“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."
The Joker”

— Alan Moore, book Batman: The Killing Joke

Source: Batman: The Killing Joke

Last update April 8, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Madness is the emergency exit. You can just step outside, and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened…" by Alan Moore?

Alan Moore274

English writer primarily known for his work in comic books 1953

Related quotes

“So when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit.”

Alan Moore book Batman: The Killing Joke

Batman : The Killing Joke (1988)
Source: Batman: The Killing Joke
Context: When you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit. You can just step outside, and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened.
Forever.

“Attendants, will you please close and lock the doors?”

George Antheil (1900–1959) American avant-garde composer, pianist, author and inventor

“They say that if you can stay away from bullfighting for a year you can stay away from it forever. That is not true but it has some truth in it and, except for fights in Mexico, I had been away for fourteen years. A lot of that time though was like being in jail except that I was locked out; not locked in.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Source: The Dangerous Summer (1985), Ch. 1

“No one can really help you. No one can open your doors. You locked them up, and only you can open them. When you open any door, beyond it you find others standing there who had passed you long ago, but now, unable to proceed, they are there waiting; others are there waiting for you. Then you come, and, opening a door, those waiting disciples perhaps may pass on; thus on and on. What a privilege this, to reflect that we may perhaps be able to help those who seemed greater than ourselves!”

William Quan Judge (1851–1896) American occult writer

Vol. I, Letter 1
Letters That Have Helped Me (1891)

“Enough madness? Enough? And how do you measure madness? - The Joker”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

Source: Batman: Arkham Asylum

“Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Variant: Open your eyes, the Frenchman on the radio used to say, and see what you can with them before they close forever.
Source: All the Light We Cannot See