I recently decided to rewatch The Dark Knight (2008) and came to appreciate the nuances of the storytelling.
The Dark Knight’s genius writing, directing, and performances have inspired some of the best quotes in modern cinema.
Here are the best Joker quotes from The Dark Knight‘s most iconic villain, along with some backstory and context to help you understand what makes them so good.
“Whatever doesn’t kill you, simply makes you… stranger.”
This line is iconic as Heath Ledger’s first line on screen as “The Joker.”
While the Joker acts crazy and performs in theatrically crazy ways, he adheres to a strict belief that chaos and anarchy are the only true systems of governance, and everything less than full anarchy is foolish and must be destroyed.
More importantly, when he says, “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stranger” he reveals his cards. He has experienced intense psychological trauma himself and uses “strangeness” as a coping mechanism.
In essence, the character of the Joker does precisely that – he survives his past trauma and tackles Gotham’s whole system of government using strangeness to his advantage.
“Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it!”
One of the film’s best scenes is when the Joker visits Harvey Dent in the hospital. Before this scene, the entire hospital had been evacuated due to a bomb threat the Joker made to stop a whistleblower from outing who Batman is.
As the hospital is nearly emptied, Joker kills the police detail protecting Dent and sits down with him for a heart-to-heart.
This doesn’t go over well with Harvey since half his face was burnt off due to a fire Joker set that simultaneously killed his fiancé. So Joker has to use his words carefully to accomplish his goal – turn Gotham’s “white knight” into an agent of chaos, like him.
“Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos.”
This quote comes a little later in the scene. After Joker convinces Dent to listen to his side of things, there comes a turn in the narrative. Harvey Dent wants revenge but is willing to hear Joker’s case.
The reason is that Harvey Dent is fair. Dent represents a fire and brimstone moral authority that tries to work towards justice inside an unjust system. Batman works towards the same goal but does it outside the system.
Joker works towards the opposite goal. In Joker’s opinion, the system can never be fair, so why try to work with the system at all? Who needs the system? Instead, anarchy and chaos are the only true systems.
“Everything burns!”
So, what makes this quote so good? This is when Joker reveals that he is no longer motivated by money – he never was. Instead, he’s inspired by something deeper – a desire to disrupt the system of order that runs Gotham.
First, he targets the mob and disrupts their social hierarchy at the top of the criminal side of Gotham’s law and order system. It’s no longer cops vs robbers but order vs disorder.
Then, he disrupts the public order by instilling panic with public threats of terrorism. At first, he uses this terror to convince Gotham to turn on Batman, but after his confrontations with Batman, he realizes Batman is the real prize, and he will next use the public to try to break Batman.
Right after this scene, he calls into the talk show where the whistleblower is about to out Batman and threatens that he’ll blow up a hospital if the whistleblower isn’t killed within an hour.
In this way, he’s turned the public on Batman’s “order” to try to break his belief system. When he says “everything burns” and that it’s about sending a message, he intends to burn the town down, trying to prove his point literally… he starts with a pile of money first.
“The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules.”
What makes this scene so powerful? The Joker says it himself – he has the upper hand, an ace up his sleeve, and even though Batman has the Joker in custody, he hasn’t won – the opposite.
He’s essentially lost because the Joker is about to make him choose between saving Rachel and saving Harvey Dent. No matter who he chooses, someone will die, which means Batman will have to break his one rule.
This is Joker’s way of proving his point—that the only sensible way to live is without rules because rules can’t save you.
And to make that point even stronger, when Batman thinks he’s arrived to save Rachel, he’s been tricked once again, as he finds Harvey Dent inside.
“…Do you know how I got these scars?”
This line is a variation of what the Joker repeats multiple times throughout the film. He does a theatrical bit to intimidate, toy with, and ultimately terrify his prey—and has fun while he does it.
It’s an iconic line throughout the film, so it’s worth mentioning on this list for the multiple times it appears. But since we’ll reveal its other utterances in other quotes, we’ll focus only on the last time it appears.
When Joker faces off with Batman at the end of the film, his gleefully evil line meets its match when he tries to pull this line on Batman.
“Do you want to know why I use a knife?”
Joker uses theatrical monologues throughout the movie to tease and taunt his prey. When he’s left alone in the interrogation cell with a veteran cop, he knows he needs to get out of the room somehow so he can blow the trigger to a bomb hidden inside one of his henchmen.
While the veteran cop named Detective Stephens is sure that Joker won’t get through to him, Joker tries anyway.
Here’s how he “twists the knife” (emotionally speaking):
The Joker: “Do you want to know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick. You can’t savor all the… little emotions. In… you see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are. So in a way, I know your friends better than you ever did. Would you like to know which of them were cowards?”
This, of course, is too much for Stephens, and he can’t help himself. He wants to beat the hell out of the little twerp, but because he gives himself over to his worst desires, Joker gets the upper hand and uses him as a hostage to escape while Batman and Gordon are trying to save Harvey and Rachel.
“Now I’m always smiling!”
When the Joker crashes the fundraiser searching for Harvey Dent, he feasts his eyes on Rachel, Dent’s betrothed (although she hasn’t officially said yes yet).
What follows is an entertaining exchange that goes from creepy to terrifying and ends with my favorite moment from the film. At this point, Rachel’s had enough and knees him in the groin, which he laughs off.
This leads to my favorite moment in the entire film:
The Joker: “A little fight in you. I like that.”
Batman: “Then you’re gonna love me.”
And then he swoops into action. For some reason, this moment plays like a hilarious bit, whether intentional or not. But it’s a great introduction to Batman vs Joker, and it’s quite a fun time.
“I had a vision of a world without Batman…and it was so… boring.”
When the Joker calls into the newscast to threaten the whistleblower, Coleman Reese, he reveals his true feelings for Batman in this great quote.
The Joker: “I had a vision, of a world without Batman. The mob ground out a little profit and the police tried to shut them down, one block at a time. And it was so… boring. I’ve had a change of heart. I don’t want Mr. Reese spoiling everything, but why should I have all the fun? Let’s give someone else a chance. If Coleman Reese isn’t dead in sixty minutes then I blow up a hospital.”
This quote is so good because it’s the latest manifestation of the Joker’s goal to turn Gotham against Batman. Only this time, he’s doing it to keep Batman “in the game,” so to speak. Without Batman, what would he do with himself?
“Why so serious?”
Why is this quote so iconic? Despite Ledger’s perfect (and perfectly terrifying) delivery, the monologue points to the trauma inside Joker that drives his point of view.
He has adopted chaos as a response to some trauma, and while we can never be sure if any of the stories he shares throughout the film are honest about that trauma, it’s clear that he will weaponize all kinds of trauma to inspire fear in others.
At the same time, he’s taking his trauma into his own hands and crafting whatever narrative he wants so that he wields the power behind it instead of it wielding power over him.
Not only that, but he sees it as a way to have fun with his victims in his own twisted, evil way. He has a love for theatrics, if nothing else, after all.
“See, I’m not a monster. I’m just ahead of the curve.”
So why is this the best Joker quote in The Dark Knight? Because it perfectly encapsulates the relationship between Batman and Joker and the relationship between chaos and order.
Break that down further: Batman is a tragic hero born from trauma. He becomes an unconventional source of order and justice in a world where the system of rules and justice has been broken for a long time.
Batman forms as a reaction to that lack of true justice, and he works in parallel to bring the system closer to operational. By working outside the system, he pushes it to be better. He represents an actual moral order, not one tied down by laws and regulations.
On the other hand, Joker has the opposite reaction to that same system. He sees the brokenness of the rules-based system and laughs in its face. To him, there is no true moral authority—only chaos. And so, in reaction to the lack of moral order, anarchy is the only system that makes sense to him.
In a way, Joker is also a natural reaction to Batman. As Batman tries to push the system back towards a true moral order, Joker tries to pull the rest of the subjects stuck in the system to see his perspective: that there can be no moral order.
Joker also sees something in Batman that Batman can’t see: that his existence is a chaotic anomaly to the system. He can’t exist within it. Therefore, the system will inevitably try to destroy him, too.
So not only does Joker find Batman’s existence an existential challenge to his ideology (anarchy) worthy of trying to break, but he also finds a kinship in him, as two freaky peas in a freak pod. They are, to borrow from Two-Face, two sides of the same coin.
“Madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.”
While I wouldn’t say this is the best quote in the film, saving it for last is essential. That’s because it’s The Joker’s final line in the movie, and it brilliantly sums up his underlying character and character arc.
I’ll give you a little secret: While more screenwriters focus on the character arcs of their protagonists, the best movie villains ever written have their character arcs.
Joker’s arc begins with a quest to kill Batman for fun and profit. Still, as the film goes on, he discovers that his true goal is to upset the natural order of Gotham and prove his ideological point of view is superior to Batman.
While he cannot break Batman, he accepts a consolation prize: Gotham’s white knight.
This cuts to the core of the Joker’s underlying motivations. His belief system is rooted in the idea that anyone could end up like him if they’ve been through what he’s been through. Throughout the film, he plants little hints of his traumatic backstory that explain his illness.
Of course, these are all breadcrumb trails to nowhere, as he tells a different story every time and never reveals his true backstory.
And that’s it! Those are the top 12 best Joker quotes from The Dark Knight explained!
Up Next: The Best Loki Quotes from the MCU