batman

"Twinkle twinkle little bat! How I wonder what you're at!"

"We piled all this stuff on top of it, and dressed it up in its best clothes, and sent it out. Then I sat down afterwards and realized, "Why? Why bother? It's such an absurd thing to do". It's like suddenly realizing the fact that you're desperately trying to work around the subject matter — trying to make the book despite the subject, rather than because of it. At the end of the day, if you really love to do Batman comics, then that's probably the best thing to do. Not liking them, and then trying to make something out of them is just a waste of time. Also, by the end of it I'd really begun to think that this whole thing about four-color comics with very, very overpainted, lavish illustrations in every panel just didn't work. It hampers the storytelling. It does everything wrong. It's very difficult to have any enthusiasm about it after that."

"The story's themes were inspired by Lewis Carroll, quantum physics, Jung, and Crowley; its visual style by surrealism, Eastern European creepiness, Cocteau, Artaud, Švankmajer, the Brothers Quay, etc."

"Sometimes… sometimes I think the Asylum is a head. We're inside a huge head that dreams us all into being. Perhaps it's your head, Batman. Arkham is a looking glass. And we are you."

"I pity the poor shades confined to the Euclidean prison that is rationality."

"The original first draft of the script included Robin. Robin appeared in a few scenes at the beginning then remained at Police Headquarters for the bulk of the book, where he spent his time studying plans and histories of the house, in order to find a way in to help his mentor. Dave McKean, however, felt that he had already compromised his artistic integrity sufficiently by drawing Batman and refused point blank over for the Boy Wonder — so after one brave but ridiculous attempt to put him in a trench coat, I wisely removed him from the script."

"Finished. It's finished. I'm Arkham. I'm home. Where I belong."

"The construction of the story was influenced by the architecture of a house — the past and the tale of Amadeus Arkham forms the basement levels. Secret passages connect ideas and segments of the book. There are upper stories of unfolding symbol and metaphor. We were also referencing sacred geometry, and the plan of the Arkham House was based on the Glastonbury Abbey and Chartres Cathedral. The journey through the book is like moving through the floors of the house itself. The house and the head become one."

"I imagined it being done by someone like Brian Bolland, and my vision was of it being ultra-real to the point of being painful. [. . .] But then when Dave McKean did it it became something quite different, because he wanted to make it more abstract. And I think that in a lot of ways, the ways we both approached it clashed in the middle. [. . .] I think it would have been easier for people to deal with if it had been a lot more concrete."

"Len Wein ... had written a few short and evocative paragraphs on the history of Arkham Asylum and it was here I learned of poor Amadeus Arkham, the hospital's founder, whose wife and daughter had been murdered by Martin "Mad Dog" Hawkins. In Wein's précis, Arkham's madness was described as a result of the Stock Market crash of 1929. It occurred to me that having one's wife and daughter slaughtered by a man named "Mad Dog" might have been sufficient cause for a nervous breakdown, so I decided to explore and expand on the life of this throwaway character."

"Sometimes it's only madness that makes us what we are."

"Afraid? Batman's not afraid of anything. It's me. I'm afraid. I'm afraid that the Joker may be right about me. Sometimes I... question the rationality of my actions. And I'm afraid that when I walk through those asylum gates... when I walk into Arkham and the doors close behind me... it'll be just like coming home."

"Following my father's death, I think it’s true that the house became my whole world. During the long period of mother's illness, the house often seemed so vast, so confidently REAL, that by comparison, I felt little more than a ghost haunting its corridors. Scarcely aware that anything could exist beyond those melancholy walls."

"The intention was to create something that was more like a piece of music or an experimental film than a typical adventure comic book. I wanted to approach Batman from the point of view of the dreamlike, emotional and irrational hemisphere, as a response to the very literal, "realistic" "left brain" treatment of superheroes which was in vogue at the time, in the wake of The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen and others."

"My movements through the house have become as formalized as ballet and I feel that I have become an essential part in some incomprehensible biological process. The house is an organism, hungry for madness. It is the maze that dreams."

"I see my wife first. My dear Constance. Her body in pieces. Harriet lies nearby, indescribably violated. Almost idly, I wonder where her head is. And then I look at the doll's house. And the doll's house looks at me."

"Who cares for you? You're nothing but a pack of cards."

"The portrayal of Batman presented here is not definitive and is not necessarily how I would write the character otherwise. The repressed, armored, uncertain and sexually frozen man in Arkham Asylum was intended as a critique of the '80s interpretation of Batman as violent, driven, and borderline psychopathic. My own later portrayal of Batman in the JLA comic was one which emphasized the character's sanity and dignity."

"Morrison, Grant Morrison: Combining the Worlds of Contemporary Comics book, p. 68."

"Who: Dracula"

"Make him one of us. (edited)"

"(David Endocrine: So you think the Batman's the real sicko here.) Without a doubt. He's an obsessive-compulsive, narcissistic hero-complexed sociopath. I would love a shot at him as a patient."

"(Joker: How about another joke, Murray?) No, I think we'd had enough of your jokes. (Joker: What do you get...) I don't think so. (Joker: ...when you cross...) I think we're done here now, thank you. (Joker: ...a mentally-ill loner with a society that abandoned him AND TREATS HIM LIKE TRASH?!?!) Call the police, Gene. (Joker: I'LL TELL YOU WHAT YOU GET!!) Call the police. (Joker: YOU GET WHAT YOU FUCKING DESERVE!!!)"

"They're so much bigger than you could ever imagine! It's the whole system! I'm so sorry!"

"We both know that I have to kill you now. You'll just have to imagine the fire."

"Alright, y-you know what? I can't-- I can't watch this any more, just call me in the morning, okay?"

"He's got us running around, ripping out a lot of geek junk, but no cash! He won't tell us what his plan is, even if he has one! I want out! (Joker: If you insist.) Hey, man, take it easy! I-I was, I was just kidding!"

"That's not funny. That's not... (gasp)... (uncut)"

"Come on, McGinnis! Laugh it up now, you miserable little punk! Laugh! (sing-song tone) I can't hear yooouuu!"

"You're ....Bruce....Wayne..."

"Has anyone ever made it?"

"Fox showed me how to override the reactor...including the emergency flood. There's no way this bomb will be stopped. Prepare yourselves. My father's work is done."

"Oh, so you're a big man now, Oz, huh? (Cobblepot: Maybe I am.) Really, Oz? Because to me, you were always just a gimp in an empty suit."

"(Joker: Do guests get to keep these?) Heh. Sure, you do whatever you want with it. We got a closet full of them."

"Tell your son it'll be all right, Gordon. Lie... like I lied."

"(The Joker: Tell your men they work for me now. This is my city.) They won't work for a freak!"

"Well congratulations, you got yourself caught. Now what's the next step of your master plan?"

"So, dead? That's five-hundred."

"How'd they get my DNA?"

"Bus driver? What bus driver?"

"So far so good, eh Gloves? C'mon, this way."

"Yeah, but you're not giving me an awful lot of information."

"Sure, I did it. But you won't send me to the chair for it!!! I'll--"

"It's okay, Harvey. It's all right. Listen... some--"

"---Contract...contract...ohhh"

"(Two-Face: You're a lucky man. But he's not.) Who? (Two-Face: Your driver.)"

"A training exercise, that’s all. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got tickets to watch our boys thrash Rapid City."

"I'll die before I talk."

"Keep moving forward! Flank them at the stairs!"

"What happened to the rest of the guys?"