Quotes & Sayings About Exaggerating Things

Brillat-Savarin claimed to have seen the vicar of Bregnier eat the following within forty-five minutes: a bowl of soup, two dishes of boiled beef, a leg of mutton, a handsome capon, a generous salad, a ninety-degree wedge from a good-sized white cheese, a bottle of wine, and a carafe of water. If Brillat-Savarin was not exaggerating, the amount of food eaten by the vicar in less than an hour would have provided enough calories for a day or more. It is hard to imagine a wild chimpanzee achieving such a feat. — Richard W. Wrangham

Whenever we want to combat our enemies, first and foremost we must start by understanding them rather than exaggerating their motives. — Criss Jami

The world loves to tell you how difficult things are, and the world's not exaggerating. But difficult doesn't mean impossible, and out of the bajillions of things in this universe that you can't control, what you can control is how hard you try, and if or when to pack it in. — Sophia Amoruso

Take a chance on your own abilities clearly, neither exaggerating them nor under-assessing them. — Seth

Jamie felt as though her heart would literally take flight from her crest. Damn her and her mouth. "Nick, I was sort of exaggerating about how nasty I was going to act of the plane. Why can't we just leave Fleas with Max and get going?"
"She's lying, Nick," Max said. "You don't do things her way and she turns into Satan's daughter. — Janet Evanovich

I never could tell a joke. I just started talking to the audience, and when the drunks would yell, "Hey, when do the broads come on?" I got good at saying, "Relax. Clear your skin up first." They called me "the insult guy," but it's never mean-spirited. I'm just exaggerating everything about us and about life. — Don Rickles

You want to have two guys making out in front of your 4-year-old? It's OK with them. A guy smoking a joint, blowing the smoke into your little kid's face? OK with them. And I'm not exaggerating here. This is exactly what the secular movement stands for. — Bill O'Reilly

He is exaggerating the effects of the disease. He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act ... This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting. — Rush Limbaugh

The administration needs to speak honestly with the American people. Exaggerating our progress in defeating the insurgency or in creating an Iraqi army paints a dangerous picture. — Sherrod Brown

I'm terrified that I'm genetically predisposed to only having boys. That's frightening. By the time I was 10 years old, and I'm not exaggerating, I knew how to patch drywall. — Ryan Reynolds

Tis a rule of manners to avoid exaggeration. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The difficult thing, the glorious thing, was to be who you really were, even if that person was cruel or dangerous, particularly if cruel and dangerous. There was courage in not distinguishing the animal you happened to be. On the other hand, you had to avoid pretending to be more of an animal than you were: take that path, start exaggerating or faking and you became just another Cubby, just as much of a liar, a hypocrite — J.K. Rowling

Well
to put it briefly
Arianna and I had become
well
friends."
"I see."
"Nothing improper, you understand," Lelldorin said quickly. "But our friendship was such that
well
we didn't want to be separated." The young Asturian's face appealed to his friend for understanding. "Actually," he went on, "it was a little more than 'didn't want to.' Arianna told me she'd die if I left her behind."
"Possibly she was exaggerating," Garion suggested.
"How could I risk it, though?" Lelldorin protested. "Women are much more delicate than we are
besides, Arianna's a physician. She'd know if she'd die, wouldn't she? — David Eddings

But on the other hand, if you come under circumstances where each person is entitled to a pro-rata share of the pot, to take an extreme example, or even to a low level of the pie, than the effect of that situation is that free immigration, would mean a reduction of everybody to the same, uniform level. Of course, I'm exaggerating, it wouldn't go quite that far, but it would go in that direction. And it is that perception, that leads people to adopt what at first seems like inconsistent values. — Milton Friedman

I was not staring at you," he told his plate.
I leaned over. "Did you hear that, Dingane's lunch? He was not staring at you."
He looked up at me crossly. "I was not staring at you."
"I never said you were."
"I was merely explaining that Henry was exaggerating. I did not stare at you."
"Okay," I stated, implying in my tone that he had done just that.
"I didn't. I-I wasn't."
"I believe you," I told him
"I may have looked at you a few times to make sure you were doing your job."
"Oh, I see then."
"But I certainly wasn't staring."
"We've established that you were not staring."
He breathed deeply a few times, his eyes burning into mine. "Good."
He'd definitely been staring. — Fisher Amelie

For such is the fate of parody: it must never fear exaggerating. If it strikes home, it will only prefigure something that others will then do without a smile
and without a blush
in steadfast virile seriousness. — Umberto Eco

Kay was showing this, exaggerating her whims- loving herself through Leila, really. — Anais Nin

In order to play musically you have to learn the art of exaggerating. — Ray Still

I don't think I'm an intentional liar, but I'm a little bit of an exaggerator sometimes. If I'm exaggerating, and the journalist exaggerates on top of that, then we end up in funny territory. — Autre Ne Veut

J.D. scoffed at this. "Please - as if I'm worried about anything Payton has to say. What's she going to do, give me another one of her little pissed-off hair flips?" He flung imaginary long hair off his shoulders, exaggerating. "I'll tell you, one of these days I'm going to grab her by that hair and ... " He gestured as if throttling someone.
Without breaking stride, he returned Tyler's serve. The two smashed a few back and forth, concentrating on the game when
Is violence always part of your sexual fantasies?" Tyler interjected.
J.D. whipped around
Sexual - ?"
- and got hit smack in the face with the squash ball. He toppled back and sprawled ungracefully across the court.
Tyler stepped over and twirled his racquet. "This is nice. We should talk like this more often. — Julie James

She, being human, could not resist the satisfaction of pouring even more poison into her brother's heart by exaggerating the calamity, even though she loved him sincerely and with compassion. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

What I advise you to do is, not to be unhappy before the crisis comes; since it may be that the dangers before which you paled as if they were threatening you, will never come upon you; they certainly have not yet come. Accordingly, some things torment us more than they ought; some torment us before they ought; and some torment us when they ought not to torment us at all. We are in the habit of exaggerating, or imagining, or anticipating, sorrow. — Seneca.

There is apparently no surer way of turning a thing into its opposite than by exaggerating it — Eric Hoffer

I was extremely irritated being photographed for a long time, then I gave up caring. Photography is a nauseating cliche, but there is a lot to it. You can tell so much about a person from it. You are exaggerating the consciousness. It's life-thickening, photography. — Peter Beard

The very things I used to be told off for - daydreaming, exaggerating, making mistakes, wild guessing, contradicting, spying, being obsessive, being reckless - for these, suddenly, I am being praised. — Selima Hill

The market is always making mountains out of molehills and exaggerating ordinary vicissitudes into major setbacks. — Benjamin Graham

Sometimes I think," he told me the only time we talked somewhat seriously, "I've never looked anyone in the eye." It was an exaggeration, but I'm not sure the man was exaggerating on purpose. After all, he wasn't looking me in the eye when he said those words. — Juan Gabriel Vasquez

Indignation caused Mercedes to puff out her cheeks temporarily, causing her narrow face to resemble a set of inflated fireplace bellows. "You don't like Mr. Swift any more than I do," she retorted.
"No," Lillian said frankly. "But much as I hate to admit it, that puts us in a minority. Swift is liked by everyone in the northern hemisphere, including Westcliff and his friends, my friends, the servants, the neighbors - "
"You are exaggerating - "
" - children, animals and the higher order of plants," Lillian finished sardonically. "If root vegetables could talk, I've no doubt they would say they like him, too."
Daisy, who was sitting by the window with a book, looked up with a sudden grin. "His charm doesn't extend to poultry," she said. — Lisa Kleypas

As I got warmed up, and felt perfectly at home in talk, I heard myself boasting, lying, exaggerating. Oh, not deliberately, far from it. It would be unconvivial and dull to stop and arrest the flow of talk, and speak only after carefully considering whether I was telling the truth. — Bernard Berenson

Scientists are being portrayed by much of the power structure in politics and business as having a vested interest - that they're just out to get more grant money by exaggerating the threats. — David Suzuki

Fallujah was a Guernica with no Picasso. A city of 300,000 was deprived of water, electricity, and food, emptied of most of its inhabitants who ended up parked in camps. Then came the methodical bombing and recapture of the city block by block. When soldiers occupied the hospital, The New York Times managed to justify this act on grounds that the hospital served as an enemy propaganda center by exaggerating the number of casualties. And by the way, just how many casualties were there? Nobody knows, there is no body count for Iraqis. When estimates are published, even by reputable scientific reviews, they are denounced as exaggerated. Finally, the inhabitants were allowed to return to their devastated city, by way of military checkpoints, and start to sift through the rubble, under the watchful eye of soldiers and biometric controls. — Jean Bricmont

The truth is, that one doesn't really know anything about anybody. Not even the people who are nearest to you...'
'Isn't that going a little too far--exaggerating too much?'
'I don't think it is. When you think of people, it is in the image you have made of them for yourself. — Agatha Christie

He found it so easy and so pleasant to cry that he didn't try to stop for a while, until he realized he was forcing his sobs a little, exaggerating their depth with unnecessary shudders.
...
The whole point of crying is to quit before you coined it up. The whole point of grief itself was to cut it out while it was still honest, while it still meant something. Because the thing was so easily corrupted — Richard Yates

We all have sinned so far in our lives and might continue too but still we all love talking about others sins, Elaborating, exaggerating, laughing, commenting, cursing ... And we all enjoy it hahaha — Honeya

That would probably kill me, so I knew he was exaggerating, but it made me feel soft inside. Nervous too, but soft. It's hard to explain. It was kind of like hope, but with jagged edges. — Heidi Cullinan

I do not believe I am exaggerating in affirming that the empire of Russia is a country whose inhabitants are the most miserable on earth, because they suffer at one and the same time the evils of barbarism and of civilization. — Marquis De Custine

Even if you're drawing a cartoon and exaggerating, you want to capture something true about the person. — David Horsey

Can't we go another way?"
"Nope. Only way to reach the green grass of Oregon or the sweet gold of California is through hell itself."
I roll my eyes. The Major has been especially colorful since his amputation, cussing and exaggerating and telling tall tales. He reminds me of Daddy, except not fit for female company. — Rae Carson