Alan Moore Quotes & Sayings

For my own part, regret nothing. Have lived life, free from compromise ... and step into the shadow now without complaint.
-Rorschach — Alan Moore

You have waged bitter and undeclared war upon the green, gutting the rain forests, mile after mile, day after day, but know this: the war has come home! It is man's turn to embrace the scythe. — Alan Moore

It doesn't do you any service to demonize any group of people. It's much better to try and understand from the inside. — Alan Moore

Quatermain (while climbing down): We are above an abyss such as satan's own, Miss Murray.Pray not to look down.
Mina: And you, Sir, should not look up.You have me at a disadvantage and I trust you'll not misuse our situation. — Alan Moore

He'd been wrong to tell the freaked-out teenager that it would all get better, because actually it didn't. It just faded to a deep held chord, a pedal-organ drone behind the normal noise of life, a thing that you forgot about and thought you'd put away forever, but it was still there. It was still here. He — Alan Moore

I believe that magic is art, and that art, whether that be music, writing, sculpture, or any other form, is literally magic. Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words or images, to achieve changes in consciousness ... Indeed to cast a spell is simply to spell, to manipulate words, to change peoples consciousness, and this is why I believe that an artist or writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world to a shaman. — Alan Moore

Without my face, nobody knows. Nobody knows who I am. — Alan Moore

Life is a lot more interesting if you are interested in the people and the places around you. So, illuminate your little patch of ground, the people that you know, the things that you want to commemorate. Light them up with your art, with your music, with your writing, with whatever it is that you do. — Alan Moore

I'm disappointed in you, Adrian. I'm very disappointed. Reassembling myself was the first trick I learned. It didn't kill Osterman. Did you really think it would kill me? I have walked across the surface of the sun. I have witnessed events so tiny and so fast, they could hardly be said to have occurred at all. But you, Adrian, you're just a man. The world's smartest man poses no more threat to me than does its smartest termite. — Alan Moore

Come, dry your eyes, for you are LIFE, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly.
Dry your eyes, and let's go home. — Alan Moore

My only problem with fans is when they turn pro. For example, when all the professional writers were fired by DC in the '60s, they brought in a generation of comic book fans who would have paid to have written these stories. — Alan Moore

I heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Life seems harsh, and cruel. Says he feels all alone in threatening world. Doctor says: "Treatment is simple. The great clown - Pagliacci - is in town. Go see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. "But doctor ... " he says "I am Pagliacci." Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains. — Alan Moore

I love films that are made with almost no budget. — Alan Moore

A live body and a dead body contain the same number of particles. Structurally, there's no discernible difference. Life and death are unquantifiable abstracts. Why should I be concerned? — Alan Moore

[...] That's Beethoven's fifth...
Da da da dum!
Heh heh. That's morse code, y'know.
Uh, morse code?
Hmm. It's morse code for the letter "v". — Alan Moore

This city is dying of rabies. Is the best I can do to wipe random flecks of foam from its lips? — Alan Moore

Now everything is wonderful and hazardous and nothing's hypothetical. — Alan Moore

IF YOU HURT INSIDE, GET CERTIFIED, AND IF LIFE SHOULD TREAT YOU BAD ...
DON'T GET EE-EE-EVEN, GET MAD! — Alan Moore

With your depth of field and curious soul, allowing something to evolve or to see meaning in playful accidents can make the difference between creating the same old thing, or something that is unique, valuable, lasting, beautiful. — Alan Moore

It's raining in Washington tonight. Plump, warm summer rain that covers the sidewalks with leopard spots. Downtown, elderly ladies carry their houseplants out to set them on the fire-escapes, as if they were infirm relatives or Boy Kings. I like that. — Alan Moore

in life there were times when the entirely inappropriate was the only appropriate response. Perhaps, — Alan Moore

Fiction and fact: only madmen and magistrates cannot discriminate between them. — Alan Moore

Consciousness, unprovable by scientific standards, is forever, then, the impossible phantom in the predictable biologic machine, and your every thought a genuine supernatural event. Your every thought is a ghost, dancing. — Alan Moore

A lot of people have found the idea of living your life over and over again absolutely terrifying; there's some people that find it very comforting. There are others that are appalled by it. — Alan Moore

Of course, Marxism is an example of what Carl Popper would have called a 'World Three' structure, in that it's got immense power as an idea, but you couldn't actually hold up anything in the world and say: 'this is Marxism'. — Alan Moore

Why do we argue? Life's so fragile, a successful virus clinging to a speck of mud, suspended in endless nothing. — Alan Moore

I'm the king of the 20th century. I'm the boogeyman, the villian, the black sheep of the family. — Alan Moore

For soon, the dark millenium will fall, and the world will be a different place, requiring different species. Cataracts will occlude the Sun, shutting out its hateful light, and fabulous new life-forms shall flourish and struggle beneath the perpetual stars. — Alan Moore

There are people.
There are stories.
The people think they shape the stories, but the reverse if often closer to the truth.
Stories shape the world. They exist independently of people, and in places quite devoid of man, there may yet be mythologies. — Alan Moore

I've never really cared much about money. I've got enough to live on. And it's not like I live in a fancy house, it's not like I own a car, and it's not like I ever go on holiday. — Alan Moore

Through my blue fingers, pink grains are falling, haphazard, random, a disorganized stream of silicone that seems pregnant with the possibility of every conceivable shape ... But this is illusion. Things have their shape in time, not space alone. Some marble blocks have statues within them, embedded in their future. — Alan Moore

Happiness is the most insidious prison of all. — Alan Moore

The dusk reeks of fornication and bad consciences. — Alan Moore

Love. His love for Cathy and the kids. That had been one of his protective mantras, he was certain, except love just made things crueller, gave you so much more to lose. — Alan Moore

I have so very much. I have so very little. — Alan Moore

There are two worlds we live in: a material world, bound by the laws of physics, and the world inside our mind, which is just as important. — Alan Moore

Technology is always a two-edged sword. It will bring in many benefits, but also many disasters. — Alan Moore

If you look at that incredible burst of fantastic characters that emerged in the late 19th century/early 20th century, you can see so many of the fears and hopes of those times embedded in those characters. Even in throwaway bits of contemporary culture you can often find some penetrating insights into the real world around us. — Alan Moore

Language comes first. It's not that language grows out of consciousness, if you haven't got language, you can't be conscious. — Alan Moore

Not thou alone, but all humanity doth in its progress fable emulate. Whence came thy rocket-ships and submarine if not from Nautilus, from Cavorite? Your trustiest companions since the cave, we apparitions guided mankind's tread, our planet, unseen counterpart to thine, as permanent, as ven'rable, as true. On dream's foundation matter's mudyards rest. Two sketching hands, each one the other draws: the fantasies thou've fashioned fashion thee. — Alan Moore

Don't fall.
It seems we've
struggled
for so long.
We've trampled
on the backs
of apes to
clutch the
muddied
hems of
angels. — Alan Moore

The relentless onslaught of this stupefying imagery that pounds our inner landscapes flat, a carpet-bombing of the mind. The language of the world, that overwhelms us. — Alan Moore

Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. — Alan Moore

Things have their forms not only in space, but also in time. — Alan Moore

strength to unity unity through faith — Alan Moore

I'm not a particularly dark individual. I have my moments, it's true, but I do have a sense of humor. — Alan Moore

Our consciousness, a startling outgrowth of the universe, is possibly its most important part, the fraction of existence that can think, feel, marvel at itself. — Alan Moore

I imagine that existential dread probably ought to get a devil. A devil of post-colonial angst. A devil of complicated grief. — Alan Moore

Truth is a well-known pathological liar. It invariably turns out to be Fiction wearing a fancy frock. Self-proclaimed Fiction, on the other hand, is entirely honest. You can tell this, because it comes right out and says, "I'm a Liar," right there on the dust jacket. — Alan Moore

One of the reasons why I don't leave Northampton is that the people don't treat me like a celebrity. I've been here for years; I'm just that bloke with long hair. — Alan Moore

I can't move. My mind's like a dance hall fire, a crowd of terrified voices all screaming instructions at once. — Alan Moore

Don't leave home without your sword - your intellect. — Alan Moore

We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings. — Alan Moore

Sex is glorious, it's how we all got here, and it's most people's favourite activity. — Alan Moore

Every film is a remake of a previous film, or a remake of a television series that everyone loved in the 1960s, or a remake of a television series that everyone hated in the 1960s. Or it's a theme park ride; it will soon come to breakfast cereal mascots. — Alan Moore

Fame has replaced the sea as the element of choice for adventure. — Alan Moore

I thought as much. Miss Murray, though I am a beast, do not think that I am stupid. I know that I am hideous and hateful. I am not loved, nor ever hope to be. Nor am I fool enough to think that what I feel for you is love.
But in this world, alone, I do not hate you. And alone in this world, you do not hate me. — Alan Moore

How can two people hate so much without knowing each other? — Alan Moore

Outside an ambulance begins to scream as if overwhelmed by the suffering it must forever carry in its belly. — Alan Moore

But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you. I love you. With all my heart, I love you. — Alan Moore

I think that we need mythology. We need a bedrock of story and legend in order to live our lives coherently. — Alan Moore

Once you realize what a joke everything is, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense. — Alan Moore

Ideas of self, ideas of world and family and nation, articles of scientific or religious faith, your creeds and currencies: one by one, the beloved structures falling. — Alan Moore

Affected most, they understand the least... — Alan Moore

Famously, there's not really anywhere to go after nihilism. It's not progressing toward anything, it's a statement of outrage, however brilliant. — Alan Moore

Academic stress-related pre-birth suicides — Alan Moore

I like Jacques Derrida; I think he's funny. I like my philosophy with a few jokes and puns. I know that that offends other philosophers; they think he's not taking things seriously, but he comes up with some marvellous puns. Why shouldn't you have a bit of fun while dealing with the deepest issues of the mind? — Alan Moore

They say we have we created the man to end all wars; I say we have created a man to end all worlds. — Alan Moore

No one will ever forget that night, and what it meant for this country. But I will never forget the man and what he meant to me. — Alan Moore

Faith is for sissies who daren't go and look for themselves. — Alan Moore

Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself. — Alan Moore

I don't think people realise how vital libraries are or what a colossal danger it would be if we were to lose any more. Having had a truncated school life myself, all of my education from the age of 17 has been self-taught. I wouldn't be the person I am today if it wasn't for the opportunities the library gave me. — Alan Moore

I despise the comic industry, but I will always love the comic medium. — Alan Moore

Evey Hammond: Who are you?
V: Who? Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask.
Evey Hammond: Well I can see that.
V: Of course you can. I'm not questioning your powers of observation I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is — Alan Moore

None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME. — Alan Moore

The entire universe - for one thing - only exists in your perceptions. That's all you're gonna see of it. To all practical intents and purposes this is purely some kind of lightshow that's being put on in the kind of neurons in our brain. The whole of reality. — Alan Moore

I suppose when I was writing 'V for Vendetta' I would in my secret heart of hearts have thought: 'Wouldn't it be great if these ideas actually made an impact?' So when you start to see that idle fantasy intrude on the regular world ... It's peculiar. — Alan Moore

Please don't worry. It's a psychological complaint, common amongst ex-librarians. You see, she thinks she's a coffee table edition ... — Alan Moore

Good evening, London. I would introduce myself, but truth to tell, I do not have a name. You can call me "V". Since mankind's dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We've seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse. In anarchy, there is another way. With anarchy, from rubble comes new life, hope reinstated. They say anarchy's dead, but see ... reports of my death were ... exaggerated. Tomorrow, Downing Street will be destroyed, the Head reduced to ruins, an end to what has gone before. Tonight, you must choose what comes next. Lives of our own, or a return to chains. Choose carefully. And so, adieu. — Alan Moore

Romantic poetry had its heyday when people like Lord Byron were kicking it large. But you try and make a living as a poet today, and you'll find it's very different! — Alan Moore

Yes, of course, the whole idea is utterly inane, but to let its predictable inanities blind you to its truly fabulous and breathtaking aspects is to do both oneself and the genre a disservice. — Alan Moore

Nothing is insoluble. Nothing is hopeless. Not while there's life. — Alan Moore

It has occurred to me that the superhero really only originates in America. That seems to be the only country that has produced this phenomenon. — Alan Moore

A lot of the critique of our growing mechanization was actually at its strongest, and arguably at its most perceptive, during the late '60s. — Alan Moore

All culture must have arisen from cult. — Alan Moore

V: You asked for Knowledge, Eve, and that is what I shall pass on to you. Knowledge, like air, is vital to life. Like air, no one should be denied it.
Eve: Oh, V, come on. You've always kept thinks mysterious: yourself, this place, your plans ... If knowledge is like air, you've been suffocating me.
V: Not at all. I've been teaching you to breathe. — Alan Moore

Culture is just a shambling zombie that repeats what it did in life; bits of it drop off, and it doesn't appear to notice. — Alan Moore

In a sense, the story, or poem or verse or whatever it is you're writing, you can kind of think of it as a kind of projectile. Imagine it is a kind of projectile which has been specially shaped to be aerodynamic, and that your target is the soft grey putty of the reader's brain. — Alan Moore

Love doesn't have a point. Love is the point. — Alan Moore

To me, all creativity is magic. Ideas start out in the empty void of your head - and they end up as a material thing, like a book you can hold in your hand. That is the magical process. It's an alchemical thing. Yes, we do get the gold out of it but that's not the most important thing. It's the work itself. — Alan Moore

His sister, in a big turquoise Angora sweater, leaned upon the wood frame of the open nursery door, anxiously looking out to see if he was really going to show, beaming and waving like a pastel colored TV Muppet when she spotted him. — Alan Moore

There's been a growing dissatisfaction and distrust with the conventional publishing industry, in that you tend to have a lot of formerly reputable imprints now owned by big conglomerates. — Alan Moore

Listening to her spooling out impractical and transcendental picture-concepts like a hyperventilating tickertape he felt the weight lift from him, floating in a sweet and putrid lager fart to dissipate beneath the starry, vast obsidian pudding bowl of closing time, inverted and set down upon the Burroughs as though keeping flies away. — Alan Moore

Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. — Alan Moore

It's only those exceptional and rare individuals who have brilliant ideas delivered to them by the muse, complete and gift wrapped. The rest of us have to work at it. — Alan Moore

Writing is a very focused form of meditation. Just as good as sitting in a lotus position. — Alan Moore

Do I believe, for example, that by using magic I could fly? No. How would you get around gravity? Impossible. Do I believe that I might be able to project my consciousness into a very, very vivid simulation of flying? Yeah. Yes, I've done that. Yes, that works. — Alan Moore

Since mankind's dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We've seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse. — Alan Moore

I'm not a very shy person. I'm just somebody who's got a lot of work and who doesn't like to parade himself in new celebrity contexts. — Alan Moore

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!" ~ JOKER — Alan Moore