Diabolical Quotes

“Anything else?” asked Matthias.
“I like singing,” said Alys.
Wylan shook his head frantically, mouthing, No, no, no.
“Shall I sing?” Alys asked hopefully. “Bajan says that I’m good enough to be on the stage.”
“Maybe we save that for later—” suggested Jesper.
Alys’ lower lip began to wobble like a plate about to break.
“Sing,” Matthias blurted, “by all means, sing.”
And then the real nightmare began.
It wasn’t that Alys was so bad, she just never stopped. She sang between bites of food. She sang while she was walking through the graves. She sang from behind a bush when she needed to relieve herself. When she finally dozed off, she hummed in her sleep.
“Maybe this was Van Eck’s plan all along,” Kaz said glumly when they’d assembled outside the tomb again.
“To drive us mad?” said Nina. “It’s working.”
Jesper shut his eyes and groaned. “Diabolical.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“But it's the innocent looking ones who're the most diabolical.”
― Kate Perry, Perfect for You

“Diabolical on the other hand is all but synonymous with ingenious. What Satan had for sale in the garden was knowledge.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Stella Maris

“It was not evil that gave her the idea of pleasure, that seemed to her attractive; it was pleasure, rather, that seemed evil. And as, every time that she indulged in it, pleasure came to her attended by evil thoughts such as, ordinarily, had no place in her virtuous mind, she came at length to see in pleasure itself something diabolical, to identify it with Evil.”
― Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way

“There is nothing Evangelical about me and nothing Diabolical.”
― Jean Pierre Van Rossem, De engel in de duivel

“(...)entre todas las razas del mundo, nuestra sed, o mejor dicho, nuestra avidez, de tesoros, de oro, de especias y de dominio, ¡oh, si!, sobre todo del dulce dominio, ¡es la más aguda, la más insaciable, la más carente de todo escrúpulo! Es esta avidez la que alimenta nuestro progreso, no sé si con fines diabólicos o divinos. Ni usted tampoco lo sabe, señor. Ni yo tengo el menor interés en saberlo. Simplemente, me alegro de que el Creador me arrojase del lado de los vencedores.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“It's terrifying to realize your own decisions are shaping your destiny.”
― S.J. Kincaid, The Diabolic

“The invention of the devil. If we are possessed by the devil, it cannot be by one, for then we should live, at least here on earth, quietly, as with God, in unity, without contradiction, without reflection, always sure of the man behind us. His face would not frighten us, for as diabolical beings we would, if somewhat sensitive to the sight, be clever enough to prefer to sacrifice a hand in order to keep his face covered with it. If we were possessed by only a single devil, one who had a calm, untroubled view of our whole nature, and freedom to dispose of us at any moment, then that devil would also have enough power to hold us for the length of a human life high above the spirit of God in us, and even to swing us to and fro, so that we should never get to see a glimmer of it and therefore should not be troubled from that quarter. Only a crowd of devils could account for our earthly misfortunes. Why don’t they exterminate one another until only a single one is left, or why don’t they subordinate themselves to one great devil? Either way would be in accord with the diabolical principle of deceiving us as completely as possible. With unity lacking, of what use is the scrupulous attention all the devils pay us? It simply goes without saying that the falling of a human hair must matter more to the devil than to God, since the devil really loses that hair and God does not. But we still do not arrive at any state of well-being so long as the many devils are within us.”
― Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910-1923

“Envisioning and organizing the [death camp Sonderkommandos] was National Socialism’s most diabolical crime…Through this institution, the attempt was made to shift the burden of guilt to others, that is, to the victims, so that not even the awareness that they were innocent was left to bring them relief. It is neither easy nor pleasant to plumb the depths of this evil, but I think it has to be done, because what was perpetrated yesterday could be attempted again tomorrow, and could involve us or our children. There is a temptation to turn away and to distract the mind: it is a temptation that must be resisted. In fact, the existence of the Sonderkommandos had a meaning and contained a message: ‘We, the Lord’s people, are your destroyers, but you are no better than us; if we want to, as we do, we are capable of destroying not only your bodies but also your souls, just as we have destroyed our own.”
― Primo Levi, The Complete Works of Primo Levi

“Am I mad or is she? Does all this arise out of an inventive, wanton woman's brain with the intention of surpassing my supersensual fantasies, or is this woman really one of those Neronian characters who take a diabolical pleasure in treading underfoot, like a worm,
human beings, who have thoughts and feelings and a will like theirs?”
― Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Venus in Furs

“In Confessions of a Justified Sinner James Hogg is neither identified with, nor overwhelmed by, the darkness in the universe, nor does he suffer from hatred or despair. He sees the cause of Wringhim's disintegration as an inner weakness which chooses to identify with false doctrine. Since Wringhim lives in illusion, he is easy meat for a master practitioner of it. Hogg himself, on the other hand, is confident of his personal wholeness. He repudiates extreme doctrine from a basis of robust common sense, and his recognition of the power of the diabolical sublime does not endanger his own sense of solid worth. He retains a forth-right good-will which shows itself in cheerful endorsement of those characters in the book who accept life and enjoy themselves.”
― J.B. Pick, The Great Shadow House: Essays on the Metaphysical Tradition in Scottish Fiction