The villain, Joker, is the most iconic of all Batman characters (besides the titular Batman).
Despite being a killer clown who loves a good laugh, he is also an insightful anarchist who constantly draws attention to mental health issues and the insanity of the rules-based system everyone in Gotham pretends to follow.
Here are the best deep Joker quotes from his appearances on the screen.
1. “See, I’m not a monster. I’m just ahead of the curve.”
From: The Dark Knight
One of the best deep Joker quotes is the insight he shares with Batman during the interrogation scene in The Dark Knight. To put the quote in context, Batman and Lt. Gordon have just staged an epic mousetrap to capture Joker using Harvey Dent as bait.
However, they realize that Harvey Dent hasn’t returned once they bring Joker into custody. It turns out Joker might be holding all the cards after all. However, Batman can’t help but get to the bottom of this mad clown now that he has him face to face, so he asks why Joker wants to kill him.
2. “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!”
From: Batman: The Killing Joke
One of the most iconic Batman franchise storylines of all time, The Killing Joke is a comic written by Alan Moore and an animated film of the same name.
The animated film is an adaptation of the comic book and features Mark Hamill’s supposed final performance as the voice of The Joker due to the strain it puts on his voice.
Because of Alan Moore’s brilliant writing, some of the best deep lines from Joker come from the comic book version and aren’t featured in the film adaptation. However, this quote is brilliant and cuts to the root of Joker’s psychology, which is why it’s one of the best deep quotes.
In both the comic and the film, the Joker kidnaps and ties up Lt. Gordon in a carnival of horrors, and he tries to drive him insane.
The idea is that he is trying to argue why an average man would go insane. In a way, he’s arguing against reason with reason, which is an interesting argument. You’ll have to watch or read the story to see if it works!
3. You don’t listen, do you? You just ask the same questions every week. ‘How’s your job?’ ‘Are you having any negative thoughts?’ All I have are negative thoughts.”
From: Joker
The 2019 adaptation of Joker’s origin story is a controversial film, as audiences are divided between loving and hated it.
However, everyone who saw the film can agree that Joaquin Phoenix’s performance as Arthur Fleck, an aspiring comedian struggling with mental health who becomes the Joker, was outstanding.
This quote is from a scene where Arthur talks to his social worker right before she reveals that the city will stop funding the program. However, to Arthur, it seems that she has never listened to him or been able to help him.
With the way that mental healthcare is still treated in the United States, this quote is too real.
4. “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!”
From: Batman: The Killing Joke
This one is from The Killing Joke again. When Batman comes to rescue Gordon and Barbara, he faces Joker and his minions in Joker’s twisted carnival.
Joker argues that his entire persona and worldview are rooted in trauma. And because the reality of the trauma is so uncomfortable and annoying, he decides it’s not worth remembering it right. Hence, he makes up different variations of what happened to control the trauma.
His form of dealing with the unfairness of what happened to him is to lessen its power over him through his madness. Joker also believes that admitting everything is crazy and nothing matters is the only reasonable way to live.
He’s smart because he’s mastered his past trauma by admitting that nothing happens for a reason and the world is insane. Pretending that he’s not crazy, as he accuses Batman of doing, would be idiotic, or put another way, crazy!
5. “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.”
From: Joker
When Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker finally accomplishes his dream of going on the Murray late-night show as a comedian, he realizes he’s been invited to be made fun of.
So, instead of being the brunt of the joke, he turns the interview upside down. He dresses in full clown makeup, and after he admits to the heinous crimes he committed, he begins interviewing late-night host Murray.
Arthur, aka Joker, has a point. Why does “civilized” society get to decide what is and isn’t funny? Or what’s right and what’s not? This is a dark line of thinking, but it hits deep to the core of what many people often feel—that the rules society claims to follow don’t apply to them or don’t treat them fairly.
6. “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.”
When Joker first introduces Lt. Gordon to his carnival of horror, he delivers a fantastic monologue explaining his viewpoint on madness and memory.
One-part soliloquy, one-part warning, and 100% horrifyingly genius, the Joker delivers this monologue as an argument, making a case for his point of view right as he’s loading Gordon into his carnival of horrors.
7. “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.”
Throughout the entire Killing Joke storyline, Joker argues that what turned him “crazy” could turn anyone crazy, which he tries to prove with his carnival of horrors. He wants to reduce Lt. Gordon to his basest level, quite literally to drive him insane with his own one bad day.
The thing about this quote is that many people can relate to it. That’s where the idea of “snapping” comes from – you’ve had all you can stand, and because you haven’t taken care of yourself, you snap.
This can, of course, mean different things for different people, but it essentially boils down to a mental breakdown. This could be when someone collapses into tears, yells out in frustration, or, at worst, hurts themselves or others somehow.
At its most intense, you lose your mind because you can no longer cope with reality, which Joker says has happened to him. Only he is above the rest of the world because he admits that he’s crazy, while others, like Batman, still pretend and play the game to act as if they are normal.
8. “The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don’t.”
From: Joker
The interesting thing about this deep quote from Joker is that it’s actually written in his diary and not said out loud.
As you can see here, Murray writes this down as one of his “jokes” that he plans to perform at the comedy club. Although the quote isn’t exactly a joke – it’s quite true.
Like many people who struggle with mental illness, you’re often expected to pretend as if nothing is wrong to fit into society.
If you don’t pretend to be happy and “fine”, people will look at you funny, treat you differently, or, most often, distance themselves from you as if the illness is, in fact, your fault.
The truth is we all have varying degrees of mental health that need to be tended to, so it’s unfair to hold everyone to a standard of toxic happiness or complacency.
People who do struggle with their mental health want nothing more than to feel normal and fit in, but that’s not where they are right now – which is why this line cuts so deep.
9. “Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos.”
From: The Dark Knight
This line is from when Joker visits Harvey Dent in the hospital after he more or less burns off half his face. However, in Joker’s words, he didn’t do it; instead, it was a chance outcome due to the chaos Joker unleashed.
The funny thing about that quote is that it’s spot on! According to Joker’s logic, he’s exactly right—horrifying things happen every day, and no one bats an eye because they’re part of a system that consistently churns out horrific outcomes.
It’s only when the system churns out a random, chaotic outcome that people freak out because it’s not “according to plan.”
So when Joker says he’s an agent of chaos, he’s arguing to Harvey Dent that chaos is fairer than a system of order that produces horrors but pretends like it’s fair. Chaos is fairer because it can impact anyone at any time, randomly, and without reason.
This argument works on “Two-Face,” who has been broken spiritually. Check out the scene here:
10. “Everybody just yells and screams at each other. Nobody’s civil anymore. Nobody thinks what it’s like to be the other guy.”
From: Joker
Arthur delivers this profound quote in the middle of his conversation with Murray. It’s his monologue that tries to explain his point of view.
As you can tell from many of these quotes, they are deep and insightful because Joker is trying to connect with the listener and help them understand him. In his mind, he’s not insane—he’s the only rational person in the room.
Of course, to Arthur, the system is broken, and it’s insane to think that the system’s victims won’t turn on it, and in his words, “werewolf and go wild.” It’s a childish argument, but as you see throughout the film, Arthur is quite childlike and innocent.
Joaquin Phoenix won an Academy Award for this performance, and watching this scene, it’s easy to see why. Since we link to it two other times in the article, you’ll have to click the link above or below to watch it in context.
11. “Madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.”
From: The Dark Knight
This quote is from Joker’s monologue towards the end of The Dark Knight. In it, Joker is captured by Batman, and it seems like his plans are all foiled.
But Joker has an ace up his sleeve—he’s converted Harvey Dent, Gotham’s white knight, to his point of view: Chaos is the only fair system of order in the universe.
The way that he points out his thinking is very reminiscent of the madness monologue from The Killing Joke and could even be inspired by it. However, I don’t know if writers Christopher and Jonathan Nolan ever admitted that.
While the Joker fails to break Gordon in The Killing Joke, he succeeds in breaking Dent in The Dark Knight. In a way, the story rewards the Joker’s hero’s journey by giving him precisely what he wants—a victory over Batman.
He might not be able to break Batman or the city of Gotham, but by breaking Dent, he still wins in his twisted way – at least, that’s what he has to laugh himself to sleep in the prison cell!
12. “What do you get when you cross a mentally-ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? I’ll tell you what you get. You get what you fucking deserve!”
From: Joker.
At the end of the Murray interview in Joker, after Arthur has come clean about murdering the bros on the train, Murray has had about all he can stand of the clown.
What started as a strange encounter became a fascinating dissection of a madman. However, the interview quickly dissolves into uncomfortable territory, so Murray tries to wrap it up, leading to this exchange between him and Arthur.
And then the Joker shoots Murray in the head and kills him instantly.
This is such a deep line, despite the violence, because Arthur’s not wrong—society has abandoned him and people like him. So, in a way, they get what they deserve when that same society of angry and disillusioned people decides to turn on the elites of Gotham, and the streets dissolve into anarchy.
However, Joker is twisted and wrong to take his anger and frustration out in violent bursts of murderous rage. Two things can be true at once – society has abandoned Joker and, therefore, has reaped what it sows. But Joker also uses that as justification to conduct evil acts, which is wrong.
Man, the Joker says some deep and meaningful stuff, huh?! Who knew the guy had it in him…
All these insightful and strangely deep quotes cut to the core of what makes Joker such a compelling villain – he is both horrifyingly hard to predict and insightful in his madness.
They say a broken clock is right twice daily; a crazy clown isn’t quite so crazy when you dig in deep enough.
13. “No, I don’t keep count. But you do. And I love you for it.”
One of the darkest moments in Batman history is the storyline behind The Dark Knights Returns. This storyline features an old and decrepit Batman returning to Gotham to save the city from a mutant gang, and he inevitably has to show down with Joker and even Superman!
But before Batman has to fight Superman himself, he faces off against Joker for one last duel.
Batman: No more! All the people I’ve murdered…
He uppercuts Joker
Batman: …by letting you live.
Joker: I never kept count.
Batman: I did!
Joker: I know. And I love you for it.
The truth is, Joker needs Batman to feel alive. To believe what Joker believes and not have Batman would make his life meaningless. But Batman has a purpose. He has a perpetual, endless, twisted game with a partner who will always play it.
And that’s what makes this quote so deep – Joker truly needs Batman to live. So when Batman finally breaks (and breaks Joker’s neck), Joker’s life is over. So he basks in the glory of finally breaking Batman and then twists his neck to off himself.
I told you it was dark!
So that’s it, folks. If you enjoyed this article, see a ranked list of the top Batman movie quotes here.