My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky.
People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.
Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof.
Everybody is special. Everybody. Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain. Everybody. Everybody has their story to tell.
Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.
You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.
The past can't hurt you anymore, not unless you let it.
Knowledge, like air, is vital to life. Like air, no one should be denied it.
Remember, remember the fifth of November of gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gun powder treason should ever be forgot.
Happiness is the most insidious prison of all.
All we ever see of stars are their old photographs.
God is in the rain.
None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME.
They say that life's a game, & then they take the board away.
Love your rage, not your cage.
No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise.
The past can't hurt you anymore. Not unless you let it. They made you into a victim, Evey. They made you into a statistic. But, that's not the real you. That's not who you are inside.
It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years I had roses, and apologized to no one.
Our masters have not heard the people's voice for generations and it is much, much louder than they care to remember.
We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another's vantage point, as if new, it may still take the breath away.
There's a notion I'd like to see buried: the ordinary person. Ridiculous. There is no ordinary person.
So when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit.
All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.
VI VERI VENIVERSUM VIVUS VICI. By the Power of Truth, I, while living, have Conquered the Universe.
There is no future. There is no past. Do you see? Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet.
If I have to have a past, then I prefer it to be multiple choice.
Your pretty empire took so long to build, now, with a snap of history's fingers, down it goes.
There's no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill. There's only an idea. Ideas are bulletproof.
Sexually progressive cultures gave us literature, philosophy, civilization and the rest, while sexually restrictive cultures gave us the Dark Ages and the Holocaust.
The ending is nearer than you think, and it is already written. All that we have left to choose is the correct moment to begin.
We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings.
It is the oldest ironies that are still the most satisfying: man, when preparing for bloody war, will orate loudly and most eloquently in the name of peace.
Why do we argue? Life's so fragile, a successful virus clinging to a speck of mud, suspended in endless nothing.
Once you realize what a joke everything is, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense.
Equality and freedom are not luxuries to lightly cast aside. Without them, order cannot long endure before approaching depths beyond imagining.
Authority, when first detecting chaos at its heels, will entertain the vilest schemes to save its orderly facade.
Real life is messy, inconsistent, and it's seldom when anything ever really gets resolved. It's taken me a long time to realize that.
Nite Owl II: But the country's disintegrating. What's happened to America? What's happened to the American dream? The Comedian: It came true. You're lookin' at it.
You know what I wish? I wish all the scum of the Earth had one throat and I had my hands about it.
I didn't put you in a prison, Evey. I just showed you the bars.
Authority allows two roles: the torturer and the tortured. Twists people into joyless mannequins that fear and hate, while culture plunges into the abyss.
Everybody has their story to tell.
We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
Look at him now, poor fellow. That's what a dose of reality does for you...Never touch the stuff myself, you understand. Find it gets in the way of the hallucinations.
 was thought up by some idiot in the marketing department of DC. I prefer to call them Big Expensive Comics. )
That pompous phrase (graphic novel) was thought up by some idiot in the marketing department of DC. I prefer to call them Big Expensive Comics.
A live body and a dead body contain the same number of particles. Structurally, there's no discernible difference. Life and death are unquantifiable abstracts. Why should I be concerned?
No one will ever forget that night, and what it meant for this country. But I will never forget the man and what he meant to me.
As I see it, part of the art of being a hero is knowing when you don't need to be one anymore.
With so much chaos, someone will do something stupid. And when they do, things will turn nasty
Madness is the emergency exit. You can just step outside, and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened. You can lock them away…forever." The Joker
Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.
Is it meaningless to apologize? Never.
Who imprisoned me here? Who keeps me here? Who can release me? Who's controlling and constraining my life except...me?
The world's a stage, & everything else is Vaudeville.
There, did you think to kill me? There's no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill. There's only an idea. Ideas are bulletproof. Farewell.
I live my life free of compromise, and step into the shadows without complaint or regret.
I'm the king of the 20th century. I'm the boogeyman, the villian, the black sheep of the family.
Who? Who is but the form following the function of what, and what I am is a man in a mask.
American love — like coke in green glass bottles...they don't make it anymore.
Don't leave home without your sword - your intellect.
I love you, but why must you love the law? 'Tis plain for all to see that she's a whore...that virtuous persons have no need to woo; that villains screw, then studiously ignore.
While a truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power.
Language comes first. It's not that language grows out of consciousness, if you haven't got language, you can't be conscious.
It's all a joke! Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for... it's all a monstrous, demented gag! So why can't you see the funny side? Why aren't you laughing?
Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago.
Never despair. Never surrender.
IF YOU HURT INSIDE, GET CERTIFIED, AND IF LIFE SHOULD TREAT YOU BAD... DON'T GET EE-EE-EVEN, GET MAD!
There is no coincidence. Only the illusion of coincidence.
Please don't worry. It's a psychological complaint, common amongst ex-librarians. You see, she thinks she's a coffee table edition...
Who makes the world? Perhaps the world is not made. Perhaps nothing is made. Perhaps it simply is, has been, will always be there…a clock without a craftsman.
How can two people hate so much without knowing each other?
This city is dying of rabies. Is the best I can do to wipe random flecks of foam from its lips?
Roses are red Violets are blue Everything's possible Nothing is true.
Happiness is a prison, Evey. Happiness is the most insidious prison of all.
If light is outlawed, then only outlaws will be able to see where they're going.
Nothing's that simple, not even things that are simply awful.
I'm 65 years old. Everyday the future looks a little bit darker. But the past, even the grimy parts of it, well, it just keeps on getting brighter all the time.
To paint comic books as childish and illiterate is lazy. A lot of comic books are very literate — unlike most films.
Nothing is insoluble. Nothing is hopeless. Not while there's life.
They say we have we created the man to end all wars; I say we have created a man to end all worlds.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who watches the watchmen?
The dusk reeks of fornication and bad consciences.
Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose.
Me? I'm the king of the twentieth century. I'm the bogeyman. The villain...The black sheep of the family.
The Rudderless World is not shaped by vague metaphysical Forces. It is not God who kills the Children. Not Fate that butchers them or Destiny that feeds them to the Dogs. ... It´s us. Only us.
...My point is, I went crazy. When I saw what a black, awful joke the world was. I went crazy as a coot! I admit it! Why can't you?
I thought, "Well if I'm gonna react might as well overreact!
We are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later.
The multiplying villainies of nature do swarm upon him... [from Macbeth]
Does the human heart know chasms so abysmal?
Truly, whoever we are, wherever we reside, we exist upon the whim of murderers.
A world grows up around me. Am I shaping it, or do its predetermined contours guide my hand?
I shall tell you where we are. We're in the most extreme and utter region of the human mind. A dim, subconscious underworld. A radiant abyss where men meet themselves. Hell, Netley. We're in Hell.
Things are tough all over, cupcake, an' it rains on the just an' the unjust alike...except in California.
It's cold and it's mean spirited and I don't like it here anymore.
By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.
Sex is glorious, it's how we all got here, and it's most people's favourite activity.
The superman exists and he's American.
My dear, beautiful and imaginative things can be destroyed. Beauty and imagination cannot.
They offered you a choice between the death of your principles and the death of your body. You said you'd rather die. You faced the fear of your own death, and you were calm and still.
