Quote 1
The captain was very well satisfied with this plain relation I had given him, and said, "he hoped, when we returned to England, I would oblige the world by putting it on paper, and making it public." My answer was, "that we were overstocked with books of travels: that nothing could now pass which was not extraordinary; wherein I doubted some authors less consulted truth, than their own vanity, or interest, or the diversion of ignorant readers; that my story could contain little beside common events, without those ornamental descriptions of strange plants, trees, birds, and other animals; or of the barbarous customs and idolatry of savage people, with which most writers abound. However, I thanked him for his good opinion, and promised to take the matter into my thoughts." (2.8.12)
When Gulliver sails away from Brobdingnag, the captain suggests that he should write a book about his adventures. Gulliver says, no, no, those books of travels are filled with so much exaggeration that they must be lies. Gulliver doesn't want to include "ornamental descriptions" "of the barbarous customs [...] of savage people." But Gulliver's Travels contains precisely these kinds of descriptions of the customs of people Gulliver meets.
In addition to parodying books of travels, Swift also seems to be poking fun at Gulliver's blindness to any irony in his tales. Gulliver lies to people all the time, but claims to be telling only the truth in his writing. Also, he suggests that he would write "little beside common events," but he also describes the most extraordinary and unlikely meetings with giants, little people, floating islands, and talking horses. Gulliver's language is kind of amazing, because even though he is our narrator, we can still observe little inconsistencies in his self-image that open up Gulliver himself to our criticism and mockery.