15 of the most evil lines in literature

Hammer | July 10, 2015
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Take a masterclass in talking evil from this list of wicked prose!

1. “Kill the beast! Cut his throat!Spill his blood!”

© Ragged Claws

Spoken by: Various
From: Lord of the Flies
Author: William Golding

2. “Do not expect me to wish you health and long life. You will have neither. But that is not my doing. I merely foretell.”

© Tolkien Library

Spoken by: Saruman
From: The Return of the King
Author: JRR Tolkien

3. “Honestly, I don’t understand why people get so worked up about a little murder!”

© Amazon

Spoken by: Tom Ripley
From: Ripley Underground
Author: Patricia Highsmith

4. “A census taker tried to quantify me once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a big Amarone.”

© Amazon

Spoken by: Hannibal Lecter
From: Silence of the Lambs
Author: Thomas Harris

5. “Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav’n.”

© WordPress

Spoken by: Satan
From: Paradise Lost
Author: John Milton

6. “Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

© Penguin

Spoken by: O’Brien
From: 1984
Author: George Orwell

7. “If one good Deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very Soule”

© Amazon

Spoken by: Aaron the Moore
From: Titus Andronicus
Author: William Shakespeare

8. Exterminate All the brutes!

© WordPress

Spoken by: Kurtz
From: Heart of Darkness
Author: Joseph Conrad

9. “Off with his head!”

© Blossom Books

Spoken by: Queen of Hearts
From: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Author: Lewis Carroll

10. “My revenge has just begun! I spread it over centuries and time is on my side.”

© The Edge

Spoken by: Count Dracula
From: Dracula
Author: Bram Stoker

11. “I kissed her, a long hard kiss. Because baby didn’t know it, but baby was dead, and in a way I couldn’t have loved her more.”

© Fright

Spoken by: Lou Ford
From: The Killer Inside Me
Author: Jim Thompson

12. “When I was half-grown I made a man kill himself.”

© WordPress

Spoken by: Cathy Ames/Kate Albey
From: East of Eden
Author: John Stenbeck

13. “My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape.”

© In Search of Wasted Time

Spoken by: Patrick Bateman
From: American Psycho
Author: Bret Easton Ellis

14. “When I came into your life your life was over. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is the end.”

© Blogspot

Spoken by: Anton Chigurh
From: No Country For Old Men
Author: Cormac McCarthy

15. “I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it.”

© Pop Sugar

Spoken by: Libby Day
From: Dark Places
Author: Gillian Flynn

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