Since at least 2011, online users have shared posts and image memes alleging American author Mark Twain once said or wrote, "I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."
For example, on June 2, 2026, a Reddit user posted the quote in the r/AskReddit subreddit, asking other users, "Whose obituary will you revel in?" (Hours later, moderators removed the post, and at the time of this writing the title now only read, "Removed by moderator.")
In recent months and years, users reposted the quote with Twain's name on Bluesky (archived), Facebook (archived), LinkedIn (archived), Pinterest (archived), Reddit (archived), TikTok (archived) and X (archived). Users also listed for sale magnets, stickers and yard signs featuring the quote and name.
(Berl Clifford Crist accessed via Facebook)
In sum, no historical evidence supports the claim that Twain, whose real name was Samuel Clemens, ever said or wrote these words. Instead, all evidence pointed to the quote being a misquotation and misattribution of a similar, differently worded quote from lawyer and politician Clarence Darrow, who wrote in 1932, "I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction." (The full Darrow quote and its context appear below.).
Researching the quote
Searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo — as well as reverse image searches and queries of social media platforms — indicated the exact quote users misattributed to Twain originated from an X user sharing the text (archived) in early May 2011, following then-U.S. President Barack Obama's announcement of Osama bin Laden's death. That post featured a hashtag for bin Laden's name, reading, "Mark Twain said it best, 'I have never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.' #OBL."
The "post activity" information for that post showed talk show host Piers Morgan reposted the message, in turn helping to circulate the fabricated quote. For example, The Telegraph reported about Morgan sharing the quote without noting the text's inauthentic roots.
(@KaloM360 accessed via X)
As Snopes previously reported in 2021, the text resembled a line from Darrow's 1932 book "The Story of My Life," in which he recounted reading some obituaries "with great satisfaction" (bolded emphasis ours):
People talk of criminals as though they were utterly different from "good" people; as though specially created in order that a large class of the community should have the pleasure of hating them. Those who enjoy the emotion of hating are much like the groups who sate their thirst for blood by hunting and hounding to death helpless animals as an outlet for their emotions. Property crimes, as I have stated before, come from the desire to get something, and the inhibition against getting it except in certain ways. The contrary ways are supposed to be evil because they have been forbidden by law, and all that are not forbidden are supposed to be honorable. Is the desire to get things in spite of all odds confined to criminals? Every instinct that is found in any man is in all men. The strength of the emotion may not be so overpowering, the barriers against possession not so insurmountable, the urge to accomplish the desire less keen. With some, inhibitions and urges may be neutralized by other tendencies. But with every being the primal emotions are there. All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike some one they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.
For further reading, we previously investigated whether Twain once said or wrote, "No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot."