(Image credit: DC Comics)
Whether your favourite Joker is from the comic books, one of the many movie series, the animated series or even the computer games, there’s no doubting the Clown Prince of Crime is one of the DC universe’s most well-known villains. Batman’s nemesis has a reputation for dark humour and clever quips in every portrayal, and with acting royalty like Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix on the roster, Joker’s famous lines never fail to hit the target.
So let’s dive into the maniacal mind of the Joker!
I believe whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you stranger.
Smile, because it confuses people. Smile, because it’s easier than explaining what is killing you inside.
I used to think life was a tragedy, but now I realize it's a comedy!
Do I look like the kind of clown that can start a movement?
You get what you f****** deserve!
Does it depress you? To know just how alone you really are?
All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy.
Not clown—Joker.
Wait ‘til they get a load of me.
This town needs an enema.
Why so serious?
Costume's a bit theatrical, but hey, who am I to talk?
Have you heard this one? It'll kill you, Batman!
When I saw what a black, awful joke the world was, I went crazy as a coot!
As you know, madness is like gravity: All it takes is a little push.
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?
If you’re good at something, never do it for free.
When the chips are down, these civilized people, they'll eat each other.
The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules.
Their morals, their code—it's a bad joke.
When they treat you like a joke, leave them like it's funny.
I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.
You have nothing, nothing to threaten me with. Nothing to do with all your strength.
If you don't like the movie, I've got slides.
A joke a day keeps the gloom away!
Is it just me or is it getting crazier out there?
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!
That's not funny…
It's not about the money, it's about sending a message. Everything burns!
You know, it only hurts when I laugh.
They need you right now, but when they don't, they'll cast you out like a leper.
Don't test the monster in me!
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.
Without Batman, crime has no punchline.
I'm crazy enough to take on Batman, but the IRS? Nooo, thank you!
It'd be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.
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!
Why don't you just give me a call when you start taking things a little more seriously?
I don't know why everyone is so rude, I don't know why you are; I don't want anything from you.
Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos.
Tell me something, my friend, have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?
Some people want to see you fail. Disappoint them!
You know, you remind me of my father. I hated my father.
Do you want to know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick.
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!
Haven't you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?
Memories are what our reason is based upon. If we can't face them, we deny reason itself!
I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it.
I feel like I know you. I've been watching you forever.
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.
Kid, I'm the Joker. I don't just randomly kill people. I kill people when it's funny.
For my whole life, I didn't know if I even really existed. But I do, and people are starting to notice.
A man with nothing to fear is a man with nothing to love.
His mask is his real face.
The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don't.
You look good. Been working out? You could probably use a little sun. Then again, who am I to talk?
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?
I'm not political. I'm just trying to make people laugh.
All I have are negative thoughts.
I always wanted to see my dame in lights. Heh. Even in a moment of abject saccharine, I still got it.
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!
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?
When you bring me out, can you introduce me as Joker?
Tell your men they work for me now! This is my city!
You'll never be sad, and you'll never be lonely. You'll always have me to dance with.
Devil is double is deuce, my dear doctor ... and joker trumps deuce.
You think he's really gonna fix your nasty case of Joker-itis? Not a chance. I'm chronic, Brucie. I'm lingering.
Here's the cold, hard truth Bats...I don't hate you 'cause I'm crazy...I'm crazy 'cause I hate you.
Everybody's telling me my standup is ready for the big clubs.
Lady, you're harder to kill than a cockroach on steroids!
I don't care what happens to the world, and I don't play nice with others!
Live...and in person! The Caliph of Clowns, the Grand Mogul of Mountebanks, the one and only Joker! Pre-recorded for this time zone.
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.
I'm not mad at all. I'm just differently sane.
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?
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.
Everybody just yells and screams at each other. Nobody's civil anymore. Nobody thinks what it's like to be the other guy.
If you have to explain a joke, there is no joke!
I took Gotham's white knight and I brought him down to our level.
You can't win anyway... You see, I hold the winning card!
Very neat! That ugly head of yours does have a brain!
This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.
And I thought my jokes were bad.
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.
And here we go!
There's plenty wrong with me. Take my blood, for example. I wish somebody would—this stuff is killing me!
Ladies and murderers, welcome to the big fight!
C'mon Bats, get crazy. It's the only way to beat me!
I have given a name to my pain, and it is Batman.
I hope my death makes more cents than my life.
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.
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.
I make art until someone dies. See? I am the world’s first fully functioning homicidal artist.
You think it all breaks down into symbolism and structures and hints and clues. No, Batman, that's just Wikipedia.
Do I look like I’m joking?
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?
It's a funny world we live in.
Laugh and the world laughs with you!
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.
One by one, they'll hear my call. Then this wicked town, will follow my fall.
Hello Late-Show lovers...and lovers of the Late-Show!
A bit of advice...don't ever apologize to no one for the way you look.
By clinging to reality, you’re denying the reality of the situation.
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.
If I weren't crazy, I'd be insane!
Now comes the part where I relieve you, the little people, of the burden of your failed and useless lives.
You can't rely on anyone these days, you gotta do everything yourself, don't we? That's OK, I came prepared.
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!
Forgive my laughter. I have a condition.
You see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are.
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.
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!
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."
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?
I'm a man of simple taste. I like things such as gunpowder, dynamite and gasoline!
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.
I can't wait to show you my toys.
Yet we're linked, you and I. Like comedy and tragedy. Two sides, same coin.
Are you seriously saying there is nothing, nothing special about our relationship?
I'm gonna make this pencil disappear.
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.
Life's a bowl of cherries and this is the pits.
Batman, darling.
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!
Why be a disfigured outcast when I can be a notorious crime god? Why be an orphaned boy when you can be a superhero?
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!
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.
You see, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve.
Don't go into the light, bats! It's no fair! They won't let me in!
Let's put a smile on that face!
You complete me.
Oh, Batman, if you had the guts for that kind of fun you would've done it years ago. I, on the other hand…
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.
Now, I see the funny side. Now I'm always smiling.
Well look at the size of that cake, man!
This city deserves a better class of criminal. And I’m gonna give it to them.
Laugh it up now!
If the police expect to play against the Joker, they’d better be prepared to be dealt from the bottom of the deck!
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!
The pen is truly mightier than the sword!
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.
Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg! The Batmobile lost a wheel and the Joker got away!
April sweet is coming in, let the feast of fools begin!
Nobody panics when things go 'according to plan,' even if the plan is horrifying.
If I weren't insane, I couldn't be so brilliant!
We aren't contractually tied down to rationality! There is no Sanity Clause!
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?
Do you know how I got these scars?
No matter the situation, always wear a smile.
How was your journey through the quick-witted, insanely dark mind of DC’s favourite super villain? Did your favourite Joker quote make the list?
Each Joker has his own unique take on the character, from his disturbed ramblings in The Joker (2019) to the intense, unhinged anarchist portrayed by Heath Ledger in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008), so there were hundreds of wonderfully weird Joker quotes to choose from! Are you ready for more of the best quotes from your favourite comic book characters? Or would you prefer to check your DC knowledge against these DC facts you never knew? Check out our resource hub for more great articles!
