I don't think I was ever particularly mean. I can certainly think of some idiotic exchanges I've had. I was accused of destroying pop music, like Wagner destroyed opera - a guy in Germany started ranting that at me.

- Elvis Costello

In Germany I have been acknowledged again since the fall of Hitler, but my works, partly suppressed by the Nazis and partly destroyed by the war; have not yet been republished there.

- Herman Hesse

They're criminals, they brutalized Afghanistan, they killed our people, they destroyed our land.

- Hamid Karzai

We must confront the privileged elite who have destroyed a large part of the world.

- Hugo Chavez

What has destroyed every previous civilization has been the tendency to the unequal distribution of wealth and power.

- Henry George

Rock'n'roll has to be destroyed and rebuilt in my name if it's ever gonna accomplish anything.

- GG Allin

I grew up in a family of storytellers, but Google has destroyed us because you can fact-check everything. We'd always like the stories to be a little better than they were.

- George Clooney

I don't have a thyroid anymore. I had radioactive iodine treatment, which destroyed my thyroid. I take medication every day.

- Gail Devers

But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

- Ernest Hemingway

A civilization is destroyed only when its gods are destroyed.

- Emile M. Cioran

I had this child, and it destroyed my family.

- Arnold Schwarzenegger

Loudspeakers should be made to be destroyed and... disposable.

- David Tudor

The organic material, as the laws of chemistry state, can neither be created nor destroyed.

- Dixie Lee Ray

I grew up with three brothers, so nearly everything I had was destroyed or made fun of.

- Douglas Coupland

Unionized teachers have destroyed much of the state school system.

- Conrad Black

That was the era when we might have destroyed Russia completely and not even skinned our elbows doing it.

- Curtis LeMay

I started writing diaries, and mine were horrible. Oh, the monotony. Oh, the angst. I said, 'I don't want anyone to find these!' I destroyed them.

- Charlotte Rampling

All I know is it destroyed my family, it destroyed my marriage to Sylvester and I will never get over it.

- Brigitte Nielsen

Imperceptibly, the developed world's manufacturing base was gradually eroding and being replaced by securitized finance that destroyed itself and nearly its economies in 2008.

- Bill Gross

If the Barbarians are destroyed, who will we then be able to blame for the bad things?

- Angela Carter