“All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.”
Source: Invisible Monsters
“All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.”
Source: Invisible Monsters
Source: Huntress
“Every one of my books had killed me a little more.”
“We must kill the false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing.”
“If you're going to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh; otherwise they'll kill you.”
Credited to Shaw in the lead in to the mockumentary C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004) and other recent works, but this or slight variants of it are also sometimes attributed to W. C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, and Oscar Wilde. It might possibly be derived from Shaw's statement in John Bull's Other Island (1907): "My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world."
Another possibility is that it is derived from Shaw's characteristic of Mark Twain: "He has to put things in such a way as to make people who would otherwise hang him believe he is joking."
Variants:
If you are going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.
If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.
Disputed
Source: More Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol 2
“I'm killing time while I wait for life to shower me with meaning and happiness.”
Question Time (22 March 2007).
2000s
Context: I was born about a quarter of a mile from where we are sitting now and I was here in London during the Blitz. And every night I went down into the shelter. 500 people killed, my brother was killed, my friends were killed. And when the Charter of the UN was read to me, I was a pilot coming home in a troop ship: 'We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.' That was the pledge my generation gave to the younger generation and you tore it up. And it's a war crime that's been committed in Iraq, because there is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons.
“If you're texting Magnus to say 'I think u r kewl,' I'm going to kill you.”
Isabelle to Alec, pg. 329
Variant: If you're texting Magnus to say 'I think ur kewl,' I'm going to kill you.
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)
“But we survived, didn’t we? That makes it an adventure. If you get killed it’s a tragedy.”
“I am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me.”
Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time
“Don't talk. Kill it."
That might be the sweetest thing a woman's ever said to me on a first date.”
Source: Kill the Dead
“The men in my family are strong because the women in my family kill and eat the weak ones.”
“A man kills the thing he loves, and he must die a little himself.”
Source: Imajica
“The Mollusks—generous hosts when they weren’t trying to kill you.”
Source: Peter and the Starcatchers
Source: Fanged & Fabulous
“No matter how bad things get, you've got to go on living, even if it kills you.”
“I did indeed say you could have lovers. But I never promised that I would not kill them.”
Source: Ravishing in Red
Source: Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest
Source: Hunting Ground
“And to those who believe that adventures are i say try routine: it kills you far more quickly.”
Source: Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), Afraid to Change
“Don't fret. We'll just have to find something else you're good at besides killing people.”
Source: Close Kin
Source: Dark Lover
“Well, you've finally got a license to kill. It's about time.”
Variant: So they finally gave you the license to kill, about time.
Source: Spirit Bound
“If we could only find out who's in charge, we could kill him.”
“A dreamgirl, on the other hand, won't kill herself to impress anyone.”
Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship
Source: 1890s, The Mountains of California (1894), chapter 5: The Passes <!-- Terry Gifford, EWDB, page 328 -->
Context: Accidents in the mountains are less common than in the lowlands, and these mountain mansions are decent, delightful, even divine, places to die in, compared with the doleful chambers of civilization. Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain-passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action. Even the sick should try these so-called dangerous passes, because for every unfortunate they kill, they cure a thousand.
“If it can bleed, we can kill it.”