The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

What poverty actually teaches, from someone who sat through the lesson.

Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian · Sherman Alexie

A demon's professional failing is liking the people he's meant to ruin.

He rather liked people. It was a major failing in a demon. Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse.

Good Omens · Terry Pratchett

What it costs to be the cleverest man in a room that pities you.

You are your mother’s trueborn son of Lannister." "Am I?" the dwarf replied, sardonic. "Do tell my lord father. My mother died birthing me, and he’s never been sure." "I don’t even know who my mother was," Jon said. "Some woman, no doubt. Most of them are." He favored Jon with a rueful grin. "Remember this, boy. All dwarfs may be bastards, yet not all bastards need be dwarfs." And with that he turned and sauntered back into the feast, whistling a tune. When he opened the door, the light from within threw his shadow clear across the yard, and for just a moment Tyrion Lannister stood tall as a king.

A Game of Thrones · George R.R. Martin