Best Villains Quotes & Sayings

There are new words now that excuse everybody. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains, the people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch. — Bette Davis

And they have a problem with Dresden, I take it?" Murphy asked.
"Wanna kill him or something. I don't know," Thomas said, nodding. "They tried it on Jet Skis earlier today."
"Roger Moore Bond villains?" Murphy asked, her tone derisive. "Seriously?"
"Be silent, mortal cow," snarled one of the Sidhe.
Murphy tracked her eyes calmly over to that one, and she nodded once, as if memorizing something. "Yeah, okay. You. — Jim Butcher

When I approach villains, unless it's a drama, I'm a comedian, so I approach most things from a comedic point of view. — Rob Riggle

constitute a horror story wherein the villains of the piece stole power from a stable governance system in order to cast the population of the world into an ongoing lab experiment with no plan or boundary. A dismal science. — Warren Ellis

I think the best collaborations in comics come from a lot of talks with the artists where you are finding out what they want to draw, what kind of villains they want to do. — Ann Nocenti

War as a moral metaphor is limited, limiting, and dangerous. By reducing the choices of action to "a war against" whatever-it-is, you divide the world into Me or Us (good) and Them or It (bad) and reduce the ethical complexity and moral richness of our life to Yes/No, On/Off. This is puerile, misleading, and degrading. In stories, it evades any solution but violence and offers the reader mere infantile reassurance. All too often the heroes of such fantasies behave exactly as the villains do, acting with mindless violence, but the hero is on the "right" side and therefore will win. Right makes might. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Innumerable soldiers have told me they don't want to be thanked for their service and they don't want to be seen as heroes (or, for that matter, villains). They want to be respected for the job they did and the pride they took in doing it well. — Elizabeth Heaney

Villains with a conscience have this sad realization of who they are, and the monster they've become - there's a sense of regret. So at the end of these movies there's a dramatic resonance that really stays with the audience. — Thomas Haden Church

I've seen knives pierce the chest,
Children dying in the road
Crawling things hooked and baited,
Rapists bound and then castrated,
Villains singed in public square.
Yet none these sights did make me cringe
Like when my Love cut all her hair. — Roman Payne

If you look at the Disney Villains, I think you'll find that they do have mass appeal in some way, and it usually has to do with a voice quality that also matches very well with the animation. — Jonathan Freeman

I think the best romantic comedies don't have villains. — Nicholas Stoller

It's difficult to root for America when the villains of the story live in a ditch and are armed with jagged rocks. At some point in recent years they looked up from their international heroism to realize they'd alienated the entire world. — Yahtzee Croshaw

I got to playing villains-I don't know how. I think it's like anything else, in the movies in particular that if you establish yourself as something and you're lucky enough to keep getting hired. You know, there are guys who play the guy who gets the girl, guys who are the best friend of that guy, there's the funny guy, the villain. — Christopher Walken

I tend to play mostly villains and twisted people. Unsavory guys. I think it's my face, the way I look. — Christopher Walken

Perhaps this is what Henry James meant when he talked about the "irresponsibility" of characters. Characters are irresponsible, art is irresponsible when compared to life, because it is first and foremost important that a character be real, and as readers or watchers we tend to applaud any effort made towards the construction of that reality. We do not, of course, indulge actual people in the world this way at all. In real life, the fact that something seems real to someone is not enough to interest us, or to convince us that that reality is interesting. But the self-reality of fictional characters is deeply engrossing, which is why villains are lovable in literature in ways that they are not in life. — James Wood

The best villains are the nicest guys in person. — Finn Wittrock

If you look at the great superheroes in any universe, you will always find that they have the very best super villains opposing them. It's because they are foils; they are people that the heroes play off of. — Jim Lee

Imagine a pantomime directed by Quentin Tarantino, where villains are booed, heroes are blood-stained, the body-count is high, the entertainment pulsating, the language filthy and the audience screamed behind you' as tackles hurtled in like boulders crashing down a mountain-side. Such was the epic drama that gripped the Emirates yesterday. A derby crammed with sound, fury and significance ended with everyone grasping for breath, with Arsenal regaining the high ground of the Premier League ... This was the Premier League at its raw, mistake-filled, mesmerising best. Utterly compelling. — Henry Winter

It's nice to be in a world where you're not going to exhaust storylines with potential villains. — Donal Logue

The lessons of the past suggest that racism and resentment against people of color will continue to flourish in America as long as the history that is taught transposes the heroes and the villains. That is the unspoken truth at the heart of the nation's racial divide. — Susan L. Taylor

There is a dark side in all of us. And for us 'bad' people, the bad side dominates. I think there is a great sadness in villains, and I have tried to put that across. We cannot stop ourselves doing what we are doing. — Christopher Lee

You don't play villains like they are villains. You play them like you know exactly where they are coming from. Which hopefully you do. — Mark Margolis

Here is a children's film made for the world we should live in, rather than the one we occupy. A film with no villains. No fight scenes. No evil adults. No fighting between the two kids. No scary monsters. No darkness before the dawn. A world that is benign. A world where if you meet a strange towering creature in the forest, you curl up on its tummy and have a nap. — Roger Ebert

Cinema is much more than heroes and villains. — Anurag Kashyap

So these villains, who call themselves governments, well understand that their power rests primarily upon money. With money they can hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort money. And, when their authority is denied, the first use they always make of money, is to hire soldiers to kill or subdue all who refuse them more money. — Lysander Spooner

Villains are undone by what is worst in them, heroes by what is best. — Voltaire

To the best of your knowledge, Charles, do villains ever permit themselves to be rained on?"

"Not to my knowledge, no, sir. — Sandra Marton

We're the good guys. That we're scary doesn't mean we're the villains. — Patricia Briggs

Above all, don't overestimate your own power as an individual. Founders are important not because they are the only ones whose work has value, but rather because a great founder can bring out the best work from everybody at his company. That we need individual founders in all their peculiarity does not mean that we are called to worship Ayn Randian "prime movers" who claim to be independent of everybody around them. In this respect Rand was a merely half-great writer: her villains were real, but her heroes were fake. There is no Galt's Gulch. There is no secession from society. To believe yourself invested with divine self-sufficiency is not the mark of a strong individual, but of a person who has mistaken the crowd's worship - or jeering - for the truth. The single greatest danger for a founder is to become so certain of his own myth that he loses his mind. But an equally insidious danger for every business is to lose all sense of myth and mistake disenchantment for wisdom. — Anonymous

I am a sort of villain, and know other villains best. — Sarah Waters

Die Hard represents the class of modern action pictures and the standard by which they must be judged. Few films falling into the "mindless entertainment" genre have as much going for them as this movie. Not only is it a thrill-a-minute ride, but it has one of the best film villains in recent memory, a hero everyone can relate to, dialogue that crackles with wit, and a lot of very impressive pyrotechnics. — James Berardinelli

If life has taught me one thing, it's that there are no villains. Only people, doing their best. — Joe Abercrombie

Part of what I like about the best villains in TV and film is when you feel sorry for them, and that makes you feel even worse for feeling guilty about wanting them to succeed, in some way. — Colin O'Donoghue

Besides Spiderman and Batman, 'The Flash' has, hands down, the best villains. You could do a TV show about The Rogues, and there's enough depth and interest and oddly honor amongst those characters that I think people will watch that show. — Andrew Kreisberg

Proving that the best villains have the charisma of a hero, (Jason) Statham makes a strong impression, supplying the kind of menace that permeates the movie even when he's not on screen. His fight with (Dwayne) Johnson doesn't have the bang you'd expect from a The Transporter versus The Rock match-up, but the climactic Statham-(Vin)Diesel battle more than delivers. — Alonso Duralde

Nothing in this world was ever certain. Princes could become as frightening as ogres. Princesses could become villains. Best friends could become enemies. — Soman Chainani

It's true in the beginning I started playing villains, and I think that's pretty clear, because if you don't conventionally look a certain way and you've got a certain kind of presence when you're young, then what's available to you is character roles, and the best character roles when you're young tend to be villains. — Willem Dafoe

The DC Universe has the best villains in fiction, right? I don't think there's any group of villains collectively or anywhere else that come close to DC's. Joker, Cat Woman, Lex Luthor, are all staples. A lot of the comic book icons are fiction icons. — Geoff Johns

Let me put it this way: I definitely need to understand the villains I play. The best cause pain to anesthetize themselves against their own pain. — Ron Perlman

Most have been forgotten. Most deserve to be forgotten. The heroes will always be remembered. The best. The best and the worst. And a few who were a bit of both. — George R R Martin

Heroes ask questions and villains make arguments. QUESTIONS — Jeffrey Schechter

All the true heroes of history will be forgotten and all the villains will be remembered as heroes. — Leo Tolstoy

Contrary to popular belief, I don't just play dreadful old villains. — Tim Curry

There is always something about the villains that I'm able to play, quote unquote, that isn't villainous. — Ben Kingsley

I don't play just villains. I like to have parts that are not simply villains. — Tommy Lee Jones

I used to think that I needed to be part of a story, a big story, one with trials and villains and temptations and rewards. That's how I would conquer it, conquer death."
She sighed again, and nestled in closer to me. "All that matters, in the end, is the little things. The way Mim says my name to wake me up in the morning. The way Bee's hand feels in mine. The way the sun cast my shadow across the yard yesterday. The way your cheeks flush when we kiss. The smell of hay and the taste of strawberries and the feel of fresh black dirt between my toes. This is what matters, Midnight. — April Genevieve Tucholke

I'm starting to think that most villains aren't evil - they are just misundertood.
Or victims of that manipulative force: Love.
Love causes war and causes death, breaks souls and breaks lives. It runs people into the ground, makes them behave like moronic, immoral beasts, before it dances off, leaving only destruction in its wake - hearts blown wide open for the whole world to see.
Love puts the blame on the poor souls who succumb to it.
Love, that ultimate villainess. She makes examples of us all.
And yet we still come back for more.
We keep playing the role she gives us.
For one more chance to feel alive. — Karina Halle

What many people don't know about 'Peter Pan' is that it's a very violent book and Hook is one of the most finely observed villains ever. — Eoin Colfer

I love playing villains. — Alfred Molina

Villains are a lot of fun. My villains have a lot of tongue-in-cheek. They are sometimes conscious of and a little bit gleeful of their villainy. — John Rhys-Davies

It's supposed to feel good to throw a brick at the right people. There is a long tradition of naming and ridiculing and shaming and calling the villains what they are. Usually it was the artistocracy of the day and satire was the only way to speak truth to power. — John Cusack

I mean," he said, "that by your own showing, the greatest threat to heaven comes from within the ranks of the angels themselves. Before you can prove to me that heroes can defeat villains with nothing but the purest chivalric ideals, you must convince me that heroes do exist, and that villains are not a fanciful tale for children. You must tell me, sir, if you dare, that you are incorruptible, and that your colleagues and commanders are as pure as you. — Suzannah Rowntree

The world is not a Disney movie where villains are obvious and one-dimensional. — Maggie Young

Daisy Bowman, Lillian's young sister, had an out-sized personality that belied her small, slight frame. Idealistic and possessed of a decidedly whimsical bent, she devoured romantic novels populated with rogues and villains. However, Daisy's elfin facade concealed a shrewd intelligence that most people tended to overlook. She was fair-skinned and dark-haired, with eyes the color of spiced gingerbread... mischievous eyes with long, spiky lashes. — Lisa Kleypas

As I said, history is written by the victors. The truth is, the villains were less villainous, and the heroes less heroic, than you've been told. — Cinda Williams Chima

Calm, thinking villains, whom no faith could fix, Of crooked counsels and dark politics. — Alexander Pope

For mine, the villains of the piece were always important. In a traditional sense, that's always an important role. — Ben Mendelsohn

Joss Whedon said to me, 'If you think you are taking over the show, you have got another think coming.' He said, 'You are here only because I don't want to kill a villain off every week. I want my villains to be more interesting and multifaceted and then die.' — James Marsters

The aim of his narrative is to remind all not to judge people without knowing their story. Even the worst of villains has a story that perhaps explains their actions, without condoning them. — Devdutt Pattanaik

There are no heroes and there are no villains. There are just opposing points of view. That's all history is...the viciously long battle between world views. — Peter J. Tomasi

There's no point running anyway. In t-minus ten minutes, you will have no where to run to."

Quinn tensed at the triumphant look in his eyes. ". . .what have you done?"

"I have entered launch codes in the computer. In exactly ten minutes, Alpha Star 9 will be a black stain in the middle of Utah."

Quinn's lips part in shock.

"Yes," said. Dr. Zorgone in amusement. "Dramatic gasp! — Ash Gray

I have played 50 different kinds of fathers and villains. Only mediocre actors play the part the same way. — Anupam Kher

Villains fear me because I am unpredictable and broccoli. See what I mean? — Demetri Martin

It will not be possible for me to escape the past. But if I go back there, it will only be to find ways to make rich my present. To accept that there are no villains in my life, just broken people, trying to heal, stumbling in darkness and breaking each other...To stop living what has been, until now, this pale imitation of life. — Petina Gappah

Soap opera seems to be a dirty word, but actually they are the most popular shows we have. People want to know what happens next, people hate the villains and love the lovers. It's good, fun TV. But I wouldn't call 'Downton' a soap opera as such. — Dan Stevens

I am not dead" argued Edward. "There are nefarious villains who would have you believe I died. But any accounts of my demise have been grossly exaggerated, I assure you, for here I am, very much alive. — Cynthia Hand

Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary; otherwise, they wouldn't be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act. — Wayne Dyer

In a business that has exploited and ignored our people I have only found dead-ends. We need romantic comedies, gross-out and mockery comedies, horror and thrillers, teen movies and love-stories. All these and more will be a positive step towards the future of Native Americans in the world and film industry; an industry that that offers us not only the chance to play the parts of heroes, love interests and warriors, but also of villains, dorks and dangerous, brokenhearted products of circumstance. — Misty Upham

Like what? The things Literature was all about: love, sex, morality, friendship, happiness, suffering, betrayal, adultery, good and evil, heroes and villains, guilt and innocence, ambition, power, justice, revolution, war, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, the individual against society, success and failure, murder, suicide, death, God. And barn owls. — Julian Barnes

But I'm starting to think that most villains aren't evil - they are just misunderstood. Or victims of that most manipulative force: love. — Karina Halle