Alan Moore Quotes

No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise.

The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening - Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.

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.

My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky.

There's no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill. There's only an idea. Ideas are bulletproof.

Remember, remember the fifth of November of gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gun powder treason should ever be forgot.

It was Kovacs who said "Mother" then, muffled under latex. It was Kovacs who closed his eyes. It was Rorschach who opened them again.

I sat on the bed. I looked at the Rorschach blot. I tried to make it look like a spreading tree, shadows pooled beneath it, but it didn't. It looked more like a dead cat I once found, the fat, glistening grubs writhing blindly, squirming over each other, frantically tunneling away from the light. But even that isn't the real horror. The horror is this: in the end, it is simply a picture of empty meaningless blackness.

Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof.

Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says, "But doctor...I am Pagliacci.

Because our entire universe is made up of consciousness, we never really experience the universe directly we just experience our consciousness of the universe, our perception of it, so right, our only universe is perception.

It is not the job of artists to give the audience what the audience want. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artist. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need

Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words or images to achieve changes in consciousness

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

You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.

People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.

If you're functional, it doesn't matter if you're mad.

A world grows up around me. Am I shaping it, or do its predetermined contours guide my hand?

As people get more desperate, history suggests that they're not going to rise in a mighty proletarian tidal wave and wash away their oppressors. They're gonna turn on each other.

It's pretty much a fact that our entire universe is a mental construct. We don't actually deal with reality directly. We simply compose a picture of reality from what's going on in our retinas, in the timpani of our ears, and in our nerve endings.

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.

Ideas are bulletproof.

If light is outlawed, then only outlaws will be able to see where they're going.

The one thing with writing stories about the rise of fascism is that if you wait long enough, you'll almost certainly be proved right. Fascism is like a hydra - you can cut off its head in the Germany of the '30s and '40s, but it'll still turn up on your back doorstep in a slightly altered guise.

The past can't hurt you anymore, not unless you let it.

I think that in an increasingly virtual world, lovingly produced artefacts are at a premium.

In order to be able to make it, you have to put aside the fear of failing and the desire of succeeding. You have to do these things completely and purely without fear, without desire. Because things that we do without lust of result are the purest actions we shall ever take.

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

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.

Roses are red Violets are blue Everything's possible Nothing is true.

Authority, when first detecting chaos at its heels, will entertain the vilest schemes to save its orderly facade.

Nothing is insoluble. Nothing is hopeless. Not while there's life.

The multiplying villainies of nature do swarm upon him... [from Macbeth]

To some degree Satanism is purely a kind of disease of Christianity. You've got to really be Christian to believe in Satan.

Love your rage, not your cage.

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.

Look at him now, poor fellow. That's what a dose of reality does for you...Never touch the stuff myself, you understand. Find it gets in the way of the hallucinations.

Authority allows two roles: the torturer and the tortured. Twists people into joyless mannequins that fear and hate, while culture plunges into the abyss.

Art makes us feel less alone. It makes us think: somebody else has thought this, somebody else has had these feelings.

Happiness is the most insidious prison of all.

For me, there is very little difference between magic and art. To me, the ultimate act of magic is to create something from nothing: It's like when the stage magician pulls the rabbit from the hat.

I think that storytelling and creation are very close to what the center of what magic is about. I think not just for me, but for most of the cultures that have had a concept of magic, then the manipulation of language, and words, and thus of stories and fictions, has been very close to the center of it all.

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

As far as I can see, it's not important that we have free will, just as long as we have the illusion of free will to stop us going mad.

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.

Everybody is special. Everybody. Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain. Everybody. Everybody has their story to tell.

There's no such thing as quitting. Just sometimes there's a longer pause between relapses.

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

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

Everybody has their story to tell.