“Nothing's that simple, not even things that are simply awful.”

“Because our entire universe is made up of consciousness, we never really experience the universe directly we just experience our consciousness of the universe, our perception of it, so right, our only universe is perception.”

“Happiness is a prison, Evey. Happiness is the most insidious prison of all.”

“Nothing is insoluble. Nothing is hopeless. Not while there's life.”

“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.”

“There is no coincidence. Only the illusion of coincidence.”

“Don't leave home without your sword - your intellect.”

“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.”

“Language comes first. It's not that language grows out of consciousness, if you haven't got language, you can't be conscious.”

“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.”

“The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'SAVE US!'...and I'll look down and whisper 'No.”

“American love — like coke in green glass bottles...they don't make it anymore.”

“The world's a stage, & everything else is Vaudeville.”

“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.”

“I think that storytelling and creation are very close to what the center of what magic is about. I think not just for me, but for most of the cultures that have had a concept of magic, then the manipulation of language, and words, and thus of stories and fictions, has been very close to the center of it all.”

“Who imprisoned me here? Who keeps me here? Who can release me? Who's controlling and constraining my life except...me?”

“There, did you think to kill me? There's no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill. There's only an idea.

“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?”

“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.”

“To me, all creativity is magic. Ideas start out in the empty void of your head - and they end up as a material thing, like a book you can hold in your hand. That is the magical process. It's an alchemical thing. Yes, we do get the gold out of it but that's not the most important thing. It's the work itself.”

“How can two people hate so much without knowing each other?”