1. “Every villain is a hero in his own mind.” – Tom Ripley, “The Talented Mr. Ripley” by Patricia Highsmith
2. “Evil is a point of view. God kills indiscriminately and so shall we. For no creatures under God are as we are, none so like Him as ourselves.” – Lestat de Lioncourt, “Interview with the Vampire” by Anne Rice
3. “The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.” – Magneto, “X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills” by Chris Claremont
4. “There are no men like me. Only me.” – Jaime Lannister, “A Storm of Swords” by George R.R. Martin
5. “Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence—whether much that is glorious—whether all that is profound—does not spring from disease of thought—from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.” – The Narrator, “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe
6. “He must be mad to trust me, but I must be mad to let him.” – Magneto, “X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga” by Chris Claremont
7. “The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.” – Joseph Stalin, referenced in “Pompeii” by Robert Harris
8. “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.” – Albus Dumbledore, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” by J.K. Rowling
9. “It’s so much easier to suggest solutions when you don’t know too much about the problem.” – Malcolm, “The Lost World” by Michael Crichton
10. “I live for myself and I answer to nobody.” – Richard Rich, “A Man for All Seasons” by Robert Bolt
11. “Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea… and ideas are bulletproof.” – V, “V for Vendetta” by Alan Moore
12. “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” – Alfred, “The Dark Knight” by Christopher Nolan (Note: Originally a movie quote, but significant)
13. “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” – Lord Henry Wotton, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde
14. “The evil that is in the world almost always comes from ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.” – Albert Camus, “The Plague”
15. “A villain must be a thing of power, handled with delicacy and grace. He must be wicked enough to excite our aversion, strong enough to arouse our fear, human enough to awaken some transient gleam of sympathy.” – Agnes Repplier, “The Fireside Sphinx”
16. “Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can’t get out of it if we would.” – Thomas Hardy, “The Woodlanders”
17. “Every man at some point in his life is going to lose a battle. He is going to fight, and he is going to lose. But what makes him a man is at the midst of that battle, he does not lose himself.” – Coach Eric Taylor, “Friday Night Lights” by H.G. Bissinger (Note: Originally from a TV show, but impactful)
18. “When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.” – Winston Churchill, referenced in “From Russia with Love” by Ian Fleming
19. “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” – Aristotle, referenced in various works
20. “I am not a demon. I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking panther. I want to be Bob Denver on acid playing the accordion.” – Nicolas Cage
21. “Perhaps I shall be fortunate enough to die in bed, surrounded by relatives, at peace with my conscience. That would be nice. But… unlikely.” – Emperor Jagang, “Soul of the Fire” by Terry Goodkind
22. “It is not our abilities that show what we truly are… it is our choices.” – Dumbledore, “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” by J.K. Rowling
23. “The wise know too well their weakness to assume infallibility; and he who knows most, knows best how little he knows.” – Thomas Jefferson, referenced in various works
24. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” – George Orwell, “Animal Farm”
25. “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.” – Shirley Jackson, “The Haunting of Hill House”
26. “To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness.” – Confucius, referenced in various works
27. “The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?” – George Orwell, “1984”
28. “The world is full of monsters with friendly faces.” – Patrick Rothfuss, “The Wise Man’s Fear”
29. “I am not a monster. I’m just ahead of the curve.” – The Joker, “Batman: The Killing Joke” by Alan Moore
30. “It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it.” – Seneca, referenced in various works
31. “There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” – Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisy
