic and scatological Candide
originally written in Malayalam and finely translated into English by the author
the timidity of our own English talent for political satire is embarrassingly laid bare. For this is dangerous stuff, and cut close to the bone. ( ... ) Fiercest of all is Vijayan's Voltairean recoil from Indian cringing to power. — David Selbourne

The Doctor ... is embarrassingly human for an alien. — Steven Moffat

How did you know to turn back?" I said.
With his head still down, he said, "I waited for you."
"But its a race. Why did you wait for me?"
He lifted his head so that his eyes met mine. "I always wait for you." He took a deep breath, my ankle still in his hands. "I'm always waiting for you."
In an embarrassingly breathless voice that didn't sound like my own, I said, "Because I'm so slow?"
He smiled. "Yes. But not in the way that you think. — Brodi Ashton

I was very depressed after breaking off my engagement with Johnny ten years ago. I was embarrassingly dramatic at the time, but you have to remember I was only 19 years old. — Winona Ryder

This common and unfortunate fact of the lack of adequate presentation of basic ideas and motivations of almost any mathematical theory is probably due to the binary nature of mathematical perception. Either you have no inkling of an idea, or, once you have understood it, the very idea appears so embarrassingly obvious that you feel reluctant to say it aloud ... — Mikhail Leonidovich Gromov

I lay down and started to feel a little depressed about prom. I refused to feel any kind of sadness over the fact that I wasn't going to prom, but I had - stupidly, embarrassingly - thought of finding Margo, and getting her to come home with me just in time for prom, like late on Saturday night, and we'd walk into the Hilton ballroom wearing jeans and ratty T-shirts, and we'd be just in time for the last dance, and we'd dance while everyone pointed at us and marveled at the return of Margo, and then we'd fox-trot the hell out of there and go get ice cream at Friendly's. So yes, like Ben, I harbored ridiculous prom fantasies. But at least I didn't say mine out loud. — John Green

You can be a writer who doesn't read everyday. But you're not fooling anyone. It shows, rather embarrassingly, in your work. — Don Roff

An acceptable death is a death which can be accepted or tolerated by the survivors. It has its antithesis: 'the embarrassingly graceless dying,' which embarrasses the survivors because it causes too strong an emotion to burst forth; and emotions must be avoided both in the hospital and everywhere in society. One does not have the right to become emotional other than in private, that is to say, secretly. — Philippe Aries

And when I'd realised that I'd been wrong, ridiculously, embarrassingly, shamingly wrong... quite quickly the world went from colour to black and white and the magic seemed to drain away and the only thing left for me to do was gather up my personal pride and try to look like the hope I'd had never existed. I acted as if I wan't destroyed of defeated. I acted as if I didn't care. — Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

I spent a week living as a man. Which was actually, I'm sorry to say, embarrassingly easy for me to do. — Elizabeth Gilbert

'My problem was comparatively simple,' Marcus said. 'One kiss was enough to solve it. But that doesn't mean one kiss is enough to wake everyone up and end every nightmare. [ ... ] That's okay,' Marcus whispered to him. 'One kiss doesn't need to be enough to let you know that the nightmare is really over.'
Liam swallowed rapidly, the world around him becoming embarrassingly misty.
'I'm not going anywhere,' Marcus promised. 'There'll be as many kisses as you need.'
Tilting Liam's head back, Marcus dipped his head and brought their lips together one more time. Liam sighed softly into the kiss and, very slowly, woke up just a little bit more. — Kim Dare

I'm staring at him with my mouth open - again - as he tucks his shirt back in. When he's finished, he takes a step closer to me. I stand perfectly still. His grin dies into a seductive curve of his lips that makes my knees feel funny. I'm completely spellbound and embarrassingly turned on when he bends to whisper in my ear.
"You'd better close those lips before I'm tempted to kiss them and really give you something to be all hot and bothered about." -Cash — M. Leighton

When you kissed me, Clyde? I felt more in that one pissed-off kiss than I felt in those three or four attempts at making love. And I realized it wasn't a lie, after all. That was the best kiss I've ever had. By far. So tell me what I have to do to earn another one, because embarrassingly enough, I always seem to be the girl begging for affection and even with a broken give-a-damn, I don't know how much more humiliation I can take. — Amy Harmon

I've always scribbled, and I still do it. I've written numerous scripts for films for which I think I'd be perfect as the complex, intelligent and, yes, modern heroine. Embarrassingly bad, all of them. I've had to come to terms with the fact that I'm not a writer. — Romola Garai

We're currently living with a generation of established novelists who are embarrassingly out of date with respect to social networking, internet skills, and so on. — Charles Stross

She is a mess, her dress once pulled together long and fresh, now drooping and awkwardly weighted to one side of her head. "What happened? Are you okay?" The women clamor around her.
Nick walks out in perfect order and perfect swagger, passing her with a downward glance. "You forgot your panties". He said tossing her underwear onto the table in front of her. After being embarrassingly ignored by the group of debutants, the nearby college boys feel justified by the turn of events and break into hysterics. Slinking out the side door, the mortified women exit without another word. — Jennifer Loren

For example, a set of twenty-five studies involving five hundred astrologers examined the average degree of agreement between astrological predictions. In social science, such as in psychology, tests that have less than o.8 (i.e., 8o percent) agreement level are considered unreliable. Astrology's reliability is an embarrassingly low o. I, with a variability around the mean of o.o6 standard deviations. This means that there is, on average, no agreement at all among the predictions made by different astrologers. — Massimo Pigliucci

The early years of a Bes (and presumably an Ul Qoman) child are intense learnings of cues. We pick up styles of clothing, permissible colours, ways of walking and holding oneself, very fast. Before we were eight or so most of us could be trusted not to breach embarrassingly and illegally, though licence of course is granted children every moment they are in the street. — China Mieville

Unseen University had never admitted women, muttering something about problems with the plumbing, but the real reason was an unspoken dread that if women were allowed to mess around with magic they would probably be embarrassingly good at it ... — Terry Pratchett

I keep expectations so embarrassingly low that I broke my contract and went and got a hair-cut. — Cristin Milioti

If they didn't stop this, she was going to come
embarrassingly quickly.
Possibly even right now.
Not to mention the fact she never let men she barely knew unzip her and suck on her nipples. — Amy Andrews

I don't remember; I was in a rage haze. Also I was showing off, which can be at the very least embarrassingly transparent and at the very worst — Amy Poehler

Without recourse to eternal souls and a Creator God, it becomes embarrassingly difficult for liberals to explain what is so special about individual Sapiens. — Yuval Noah Harari

Men are embarrassingly easy to seduce. — Marya Hornbacher

Laughing,I poked him for his embarrassingly accurate imitation of my southern accent.
He continued in my voice, "Then one day my boyfriend was being an ass and I challenged him to a comp.I had to do a front 1080 off a jump just to show him up,and the rest is history."
"I hope so."
"I know so." He kissed my cheek.
I reached back to run my fingers through his long hair. "Right now I want to lie low,have a normal life,and hang out with my boyfriend. I'll meet you in People in a few years."
He chuckled, making my insides sparkle with anticipation. "It's a date. — Jennifer Echols

Gansey had always felt as if there were two of him: the Gansey who was in control, able to handle any situation, able to talk to anyone, and then, the other, more fragile Gansey, strung out and unsure, embarrassingly earnest, driven by naive longing. — Maggie Stiefvater

Raphael lifted a finger, tracing it over her cheekbone. She flinched. Not because he was hurting her. The opposite. The places he touched ... it was as if he had a direct line to the hottest, most feminine part of her. A single stroke and she was embarrassingly damp. But she refused to pull away, refused to give in.
(page 33 , Gollancz edition) — Nalini Singh

Part of me loves and respects men so desperately, and part of me thinks they are so embarrassingly incompetent at life and in love. You have to teach them the very basics of emotional literacy. You have to teach them how to be there for you, and part of me feels tender toward them and gentle, and part of me is so afraid of them, afraid of any more violation. — Anne Lamott

Men have grown embarrassingly weak, but only through observation. Their resolve can easily be broken by a woman. Their emotions can be easily manipulated by a woman. Their power can be easily taken by a woman. Their pride can be easily stripped by a woman. Their entire life can easily be ruined by a woman. While physically stronger, their manipulative prowess can be wittingly outclassed by a woman. And while their dreams are stronger, the realities of women are stronger. — Lionel Suggs

To assert that the universe has a purpose implies the universe has intent. And intent implies a desired outcome. But who would do the desiring? And what would a desired outcome be? That carbon-based life is inevitable? Or that sentient primates are life's neurological pinnacle? Are answers to these questions even possible without expressing a profound bias of human sentiment? Of course humans were not around to ask these questions for 99.9999% of cosmic history. So if the purpose of the universe was to create humans then the cosmos was embarrassingly inefficient about it. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex,
the solutions remain embarrassingly simple. — Bill Mollison

Embarrassingly enough, I often can't remember how I came to write something. — Tom Stoppard

As American productivity, once the exuberant engine of national wealth, has dipped to an embarrassingly uncompetitive low, Americans have shaken their heads: the country's old work ethic is dead. — Lance Morrow

When I saw 'Legally Blonde' on Broadway, I rang my agent and said 'I want to be seen for this,' but the rest weren't big choices, really. 'Hedda Gabler' was a phone call offering it to me, and as I've said before quite embarrassingly, I didn't know the play, so I didn't sit there thinking 'I would now like to tackle Ibsen.' — Sheridan Smith

During our visits, he consumed an embarrassingly varied assortment of cheap beer and wine, vacillating between fury and melancholy as one might imagine Richard Nixon to be doing not far away. Sometimes he choked on his emotions so badly I feared I would have to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him. — Viet Thanh Nguyen

I love children. I'm embarrassingly baby-crazy. — Sarah Silverman

It is embarrassingly unscientific to speak of anything creating itself from nothing. — Ray Comfort

I met Jay Jonhson. I won him the way poor people occasionally win the lottery: Shameless perseverance and embarrassingly dumb luck, and every time I see one of those sly, toothless, beaten-down souls on TV holding a winning ticket, I think, Go, team. — Amy Bloom

I'm mildly obsessed with skin care. I do a lot of masks at home, like Elisha Coy's Korean Collagen masks. I also use an embarrassingly wide variety of facial creams. — Nina Arianda

As for time, it is forever shrinking. Oppressed by multitasking and managerial efficiency, we live under a perpetual time pressure. The disease of this millennium will be called chronophobia or speedomania, and its treatment will be embarrassingly old-fashioned. Contemporary nostalgia is not so much about the past as about vanishing the present. — Svetlana Boym

The list of women to potentially be on a major party ticket, in both parties, is embarrassingly short. — Eleanor Clift

Time had been filled, reliably, agreeably, they had not been left adrift, and for this they were truly embarrassingly grateful. — Alice Munro

It's embarrassingly plain how inadequate language is. — Anthony Doerr

I'm not here because I'm broken. I'm here because I'm whole. Difficult, potentially undeserving, but whole. And I don't need you, I just want you. I want you" - my voice had gone embarrassingly husky - "so fucking much. And - " Another breath, another breath. " - maybe I love you. Or could love you. Or might love you. Or may come to love you." There was a dizzy rushing in my brain, as though I was about to faint or have a nosebleed. "Or whatever. — Alexis Hall

A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large. — Henry Ford

We got email today from an LGF reader who was browsing the Lexis research system and discovered that anti-American, anti-capitalist icon Noam Chomsky has embarrassingly capitalist tastes; among other expensive property he owns a 36,155 square foot home near Cambridge, a 13,503 square foot vacation home, and four boats. And we won't even mention the cars. Teaching kids to hate their own country seems to pay quite well. — Charles Foster Johnson

In an ideal world, we would have been orphans. We felt like orphans and we felt deserving of the pity that orphans get, but embarrassingly enough, we had parents. — Miranda July

My work is frequently described as cold, which is baffling, since it seems to me embarrassingly, shame-makingly, scandalously warm. I find my work filled with sentiment, and I can't imagine why people find it cold. — John Banville

Think of how it all started: America was founded by slave owners who informed us, "All men are created equal." All "men," except Indians, niggers, and women. Remember, the founders were a small group of unelected, white, male, land-holding slave owners who also, by the way, suggested their class be the only one allowed to vote. To my mind, that is what's known as being stunningly
and embarrassingly
full of shit. — George Carlin

It's often the case that when a critic uses an embarrassingly accurate term to describe what a wrong-doer is doing, the wrong-doer protests: "Why don't you use my white-washed, conscience-soothing euphemism?" Such euphemisms, they claim, help promote "civilized debate." — Steve Kangas

My family is just embarrassingly proud of me. My brothers get a little protective ... overly protective. I've made rules now where I say: "You can't go outside and scream at people if they have cameras!" — Kristen Stewart

With a ready tongue and rapier wit, Hamilton could wound people more than he realized, and he was so nimble in debate that even bright people sometimes felt embarrassingly tongue-tied in his presence. — Ron Chernow

Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself. — Alain De Botton

You know when he takes your hand and puts it in the hand of the person you marry? That's the only part I've ever really wanted." Embarrassingly enough, it was true. — Kiera Cass

I was seventeen, very old, embarrassingly young, — Maya Angelou