Schadenfreude Quotes

Tell me, is it true there's no word for Schadenfreude in English? ~ Amos Oz

(About a woman's funeral) Do you remember the part in The Wizard of Oz when the witch is dead and the Munchkins start singing? Think that kind of happiness. I swear every woman there was ready to break into song. Maybe a few of the men, too. (p. 80) ~ Julie Mulhern

He remembered the Professor's advice to his eager employees during his first year: With us, feelings are described through images, and in the world of television, there are only seven feelings: well-being, Schadenfreude, sentimentality, shock, outrage, disgust, and anger. Nothing else. ~ Erik Valeur

Schadenfreude is so nutritious. ~ Will Self

To hear that your neighbor was worse off than yourself was not an altogether unpleasant experience. ~ Lizette Woodworth Reese

There's a word we learned in social studies: schadenfreude. It's when you enjoy watching someone else suffer. The real question though, is why? I think part of it is self preservation. And part of it is because a group always feels more like a group when it's banded together against an enemy. It doesn't matter if that enemy has never done anything to hurt you-you just have to pretend you hate someone even more than you hate yourself. ~ Jodi Picoult

I remember learning German - so beautiful, so strange - at school in Australia on the other side of the earth. My family was nonplussed about me learning such an odd, ugly language and, though of course too sophisticated to say it, the language of the enemy. But I liked the sticklebrick nature of it, building long supple words by putting short ones together. Things could be brought into being that had no name in English - Weltanschauung, Schadenfreude, sippenhaft, Sonderweg, Scheissfreundlichkeit, Vergangenheitsbewältigung. ~ Anna Funder

Since Madonna is positioned as always 'cooler than thou,' we all are primed for schadenfreude if something in her fabulous life goes amiss. ~ Naomi Wolf

Don't reach for the halo too soon. You have plenty of time to enjoy yourself, even a little maliciously sometimes, before you settle down to being a saint. ~ Ellis Peters

Laughter to begin with was probably glee at the misfortunes of others. The baring of the teeth in laughter hints at its savage ancestry. Animals have no malice, hence also no laughter. They never savor the sudden glory of Schadenfreude. It was its infectious quality that made of laughter a medium of mutuality. ~ Eric Hoffer

If you look up schadenfreude on Wikipedia, you'll see a picture of me with a snide smile on my face. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Rumours should be juicy and gossips must be mouth-watering, since they have to uplift and make people feel better. Tittle-tattle can have a swift ripple effect and when the ball is rolling very fast, it kick-starts a flood of moral destruction. "Schadenfreude" can, then, be fully enjoyed. ("Juicy rumours") ~ Erik Pevernagie

Jealousy always trumps schadenfreude! It's a rule from the heartbreak version of 'rock, paper, scissors. ~ Julie Klausner

My younger sister's a comedian. She has a sketch comedy group in Chicago called Schadenfreude and I look at her with such admiration and envy because it's such an amazing thing to make someone laugh. ~ Brian D'Arcy James

Schadenfreude is as old as the Scriptures. Believe me, when the girls in the Red Sea bowling league heard that Lot's wife had morphed into a pillar of salt, the deer-lick jokes flew. ~ Dennis Miller

But it does make you feel smaller, which is a relief in some ways. When you screw up, it seems less terrible. all these people, everybody screwing up. ~ Rebecca Scherm

When I go, you'll stay here, until the camp is taken." Quiet. Darkness, and the two of them tangled in it. "Yes sir." He hated it. Hated saying it, hated Kaltherzig for making him say it, for making it real. For ending the world. "Go down into the cellar, and stay there as long as you can. I've left supplies for you. You'll be as safe there as anywhere." "Yes sir." "I'll find you. Send for you. Wherever you end up, wherever they take you. Nowhere will be far enough. Nothing will save you from me. ~ 19: Schadenfreude

The times are too difficult and the crisis too severe to indulge in schadenfreude. Looking at it in perspective, the fact that there would be a financial crisis was perfectly predictable: its general nature, if not its magnitude. Markets are always inefficient. ~ Noam Chomsky

We are all the judges and the judged, victims of the casual malice and fantasy of others, and ready sources of fantasy and malice in our turn. And if we are sometimes accused of sins of which we are innocent, are there not also other sins of which we are guilty and of which the world knows nothing? ~ Iris Murdoch

No small amount of schadenfreude. Do you know what that means?"
"Dad, it's the lifeline of gossip. Of course I know what it means. ~ Cristina Garcia

Humor is just Schadenfreude with a clear conscience ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

When I was little, I used to pour salt on slugs. I liked watching them dissolve before my eyes. Cruelty is always sort of fun until you realize that something's getting hurt. It would be one thing to be a loser if it meant that no one paid attention to you, but in school, it means you're actively sought out. You're the slug, and they're holding all the salt. And they haven't developed a conscience. There's a word we learned in social studies: schadenfreude. It's when you enjoy watching someone else suffer. The real question though, is why? I think part of it is self preservation. And part of it is because a group always feels more like a group when it's banded together against an enemy. It doesn't matter if that enemy has never done anything to hurt you-you just have to pretend you hate someone even more than you hate yourself. You know why salt works on slugs? Because it dissolved in the water that's part of a slug's skin, so the water on the inside its body starts to flow out. They slug dehydrates. This works with snails, too. And with leeches. And with people like me. With any creature, really, too thin-skinned to stand up for itself. ~ Jodi Picoult