Quotes & Sayings About Self Deprecation

She was exhausted from her own self-deprecation and inner turmoil. — Kimberly Derting

In a nutshell, I am not unaware of my failings. Neither am I a stranger to irony. — Mordecai Richler

Self-deprecation is the appropriate response of any new convert, as he matches his stained soul against the purity of God. — Philip Zaleski

Look, Spanky," I said to Sharkface. "I'm a little busy to be tussling with every random weirdo who is insecure about his junk. Otherwise I would just love to smash you with a beer bottle, kick you in the balls, throw you out through the saloon doors, the whole bit. Why don't you have your people contact my people, and we can do this maybe next week?"
"Next week is your self-deprecation awareness seminar," Thomas said.
I snapped my fingers. "What about the week after?"
"Apartment hunting."
"Bother," I said. "Well, no one can say we didn't try. — Jim Butcher

We have a history in country music of writing about the darker side of things - maybe not as much in modern times, but there's a lot of cheating and self-deprecation. We sort it out in song, in country music, as a genre. — Chris Stapleton

I think self-deprecation is such a disease, and I want to cure everybody of it and so that's my contribution. — Margaret Cho

All the shitty stuff people do to themselves ... it can all be the same thing, you know? Just a way to drown out your own voice. To kill your memories without having to kill yourself. — Isaac Marion

One of the hallmarks that a British actor brings to his public persona is an adept sense of self-deprecation - see Daniel Craig and Damian Lewis. — Stephen Rodrick

John F. Kennedy responded, as he often did when at his best, skillfully mixing dollops of wit with, self-deprecation, and the principle of not-really-going-near-the-question. — David Pietrusza

Don't be afraid! We won't make an author of you, while there's an honest trade to be learnt, or brick-making to turn to. — Charles Dickens

The true knowing, living Christian complains more frequently and more bitterly of the wants and woes within him, than without him(55). — Richard Baxter

He hands her his pack, which he's emptied. "You mean me?" Justineau demands. "You think I'm not pulling my weight?" It would feel good to have a stand-up argument with Parks right then, but he doesn't seem keen to play. "No, I didn't mean you. I meant in general." "People in general? You were being philosophical?" "I was being a grumpy bastard. It's what I wear to the office most days. I guess you probably noticed that." She hesitates, wrong-footed. She didn't think Parks was capable of self-deprecation. But then she didn't think he was capable of changing his mind. "Any more rules of engagement?" she asks him, still hurting in some obscure way, still not mollified. "How to survive when shopping? Top tips for modern urban living?" Parks gives the question more consideration than she was expecting. "Use up the last of that e-blocker," he suggests. "And don't die. — M.R. Carey

In hindsight, I must have been looking for a way to write about Jewishness that somehow managed to minimize irony and self-deprecation. — Zachary Lazar

Music had been his undoing, he told the boy in ironic self-deprecation. His bane and his salvation. It had gotten him through tough times that would have otherwise been unbearable and it had made everything else he had gone at twice as hard. — William Gay

All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare. — Samuel Johnson

Do you think none shall be saved but puritans(89)? — Richard Baxter

One notorious apikoros named Hiwa al-Balkhi, writing in ninth-century Persia, offered two hundred awkward questions to the faithful. He drew upon himself the usual thunderous curses - 'may his name be forgotten, may his bones be worn to nothing' - along with detailed refutations and denunciations by Abraham ibn Ezra and others. These exciting anathemas, of course, ensured that his worrying 'questions' would remain current for as long as the Orthodox commentaries would be read. In this way, rather as when Maimonides says that the Messiah will come but that 'he may tarry,' Jewishness contrives irony at its own expense. If there is one characteristic of Jews that I admire, it is that irony is seldom if ever wasted on them. — Christopher Hitchens

Humility is in reality the opposite of self-deprecation. It is the grateful recognition that we are precious in God's eyes and that all we are is pure gift. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Goodness, I was already a dork most of the times. I didn't need to be a drunk or high dork. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Every time I move I squash something said Loathesome. — Norman Mailer

In the secular trinity of Irish-American values, loyalty and humor are father and son. Self-deprecation is the spirit that works in mysterious ways ... — Maureen Dezell

They say no one person can do it all
But you want to in your head
But you can't be Shakespeare and you can't be Joyce
So what is left instead

You're stuck with yourself and a rage that can hurt you
You have to start at the beginning again
And just this moment
This wonderful fire started up again

When you pass through humble, when you pass through sickly
When you pass through, I'm better than you all
When you pass through anger and self deprecation
And have the strength to acknowledge it all

When the past makes you laugh and you can savor the magic
That let you survive your own war
You find that that fire is passion
And there's a door up ahead, not a wall

- "Magic And Loss" The Summation — Lou Reed

Don't confuse humility with self-deprecation. — N.D. Walsch

It would have been really easy, a thousand times a day, to feel as though I was less than who I was before. I had, after all, lost my mind and therefore had legitimate reason to feel sorry for myself. But fortunately, my right mind's joy and celebration were so strong that they didn't want to be displaced by the feeling that went along with self-deprecation, self-pity, or depression. Part of getting out of my own way meant that I needed to welcome support, love, and help from others. — Jill Bolte Taylor

They all laughed when I said I'd become a comedian. Well, they're not laughing now. — Bob Monkhouse

Comedy is basically self-deprecation. — Hannibal Buress

Actually, when it comes to knocking the Canadian cultural scene, nobody outdoes Canadians, myself included. We are veritable masters of self-deprecation. — Mordecai Richler

There's no room for demons when you're self-possessed. — Carrie Fisher

I couldn't buy the lice off a sick cat, the cabbie answered from the very depths of self-deprecation. — Nelson Algren

So it just wasn't in my house. Anywhere, I looked like I knew about the toilet. — Sarah Dessen

The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.
Scruples are alien to the black panther.
Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions.
The rattlesnake approves of himself without reservations.
The self-critical jackal does not exist.
The locust, alligator, trichina, horsefly
live as they live and are glad of it.
The killer whale's heart weighs one hundred kilos
but in other respects it is light.
There is nothing more animal-like
than a clear conscience
on the third planet of the Sun. — Wislawa Szymborska

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which is a pity because this week the National Association of Beholders wrote to tell me that I've got a face like a rucksack full of dented bells. — Charlie Brooker

I was a little cross.I ask pardon. If I do get up a little temper I have no sufficient time to keep it up. — Abraham Lincoln

It was clear to her now, Happiness was a seductive illusion. No one as fucked up as her deserved one drop of joy. But oh god was it delicious when it fell into her lap for a little while. (Such a pretty face) she muses (with such a bruised and battered soul). When the dawn of a promise fades into the dusk of reality, all that remains is the nightmare. Sweet, sweet loneliness. Shadows come to play and prey on her beaten mind. Her lovely little dreams of poison. — Solange Nicole

But it doesn't make sense for you to love me... — Stephenie Meyer

Is it just me or is this like a bad TV sci-fi show? — John Ringo

Virtue should always be colmingled with humor. — Patrick O'Brian

I think people are used to people in show business having a lot of hubris. I think I have a normal amount of self-loathing but because I'm in show business it's considered self-deprecation. In normal life I would just be considered your average neurotic. — Jon Stewart

Winning isn't everything, but losing isn't anything. — Charles M. Schulz

I don't think that either self-deprecation or self-aggrandizement is among the defining qualities of an artist ... Beethoven could have been forgiven if his symphonies had gone to his head. Gretchaninoff could also be forgiven if his Dobrinya Nikititch went to his head. But neither one could be forgiven for writing a piece that was amoral, servile, the work of a flunky. — Dmitri Shostakovich

Magic And Loss (The Summation)
They say no one person can do it all
But you want to in your head
But you can't be Shakespeare and you can't be Joyce
So what is left instead
You're stuck with yourself and a rage that can hurt you
You have to start at the beginning again
And just this moment
This wonderful fire started up again
When you pass through humble, when you pass through sickly
When you pass through, I'm better than you all
When you pass through anger and self deprecation
And have the strength to acknowledge it all
When the past makes you laugh and you can savor the magic
That let you survive your own war
You find that that fire is passion
And there's a door up ahead, not a wall — Lou Reed

My favorite, and the author I wish I was reading right now and always is Nora Ephron. I love the humor, the awareness, the sense of self-deprecation. She is such a role model to me. — Garance Dore

I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying. — Oscar Wilde

Do you have any idea how attractive you are?
Well, I'm better than roseanne Barr, I suppose. — Lucy Robinson

Remember with whom thou hast to do: what canst thou expect from dust but levity; or from corruption, but defilement(33)? — Richard Baxter

There is power born of humility ... Humility, in business and in life, is a powerful asset and does not denote lowliness, unimportance, or self-deprecation. — Richie Norton

But this time, so far as I can tell, my mother has not made her husband her desire incarnate, though she does love him very much. And for his part, so far as I can tell, he doesn't try to talk her out of her self-deprecation, nor does he abet it. He simply loves her. I am learning from him. — Maggie Nelson

Adolescents swing from euphoric self-confidence and a kind of narcissistic strength in which they feel invulnerable and even immortal, to despair, self-emptiness, self-deprecation. At the same time they seem to see an emerging self that is unique and wonderful, they suffer an intense envy which tears narcissism into shreds, and makes other people's qualities hit them like an attack of lasers. — Terri E Apter

Lincoln said his spiky hair had "a way of getting up in the world". — Harold Holzer

After years of self deprecating behavior, I've never learned how to properly take a compliment. A part of me wants to argue with him, to tell him there's nothing special about me. — Brynna Gabrielson

The falseness of your own hearts, if you look not to them, may undo you(15). — Richard Baxter

Mine, is a wicked world of pure fascinastion. — Carroll Bryant

Strange that people are happy to adopt epithets they would fight to the death to throw off had they been imposed. — Iain M. Banks

My challenge to you today is to observe your thoughts and internal dialogue and recognize if and when you speak poorly to yourself. We all have moments of self-deprecation and very often we are too hard on ourselves. Today, start to be caring and supportive of yourself. Observe that little voice in your head and say something positive to yourself instead! — Elaine Seiler

First off, I don't do self-deprecation comedy based on being fat. I would always talk about it honestly. Secondly, I don't care how much I weigh. — Jeff Garlin