Understating Quotes & Sayings

All this is like a dream which the word bears within itself and which, passing through him who writes, is freed and frees him. — Italo Calvino

I haven't yet managed to capture the colour of this landscape; there are moments when I'm appalled at the colours I'm having to use, I'm afraid what I'm doing is just dreadful and yet I really am understating it; the light is simply terrifying. — Claude Monet

It's huge ears drooped over its face, and it brushed them back with one paw, then rose on its hind feet. The Pillsbury Doughboy might have something like this as his pet. — Dean Koontz

A bourbon a day keeps the doctor away. Actually, that might be understating it: whiskey can save your life. And it might be healthier to drink three a day than one a day. No, really. — Jeff Wilser

Texts on a lifeless strings of facts, but the keys to unlocking the character of human beings, people with likes and dislikes, diocese and foibles, errors and convictions. Words have texture and shape, and it is their almost tactile quality that leads readers to sculpt images of the writers who use them. These images are then interrogated, mocked, congratulated, or dismissed, depending on the context of the reading and the disposition of the reader. — Sam Wineburg

The alarm bells sound regularly: cybergeddon; the next Pearl Harbor; one of the greatest existential threats facing the United States. With increasing frequency, these are the grave terms officials invoke about the menace of cybercrime - and they're not understating the threat. — Preet Bharara

One's capacity for metaphor is one's capacity for a full life. — Joseph Chilton Pearce

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked - as I am surprisingly often - why I bother to get up in the mornings. — Richard Dawkins

Guys can't tell girls what to do. That's an unspoken rule. Learn that now and you'll be way ahead of the game. — Travis Thrasher

I recycle and try to be nice to the earth. But flora and fauna have always interested me, and it is because of so many years of summer camp and growing up in DC with Rock Creek Park fairly near me, or Glover Park; I lived in Glover Park for a while and that park was in my backyard. — Henry Rollins

If men can learn to be less defensive, more open to others, and more accepting of accountability, they will adapt well to the new global economy. — John Gerzema

I hate maps.'
'Really?' She sounded stunned, and maybe just a little bit delighted by his admission. 'Why?'
He told her the truth. 'I haven't the talent for reading them.'
'And you, a highwayman.'
'What has that to do with it?'
'Don't you need to know where you're going?'
'Not nearly so much as I need to know where I've been ... There are certain areas of the country - possibly all of Kent, to be honest - it is best that I avoid.'
'This is one of those moments,' she said, blinking several times in rapid succession, 'when I am not quite certain if you are being serious.'
'Oh, very much so,' he told her, almost cheerfully. 'Except perhaps for the bit about Kent ... I might have been understating.'
'Understating,' she echoed.
'There's a reason I avoid the South.'
'Good heavens. — Julia Quinn

expectation isn't the same as desire — Margaret Atwood

If I need to apologize for misrepresenting God's love I'd rather apologize for overstating His love than for understating it. — Steve McVey

Cat saliva contains a natural deodorant which is why they lick themselves a lot. It's been proven by zoologists that cats that lick the smell off themselves survive longer and have more successful offspring. It's also their way of hiding themselves from predators like large snakes, lizards and other larger carnivorous mammals. — James Bowen

Anyone who tells you fatherhood is the greatest thing that can happen to you, they are understating it. — Mike Myers

Do one thing at a time — John Medina

The first of the telegrams arrived shortly after noon, and Jeeves brought it in with the before-luncheon snifter. It was from Aunt Dahlia, operating from Market Snodsbury, a small town of sorts a mile or two along the main road as it leaves her country seat.
It ran as follows:

Come at once. Travers.

And when I say it puzzled me like the dickens, I am understating it, if anything. As mysterious a communication, I considered, as was ever flashed over the wires. I studied it in a profound reverie for the best part of two dry Martinis and a dividend. I read it backwards. I read it forwards. As a matter of fact, I have a sort of recollection of even smelling it. But it still baffled me. — P.G. Wodehouse

Gay marriage is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, thirty years. I AM NOT UNDERSTATING THAT. — Michele Bachmann