Evey Hammond: Who are you? V: Who? Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask. Evey Hammond: Well I can see that. V:...

Not thou alone, but all humanity doth in its progress fable emulate. Whence came thy rocket-ships and submarine if not from Nautilus, from Cavorite? Your trustiest companions since the cave, we apparitions guided mankind’s tread,...

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.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? – Who watches the watchmen?

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.

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.

My mother said I broke her heart…but it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it’s all we have left in this place. It is the...

There are people.There are stories.The people think they shape the stories, but the reverse if often closer to the truth.Stories shape the world. They exist independently of people, and in places quite devoid of man,...

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.

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.

When reading you have the opportunity to pause for thought & spark your imagination. It develops intellect. Nothing more threatening to a politician than a well read working class.

You were already in a prison. You’ve been in a prison all your life. Happiness is a prison, Evey. Happiness is the most insidious prison of all. Your lover lived in the penitentiary that we...

I did it thirty-five minutes ago.

…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?

Equality and freedom are not luxuries to lightly cast aside. Without them, order cannot long endure before approaching depths beyond imagining.

The superman exists and he’s American.

Knowledge, like air, is vital to life. Like air, no one should be denied it.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! YOU’VE READ ABOUT IT IN THE NEWSPAPERS! NOW, SHUDDER AS YOU OBSERVE, BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES, THAT MOST RAREAND RAGIC OF NATURE’S MISTAKES!I GIVE YOU… THE AVERAGE MAN!PHYSICALLY UNREMARKABLE, IT HAS INSTEAD...

Authority, when first detecting chaos at its heels, will entertain the vilest schemes to save its orderly facade.

If you wear black, then kindly, irritating strangers will touch your arm consolingly and inform you that the world keeps on turning.They’re right. It does.However much you beg it to stop.It turns and lets grenadine...

It does not do to rely too much on silent majorities, Evey, for silence is a fragile thing, one loud noise, and its gone. But the people are so cowed and disorganised. A few might...

LSD was an incredible experience. Not that I’m recommending it for anybody else; but for me it kind of – it hammered home to me that reality was not a fixed thing. That the reality...

Your pretty empire took so long to build, now, with a snap of history’s fingers, down it goes.

Murder, other than in the most strict forensic sense, is never soluble. That dark human clot can never melt into a lucid, clear suspension. Our detective fiction tells us otherwise: everything is just meat and...

Thermodynamic miracles… events with odds against so astronomical they’re effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such a thing.And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a...

I leave the human cockroaches to discuss their heroin and child pornography.

Authority allows two roles: the torturer and the tortured. Twists people into joyless mannequins that fear and hate, while culture plunges into the abyss.

I don’t think people realise how vital libraries are or what a colossal danger it would be if we were to lose any more. Having had a truncated school life myself, all of my education...

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

I’ve proved my point. I’ve demonstrated there’s no difference between me and everyone else! All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That’s how far the world is...

Sexually progressive cultures gave us literature, philosophy, civilization and the rest, while sexually restrictive cultures gave us the Dark Ages and the Holocaust.

Perhaps this is the purpose of all art, all writing, on the murders, fiction and non-fiction: Simply to participate.

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.

In an era of stress and anxiety, when the present seems unstable and the future unlikely, the natural response is to retreat and withdraw from reality, taking recourse either in fantasies of the future or...

Janey accuses me of chasing jailbait. She bursts into angry tears, asking if it’s because she’s getting older. It’s true. She’s aging more noticeably every day—while I am standing still. I prefer the stillness here....

Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night.Looked...

You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.

Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.

It wasn’t so much all the sex that robbed me of my moral bearings, but all the narcotics. I must say, there’s something about opium that goes very well with lesbianism.

Swamp Thing, in Hell: “Demon…How…could God…allow such a place?Etrigan: Think you God built this place, wishing man ill and not lusts uncontrolled or swords unsheathed?Not God, my friend. The truth’s more hideous still: These halls...

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?

MEMORY’S SO TREACHEROUS. ONE MOMENT YOU’RE LOST IN A CARNIVAL OF DELIGHTS, WITH POIGNANT CHILDHOOD AROMAS, THE FLASHING NEON OF PUBERTY, ALL THAT SENTIMENTAL CANDY-FLOSS…THE NEXT, IT LEADS YOU SOMEWHERE YOU DON’T WANT TO GO……SOMEWHERE...

Some things are hard to imagine. Can you conceive of excessive contentment, for example? Or an over pleasant evening? Too much happiness?

It’s funny, but certain faces seem to go in and out of style. You look at old photographs and everybody has a certain look to them, almost as if they’re related. Look at pictures from...

The disciplines of physical exercise, meditation and study aren’t terribly esoteric. The means to attain a capability far beyond that of the so-called ordinary person are within the reach of everyone, if their desire and...

… and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout: ‘Save us!’. And I’ll look down and whisper: ‘No.

And I’m thinking about the old man. He’ll be pounding on the glass right about now… or maybe not now. Maybe in a while. But he’ll be pounding and… will there be blood? I like...

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.

Consciousness, unprovable by scientific standards, is forever, then, the impossible phantom in the predictable biologic machine, and your every thought a genuine supernatural event. Your every thought is a ghost, dancing.