Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn’t really hurt.

I have never believed much in luck, and my sense of humor has tended to walk on the dark side.

This is the first age that’s ever paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one.

People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy… and I keep it in a jar on my desk.

There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity.

I have no need for good souls: an accomplice is what I wanted.

Now they show you how detergents take out bloodstains, a pretty violent image there. I think if you’ve got a T-shirt with a bloodstain all over it, maybe laundry isn’t your biggest problem. Maybe you should get rid of the body before you do the wash.

I don’t think my parents liked me. They put a live teddy bear in my crib.

I’d call him a sadistic, hippophilic necrophile, but that would be beating a dead horse.

To be famous, in fact, one has only to kill one’s landlady.

That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?

I’m not convinced that women have the education or the sense of their own history enough or that they understand the cruelty of which men are capable and the delight that many men will take in seeing you choose to chain yourself – then they get to say ‚See, you did it yourself.‘

Sadly, of course, there is real evil in the world. You watch the news, and you see all of the people suffering and so much cruelty.

If I’d found out that Norman Mailer liked me. I’d have killed myself.

God is cruel. Sometimes he makes you live.

It is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets through many a bad night.

It is pretty ironic that the so-called ‚least advanced‘ people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us, while the richest and most powerful among us are the ones who are trying to drive the society to destruction.

He would make a lovely corpse.

All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.

To insult someone we call him ‚bestial. For deliberate cruelty and nature, ‚human‘ might be the greater insult.

Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.

I had a friend who was a clown. When he died, all his friends went to the funeral in one car.

Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.

Human beings may well be unable to break free of the dictatorship of greed that spreads like a miasma over the world, but no longer will we be an inarticulate and ignorant humanity, confused by our enslavement to superior cruelty and weaponry.

I used to love Kurt Cobain, when he was telling people we’re a pop band. People would laugh, they thought of it as good old ironic Kurt. But he wasn’t being ironic.

The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty because freedom is their greatest fear – and they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march.

I know that war is very cruel and that life is harder when you aren’t able to live in the place you called home.

Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.

I suppose that’s one of the ironies of life doing the wrong thing at the right moment.

People use irony as a defense mechanism.

If it’s a penny for your thoughts and you put in your two cents worth, then someone, somewhere is making a penny.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.

Thank God, I never was cheerful. I come from the happy stock of the Mathers, who, as you remember, passed sweet mornings reflecting on the goodness of God and the damnation of infants.

The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.

I must be cruel, only to be kind.

The best comfort food will always be greens, cornbread, and fried chicken.

I think when people mean that Discworld books have become darker they really mean the series is growing up. In ‚The Colour of Magic‘ most of the city is set alight. It’s a joke, in much the same way that the Earth is destroyed almost at the start of Douglas Adams’s ‚The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.‘

You know the good part about all those executions in Texas? Fewer Texans.

Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel.

Your own soul is nourished when you are kind; it is destroyed when you are cruel.

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.

I feel strange when I get applauded by people in power… because it’s obvious that it’s them I’m criticizing, but they can’t show that in front of the cameras. It’s quite funny sometimes.

To me, constructive criticism is when people take ownership of their ideas. That’s why I don’t listen to anything that’s anonymous. But it’s hard; when there’s something hurtful out there, I still want to read it over and over and memorize it and explain my point of view to the person.

Isn’t it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?

Colleges are like old-age homes, except for the fact that more people die in colleges.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth.

If I ever had twins, I’d use one for parts.

The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.

My father opened a restaurant. It’s so amazing… it’s so freaking delicious, but I’m telling you I gain five pounds every time I go in there.

When I first saw a picture of the crucifixion, I lost respect for my parents. I suddenly realised that this is what the adult world is like – full of cruelty and hypocrisy.

When I’m back in New York – and this is a terrible thing to complain about – I eat a lot more really, really good food than perhaps I’d like to. So many of my friends are really good chefs. It’s kind of like being in the Mafia.

I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact.

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‚Where’s the self-help section?‘ She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

All cruelty springs from weakness.

Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.

You look like a talent scout for a cemetery.

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.