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Anime and Manga
"And so, the prince and the princess lived happily ever... Happily!? Happiness in stories is at most a trifling matter of a couple of lines at the end — the epitome of boredom. Now, show me a magnificent tragedy! A cataclysm of tears from which not one of the players is saved, and to which a happy ending never comes!"
— Drosselmeyer, Princess Tutu
Comic Books
"This is The Grimdark Chronicles, a comic where everyone you like dies. It's very popular!"
— Soos, Gravity Falls: Lost Legends
Film
"Happy people cannot act!"
—Yasuhisa Yoshikawa, Audition
"I'm just saying Empire is still the best. It's the most complex, most sophisticated. Wasn't afraid to have a dark ending."
—Jubilee, X-Men: Apocalypse
Literature
"You know, it seems to me that one cannot create great art if one is too content. […] What can you write, eh? You have the steady job, loads of money, the girl—all the comforts of life. So why make art? You are not suffering. Sufferers make art. You? You are too comfortable. You are not miserable enough. […] You've stopped struggling, Greggeralidad. Which is good, it makes your life livable. But art is a struggle against an unlivable life, you know? So it's a trade-off. Make yourself comfortable, lose the art."
— Alvaro to Gregg, Falling Up
"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy".
Matheus exhibited his paintings—inspired by German Expressionism—at the Hairy Caterpillar from time to time, though they never sold. A few of his canvases also hung in the lobby, and though the anguished, misshapen figures painted in thick angry brushstrokes clashed not only with the Holistic Clinic's last vestiges of art deco but with its new ethos of promoting physical and emotional well-being in its clients, no one dared suggest taking them down for fear of offending the artist.
Live-Action TV
"I hate a happy ending."
— Rodge, A Scare at Bedtime, "The Cravings"
Sally: I love old things. They make me feel sad.
Kathy: What's good about sad?
Sally: It's happy for deep people.
Kathy: What's good about sad?
Sally: It's happy for deep people.
— Doctor Who, "Blink"
"So you see? A happy ending. A bizarre one but a happy ending nevertheless. Please, don't be disappointed. Coming up next, the story is delightfully gruesome."
— Todd Robins, True Nightmares, "The Story of Angelo Hays"
"One's first poem is usually a shriek of pure anguish."
—Joe Devlin, Columbo
Music
"No one in the world
Ever gets what they want
And that is beautiful
Everybody dies
Frustrated and sad
And that is beautiful"
Ever gets what they want
And that is beautiful
Everybody dies
Frustrated and sad
And that is beautiful"
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief
All kill their inspirations and sing about their grief"
All kill their inspirations and sing about their grief"
— U2, The Fly
"But how can I feel pain?
How can I feel pain?
How can I feel pain
When you're being so supportive?"
How can I feel pain?
How can I feel pain
When you're being so supportive?"
— Bill Bailey, How can I feel Pain
"Sugar melts and goes away
But vinegar lasts forever"
But vinegar lasts forever"
— The Residents, Vinegar
"I'm trying to right my wrongs,
but it's funny these same wrongs helped me write this song"
but it's funny these same wrongs helped me write this song"
— Kanye West, Touch the Sky
"They both were so glad
To watch me destroy what I had
Pain sure brings out the best in people, doesn’t it?"
To watch me destroy what I had
Pain sure brings out the best in people, doesn’t it?"
— Bob Dylan, She's Your Lover Now
"And it's hard to write about being happy
Cause the older I get
I find that happiness is an extremely uneventful subject"
Cause the older I get
I find that happiness is an extremely uneventful subject"
— Florence + the Machine, No Choir
It's not enough!
It's not enough!
I need a messed up life full of tragic stuff!
A little bit of grief!
A little bit of sadness!
Words come better when you're writing with a purpose!
It's not enough!
I need a messed up life full of tragic stuff!
A little bit of grief!
A little bit of sadness!
Words come better when you're writing with a purpose!
— Qbomb, "Insania"
Newspapers
"No doubt the truth can be unpleasant, but I am not sure that unpleasantness is the same as the truth."
— Roger Ebert on Anatomy of Hell.
Theatre
"It isn't gloomy, it's profound."
— Henrik, A Little Night Music
Video Games
"It's not a good story unless the hero dies."
— Varric, Dragon Age II
Hawke: Who needs more despair in their diet? What is that good for?
Servant: I've heard that artists are fond of it.
Servant: I've heard that artists are fond of it.
Web Original
"In short, I truly believe (I should've put this bit sooner because it's the closest I'm going to get to sounding intelligent) that there is a spectrum of anti-intellectualism. On the one end, you've got, well, anti-intellectualism. 'Boo! I don't want to have to think about things in my games! I just want to shoot some people and then get told that I'm the best person ever, and all games should be like this!' But the other end of that spectrum isn't happy, enlightened people who appreciate games with loftier goals than just 'fun'; that would be near the middle. The other end of the spectrum is 'You pathetic babies, you play games for fun? You intellectually-starved cretins. I wish you at least had the intelligence to realise how much smarter I am than you, because while you're playing Mario or Pac-Man, I’m over here at the grown-ups table playing an RPG Maker game about the Holocaust.'"
"I'm sure a lot of people will not be happy with this ending, but I have to say that I'm impressed with it. The series didn't take the easy way out. Instead it ended on a realistic note, as one of the things that everyone faces in life is having to part with friends as they find themselves on a different path. Not that the ending is a completely down one, as the writers left it open for our heroes, especially Nikki and her love interest Jonesy, to reconnect again sometime in the future. But even with that out series creators Tom McGillis and Jennifer Pertsch must have known the ending would upset some viewers, and one assumes must have considered taking the easy way out. They didn't, and I give them a thumbs up for that."
— Tim Gueguen
, on the 6teen finale "Bye Bye Nikki"
, on the 6teen finale "Bye Bye Nikki""Just as bad artists imitate the superficial style of a better artist but miss the fundamentals, bad writers do the same. As a result, we seem to have ended up with an unspoken assumption among many writers and readers that downbeat and grim equals intelligent and somewhat deep. It doesn't. But merely adopting that style gives a book the impression of a depth it simply doesn't have. It's a bit like teenagers wearing black."
— Paul O'Brien, "Faux Grit"
""Here's something unpleasant: All art comes from demons. Not real demons, in most cases, but demons of angst and horrible memories and sexual frustration. You get beat up in school because, while the cool kids are putting bruises on each other on the football field, you were sitting on the steps writing your science-fiction stories. That fear and tension that winds itself around your soul like steel wire as you try nervously to sneak out of the locker room before the big kids give you a Wedgie and a Tittie-Twister and a Dirty Sanchez, all that builds up into adulthood. Art is how you let it out."
"I will remember that Much Ado is a comedy. I will refrain from having the company dress in funerial black for the wedding, dance to sombre music, and then die in a bombing raid. Even if am labouring under the misapprehension that this would be terribly artistic."
Dr. Hardcastle: The struggle is what let's us create.
Dr. Mahmoud/SCP-4005-1A: Does it? Are tortured geniuses so clever because they are tortured, or are they geniuses despite the torture? Nobody ever asks that, do they? None of you have ever wondered if maybe, just maybe, geniuses are made to suffer by people, and that we'd see a lot more of them if people like us didn't lock them in cages, didn't make it so that people could only express beauty through pain.
Dr. Mahmoud/SCP-4005-1A: Does it? Are tortured geniuses so clever because they are tortured, or are they geniuses despite the torture? Nobody ever asks that, do they? None of you have ever wondered if maybe, just maybe, geniuses are made to suffer by people, and that we'd see a lot more of them if people like us didn't lock them in cages, didn't make it so that people could only express beauty through pain.
Web Video
"Saying something like 'personal honesty' can sound very heavy. It can make it sound like every single thing you make should be very emotional or very deep, but really it can be very simple stuff like how you feel very tired right now or how you thought something looked pretty, so you painted it. And this goal of achieving honesty in your art is where romanticizing depression can make it a downward spiral. It is very admirable to pursue absolute honesty in your work, but it can be very dangerous to think that your suffering is your only source of personal honesty, to think that this is the only way to express yourself openly and honestly, maybe to the point where you feel like you need to keep suffering to keep your success, to essentially fall in love with your own depression."
— Mattias Pilhede, "Do Depressed Artists Make Better Art?"
"Neil Patrick Harris: An Internet musical is a wacky idea that's zany! Where did it come from?
Joss Whedon: It came from pain.
Neil: Let's not talk to Joss. He's sad and confusing.
Joss Whedon: It came from pain.
Neil: Let's not talk to Joss. He's sad and confusing.
"All stories must be either brainless action romps or joyless grim exercises in pseudo-intellectual snobbery that disdains all forms of escapism"
—Terrible Writing Advice, Power Fantasy
Western Animation
"Ooooh... Medical drama. Life and death stakes. Compelling human conflict... RATINGS."
— The Joker, Justice League — "Wild Cards part 2"
"Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?"
"It's partly an expression of my teenage angst. But mostly it's a moo-cow."
— Chris Griffin, "A Picture's Worth A Thousand Bucks", Family Guy
Real Life
"I am a monopolar depressive descended from monopolar depressives. That's how come I write so good."
"People read books for different reasons. Some read for comfort. And some of my former readers have said their life is hard, their mother is sick, their dog died, and they read fiction to escape. They don’t want to get hit in the mouth with something horrible. And you read that certain kind of fiction where the guy will always get the girl and the good guys win and it reaffirms to you that life is fair. We all want that at times. There’s a certain vicarious release to that. So I’m not dismissive of people who want that. But that’s not the kind of fiction I write, in most cases."
"I have nothing but contempt for the thing men call happiness, and have had to push the characters I poured my heart out to create into the abyss of tragedy.
For all things in the world, if they are just left alone and paid no attention, are bound to advance in a negative direction.
No matter what we do, we can't stop the universe from getting colder, either, and on the same principle. This world is only maintained in existence by a series of logical, common-sense processes; it can never escape the bondage of its physical laws.
Therefore, in order to write a perfect ending for a story you must possess the power to break the chain of cause and effect, invert black and white, and act in complete contradiction to the rules of the universe... to write a story with a happy ending is a double challenge, to the author's body as well as the mind."
For all things in the world, if they are just left alone and paid no attention, are bound to advance in a negative direction.
No matter what we do, we can't stop the universe from getting colder, either, and on the same principle. This world is only maintained in existence by a series of logical, common-sense processes; it can never escape the bondage of its physical laws.
Therefore, in order to write a perfect ending for a story you must possess the power to break the chain of cause and effect, invert black and white, and act in complete contradiction to the rules of the universe... to write a story with a happy ending is a double challenge, to the author's body as well as the mind."
— Gen Urobuchi, afterword to Volume 1 of Fate/Zero
"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief."
"We don't use the word "fun"."
"If you make a film about a man kidnapping a woman and chaining her to a radiator for five years — something which has probably happened once in history — it's called a searingly realistic analysis of society. If I make a film like Love Actually, which is about people falling in love, and there are a million people falling in love in Britain today, it's called a sentimental presentation of an unrealistic world."
