Batman’s longtime nemesis has been depicted in many ways, all of them unique: Whether he’s a victim of the systemic failings of capitalism and a lack of mental healthcare (Joaquin Phoenix in Joker), a heavily tattooed murderer (Jared Leto in Suicide Squad), a self-described “agent of chaos” (Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight), a silly sadist (voiced by Mark Hamill in Batman: The Animated Series) or a sharply dressed killer jester (Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton’s Batman), one thing the Clown Prince of Crime definitely isn’t, is a good guy. Still, he’s teeming with clever quips and astute observations about the world. That’s what makes him such a perfect foil for Batman: Bruce Wayne is often quiet, reserved and calculated, while the Joker is loud, conspicuous and chaotic. In fact, with his trademark gallows humor, cutting banter and simultaneously dark and bright insights into the world, The Joker could also be called The Quoter. As proof, check out these 150Joker quotes from various Batman films, TV shows and comics, all of which display this wild card’s singular, signature wit.
Joker Quotes
- “Why so serious?” — The Dark Knight
- “Not clown—Joker.” — Joker
- “I used to think my life was a tragedy, but now I realize it’s a comedy.” — Joker
- “Costume’s a bit theatrical, but hey, who am I to talk?” — Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
- “Have you heard this one? It’ll kill you, Batman!” — Batman (1966)
- “What doesn’t kill you simply makes you stranger!” — The Dark Knight
- “When I saw what a black, awful joke the world was, I went crazy as a coot!” — Batman: The Killing Joke
- “As you know, madness is like gravity: All it takes is a little push.” — The Dark Knight
- “I don’t know what it was that bent your life out of shape, but who knows? Maybe I’ve been there too. Maybe I can help. We could work together. I could rehabilitate you. You needn’t be out there on the edge anymore. You needn’t be alone. We don’t have to kill each other. What do you say?” — Batman: The Killing Joke
- “If you’re good at something, never do it for free.” — The Dark Knight
- “When the chips are down, these civilized people, they’ll eat each other.” — The Dark Knight
- “The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules.” — The Dark Knight
- “Their morals, their code—it’s a bad joke.” — The Dark Knight
- “Wait ’til they get a load of me.” — Batman (1989)
- “When they treat you like a joke, leave them like it’s funny.” — The Dark Knight
- “I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.” — The Dark Knight
- “You have nothing, nothing to threaten me with. Nothing to do with all your strength.” — The Dark Knight
- “If you don’t like the movie, I’ve got slides.” — Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
- “A joke a day keeps the gloom away!” — Batman (1966)
- “Is it just me or is it getting crazier out there?” — Joker
- “That’s not funny…” — Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
- “It’s funny. When I was a little boy and told people I was going to be a comedian, everyone laughed at me. Well, no one’s laughing now!” — Joker
- “It’s not about the money, it’s about sending a message. Everything burns!” — The Dark Knight
- “You know, it only hurts when I laugh.” — Batman: Under the Red Hood
- “They need you right now, but when they don’t, they’ll cast you out like a leper.” — The Dark Knight
- “Don’t test the monster in me!” — The Dark Knight
- “I’m not good at future planning. I do not plan at all. Don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow. Do not have a day planner and don’t have a diary. I completely live in the now, not in the past, not in the future.” — Joker
- “Without Batman, crime has no punchline.” — Batman: The Animated Series
- “Does it depress you to know just how alone you really are?” — The Dark Knight
- “I’m crazy enough to take on Batman, but the IRS? Nooo, thank you!” — The New Batman Adventures
- “It’d be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.” — Batman Beyond
- “Do you know how many times we’ve come close to world war three over a flock of geese on a computer screen? Do you know what triggered the last world war? An argument over how many telegraph poles Germany owed its war debt creditors! Telegraph poles!” — Batman: The Killing Joke
- “Why don’t you just give me a call when you start taking things a little more seriously?” — The Dark Knight
- “I don’t know why everyone is so rude, I don’t know why you are; I don’t want anything from you.” — Joker
- “Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos.” — The Dark Knight
- “Tell me something, my friend, have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?” — Batman (1989)
- “Some people want to see you fail. Disappoint them!” — The Dark Knight
- “You know, you remind me of my father. I hated my father.” — The Dark Knight
- “Do you want to know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick.” — The Dark Knight
- “The real joke is your stubborn, bone deep conviction that somehow, somewhere, all of this makes sense! That’s what cracks me up each time!” — Batman #681
- “Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?” — Batman (1989)
- “Memories are what our reason is based upon. If we can’t face them, we deny reason itself!” — Batman: The Killing Joke
- “I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it.” — The Dark Knight
- “I feel like I know you. I’ve been watching you forever.” — Joker
- “Those mob fools want you gone so they can get back to the way things were. But I know the truth: There’s no going back. You’ve changed things forever.” — The Dark Knight
- “Kid, I’m the Joker. I don’t just randomly kill people. I kill people when it’s funny.” — Batman #686
- “For my whole life, I didn’t know if I even really existed. But I do, and people are starting to notice.” — Joker
- “Do I look like the kind of clown that can start a movement?” — Joker
- “A man with nothing to fear is a man with nothing to love.” — The Dark Knight
- “His mask is his real face.” — Batman: Arkham Asylum
- “The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don’t.” — Joker
- “You look good. Been working out? You could probably use a little sun. Then again, who am I to talk?” — Batman: Under the Red Hood
- “You actually believed that all it would take is a few chemicals, a couple of days in drug-induced isolation and a cheap little nervous breakdown and you’d have me all figured out? Like there was some rabbit hole you could follow me down to understanding?” — Batman #681
- “I’m not political. I’m just trying to make people laugh.” — Joker
- “All I have are negative thoughts.” — Joker
- “I always wanted to see my dame in lights. Heh. Even in a moment of abject saccharine, I still got it.” — Emperor Joker
- “You think men like Thomas Wayne ever think what it’s like to be someone like me? To be somebody but themselves? They don’t. They think that we’ll just sit there and take it, like good little boys! That we won’t werewolf and go wild!” — Joker
- “You really want to know what it feels like to be the clown at midnight? Where there’s only ever one joke and it’s always on you? Well, here you are. Now do you get it?” — Batman #681
- “When you bring me out, can you introduce me as Joker?” — Joker
- “Tell your men they work for me now! This is my city!” — The Dark Knight
- “You’ll never be sad, and you’ll never be lonely. You’ll always have me to dance with.” — Batman Confidential #12
- “You get what you f**king deserve!” — Joker
- “Devil is double is deuce, my dear doctor … and joker trumps deuce.” — Batman #681
- “You think he’s really gonna fix your nasty case of Joker-itis? Not a chance. I’m chronic, Brucie. I’m lingering.” — Batman: Arkham Knight
- “Here’s the cold, hard truth Bats…I don’t hate you ‘cause I’m crazy…I’m crazy ‘cause I hate you.” — Batman: Cacophony
- “Everybody’s telling me my standup is ready for the big clubs.” — Joker
- “Lady, you’re harder to kill than a cockroach on steroids!” — Batman: Dark Victory
- “I don’t care what happens to the world, and I don’t play nice with others!” — Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe
- “Live…and in person! The Caliph of Clowns, the Grand Mogul of Mountebanks, the one and only Joker! Prerecorded for this time zone.” — The Sign of the Joker
- “My mother always tells me to smile and put on a happy face. She told me I had a purpose to bring laughter and joy to the world.” — Joker
- “I’m not mad at all. I’m just differently sane.” — Batman and Robin #13
- “Can somebody tell me what kind of a world we live in, where a man dressed up as a bat gets all of my press? This town needs an enema!” — Batman (1989)
- “As though we were made for each other…Beauty and the Beast. Of course, if anyone else calls you ‘beast,’ I’ll rip their lungs out.” — Batman (1989)
- “Smile because it confuses people.” — The Dark Knight
- “Everybody just yells and screams at each other. Nobody’s civil anymore. Nobody thinks what it’s like to be the other guy.” — Joker
- “If you have to explain a joke, there is no joke!” — Batman: Mad Love
- “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.” — Batman: The Killing Joke
- “I took Gotham’s white knight and I brought him down to our level.” — The Dark Knight
- “You can’t win anyway… You see, I hold the winning card!” — Batman #1
- “Very neat! That ugly head of yours does have a brain!” — The Dark Knight
- “This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.” — The Dark Knight
- “And I thought my jokes were bad.” — The Dark Knight
- “They could put me in a helicopter and fly me up into the air and line up the bodies head to toe on the ground in delightful geometric patterns like an endless June Taylor dance routine—and it would never be enough. No, I don’t keep count. But you do. And I love you for it.” — Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
- “And here we go!” — Batman (1989)
- “There’s plenty wrong with me. Take my blood, for example. I wish somebody would—this stuff is killing me!” — Batman: Arkham City
- “Ladies and murderers, welcome to the big fight!” — Batman: Arkham Asylum
- “C’mon Bats, get crazy. It’s the only way to beat me!” — Batman: Arkham Asylum
- “I have given a name to my pain, and it is Batman.” — Batman (1989)
- “I hope my death makes more cents than my life.” — Joker
- “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.” — Batman: The Killing Joke
- “In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.” — Batman: Shadow of the Bat #37
- “I make art until someone dies. See? I am the world’s first fully functioning homicidal artist.” — Batman (1989)
- “You think it all breaks down into symbolism and structures and hints and clues. No, Batman, that’s just Wikipedia.” — Batman #681
- “Do I look like I’m joking?” — Joker
- “Over?! Why, my dear, delusional Dark Knight, it hasn’t even begun!” — Batman: Arkham Asylum
- “Yes, memory’s so treacherous. One moment, you’re lost in a carnival of delight: childhood aromas, the flashing neon of puberty, all that sentimental candy floss. The next, it takes you somewhere you don’t want to be. Somewhere dark and cold, filled with the damp, ambiguous shapes of things you’d rather forget. Memories can be vile, repulsive little brutes. Like children, no?” — Batman: The Killing Joke
- “It’s a funny world we live in.” — The Dark Knight
- “Laugh and the world laughs with you!” — Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth
- “Parting is such sweet sorrow, dearest. Still, you can’t say we didn’t show you a good time. Enjoy yourself out there in the asylum. Just don’t forget: If it ever gets too tough, there’s always a place for you here.” — Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth
- “One by one, they’ll hear my call. Then this wicked town, will follow my fall.” — Batman: The Man Who Laughs
- “Hello Late-Show lovers…and lovers of the Late-Show!” — Batman: The Laughing Fish
- “A bit of advice…don’t ever apologize to no one for the way you look.” — Joker
- “By clinging to reality, you’re denying the reality of the situation.” — Batman: The Killing Joke
- “Notice the hideously bloated sense of humanity’s importance. Also note the club-footed social conscience and the withered optimism. It’s certainly not for the squeamish, is it? Most repulsive of all, are its frail and useless notions of order and sanity.” — Batman: The Killing Joke
- “I am not someone who is loved. I’m an idea. A state of mind.” — Suicide Squad
- “If I weren’t crazy, I’d be insane!” — Batman: Dark Detective
- “Now comes the part where I relieve you, the little people, of the burden of your failed and useless lives.” — Batman (1989)
- “You can’t rely on anyone these days, you gotta do everything yourself, don’t we? That’s OK, I came prepared.” — The Dark Knight
- “I’m not exactly sure what happened. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another. If I’m going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!” — Batman: The Killing Joke
- “Forgive my laughter. I have a condition.” — Joker
- “You see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are.” — The Dark Knight
- “Comedy is subjective, Murray. Isn’t that what they say? All of you, the system that knows so much, you decide what’s right or wrong. The same way that you decide what’s funny or not.” — Joker
- “Faced with the inescapable fact that human existence is mad, random and pointless, one in eight of them crack up and go stark slavering buggo! Who can blame them? In a world as psychotic as this…any other response would be crazy!” — Batman: The Killing Joke
- “Where, oh where has my little Bat gone? Oh where, oh where can he be? His cowl, his scowl, his temper so foul. I do hope he’s coming for me.” — Batman: Arkham Origins
- “You can’t kill me without becoming like me! I can’t kill you without losing the only human being who can keep up with me! Isn’t it ironic?” — Batman #663
- “I’m a man of simple taste. I like things such as gunpowder, dynamite and gasoline!” — The Dark Knight
- “Ladies and Gentlemen! You’ve read about it in the papers! Now witness, before your very eyes, that most rare and tragic of nature’s mistakes! I give you: the average man. " — Batman: The Killing Jok
- “I can’t wait to show you my toys.” — Suicide Squad
- “Yet we’re linked, you and I. Like comedy and tragedy. Two sides, same coin.” — The Batman (2004)
- “Are you seriously saying there is nothing, nothing special about our relationship?” — The Lego Batman Movie
- “I’m gonna make this pencil disappear.” — The Dark Knight
- “If you actually let me finish a sentence, you might learn something! You might learn we’re not so different. You might even learn something about yourself.” — Batman: Arkham Origins
- “Life’s a bowl of cherries and this is the pits.” — Batman: The Killing Joke
- “Batman, darling.” — Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
- “You know, kids, a lot has changed while your old Uncle Joker’s been away. New Gotham, new rules, even a new Batman. But now I’m tanned, I’m rested, and I’m ready to give this old town a wedgie again!” — Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
- “Why be a disfigured outcast when I can be a notorious crime god? Why be an orphaned boy when you can be a superhero?” — Batman #663
- “It’s true, Batsy! I know everything. And kinda like the kid who peeks at his Christmas presents, I must admit, it’s sadly anti-climactic. Behind all the sturm and batarangs, you’re just a little boy in a playsuit, crying for mommy and daddy!” — Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
- “I’m only laughing on the outside. My smile is just skin deep. If you could see inside, I’m really crying. You might join me for a weep.” — Batman: The 1989 Movie Adaptation
- “You see, I’m not a monster. I’m just ahead of the curve.” — The Dark Knight
- “Don’t go into the light, bats! It’s no fair! They won’t let me in!” — Batman: Arkham Night
- “Let’s put a smile on that face!” — The Dark Knight
- “You complete me.” — The Dark Knight
- “Oh, Batman, if you had the guts for that kind of fun you would’ve done it years ago. I, on the other hand…” — Batman: The Brave and the Bold
- “Let’s take a moment to reflect on the passing of a man who was more than just another do-gooder in tights. He was the best arch-nemesis a sociopath could ask for.” — Emperor Joker
- “Now, I see the funny side. Now I’m always smiling.” — The Dark Knight
- “Well look at the size of that cake, man!” — Batman: The Animated Series
- “This city deserves a better class of criminal. And I’m gonna give it to them.” — The Dark Knight
- “Laugh it up now!” — Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
- “If the police expect to play against the Joker, they’d better be prepared to be dealt from the bottom of the deck!” — Batman #1
- “You had a bad day and everything changed. Why else would you dress up as a flying rat? You had a bad day, and it drove you as crazy as everybody else…only you won’t admit it!” — Batman: The Killing Joke
- “The pen is truly mightier than the sword!” — The Dark Knight
- “I’ve been using it as a journal, but also as a joke diary, if I have any thoughts or frustrations. I think I told you, I’m pursuing a career in standup comedy.” — Joker
- “Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg! The Batmobile lost a wheel and the Joker got away!” — Batman: The Animated Series
- “April sweet is coming in, let the feast of fools begin!” — Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth 145..“Nobody panics when things go ‘according to plan,’ even if the plan is horrifying.” — The Dark Knight
- “If I weren’t insane, I couldn’t be so brilliant!” — Dreadful Birthday Dear Joker
- “We aren’t contractually tied down to rationality! There is no Sanity Clause!” — Batman: The Killing 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?” — Batman: The Killing Joke
- “Do you know how I got these scars?” — The Dark Knight
- “No matter the situation, always wear a smile.” — Joker Next, check out the most sinister quotes from another major comic book Big Bad: Marvel’s Thanos!