Pretentious Quotes

'Life' is a pretentious name for a cereal.

— BJ Novak

I was a really pretentious teenager,

— Rebecca Hall

Wow. I am really pretentious.

— Rob Corddry

“Lugubrious and pretentious at the same time.”

— Lauren Groff

“And he was pretentious:”

— John Green

You live for pretentious metaphors.

— John Green

I don't deal in pretentious kids' parties.

— Rachel Zoe

You are only pretentious if you are not sincere.

— John Hodgman

I eat whatever I want. I like bread and cheese and wine, and that makes my life fun and enjoyable.

— Gwyneth Paltrow

Yes, of course we were pretentious -- what else is youth for?

— Julian Barnes

I think it's pretentious to create art just for the sake of stroking the artists ego.

— Lou Reed

People are too pretentious in France to like Sarkozy. But he'd be a fabulous president for America.

— Claude Lelouch

My secret dream is to write an epic poem. That's probably the most pretentious thing I've said.

— Laurie Anderson

When I pass a flowering zucchini plant in a garden, my heart skips a beat.

— Gwyneth Paltrow

“I don't use big words to show off because it's ostentatious.”

— Don Roff

“Big white whale is a metaphor for everything. You live for pretentious metaphors.”

— John Green

Oftentimes an originator of new language forms is called 'pretentious' by jealous talents. But it ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha…

— Jack Kerouac

She has pretentious conversations about art house films. I have pretentious conversations about porno clips. We were doomed from the start …

— Rudy Espinoza

This sounds horribly pretentious, but I like to think that if music hadn't existed, I could have invented it.

— Harrison Birtwistle

I decided to dub the room with the good chairs my lutery. Or perhaps my performatory. I would need a while to…

— Patrick Rothfuss

“I felt both puny and pretentious, trying to write in the grandeur of that natural world where everything was older than time…

— Martha Gellhorn

I remember films I made at university, which are unbelievably pretentious. Poetry that I'd written that I delivered to camera, against a…

— Julian Barratt

This may sound pretentious, but I don't like being thought of as 'the Metal Gear guy.' There's a lot more I can…

— Hideo Kojima

Getting up to dance to your own stuff looks pretty pretentious. And leaving the dancefloor when it comes on is just awkward.

— Anonymous

One of my greatest pleasures in my writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“In an article titled “Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly,” he showed that couching…

— Anonymous

One of the more pretentious political self-descriptions is 'Libertarian.' People think it puts them above the fray. It sounds fashionable, and to…

— George Carlin

Most people are much better at saying things in letters than in conversation, and some people can write artistic, inventive letters, but…

— Charles Bukowski

When one crosses over from an activity, or the verb, of writing or doing, and becomes a noun, like "a writer" I…

— Joyce Carol Oates

In painting I try to make some logic out of the world that has been given to me in chaos. I have…

— Grace Hartigan

Too large a proportion of recent "mathematical" economics are mere concoctions, as imprecise as the initial assumptions they rest on, which allow…

— John Maynard Keynes

I've written a lot of wordy, erudite, pretentious songs, but believe it or not, I'm usually doing my damnedest to resist the…

— Peter Blegvad

I feel totally disconnected from reality in Washington. Maybe I'm just really pretentious - in fact, I probably am - but I…

— Willis Earl Beal

There is no mission, nor interest to convert, and yet I believe that if this state of consciousness could become more universal,…

— Alan Watts

I have a twitter, but I try to not talk about things like, "Oh, I had a grapefruit this morning and it…

— Zoey Deutch

My son is actually named after Beck, the musician. We heard Beck on the radio and thought that was a good nickname…

— Lauren Groff

All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the "elect" have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble…

— Mark Twain

There are a number of things that I'm trying to get into the books. There's a meta-fictional aspect, if I may use…

— George R. R. Martin

My main influences - I loved art. I sounds a little pretentious to say I was into art but I liked drawing.…

— Gavin Friday

The same tantalizing guile and sublime skill…[The series is] reinforced in its claim to be one of the major literary works of…

— Kevin Myers