“Every single morning I wake with a bang,' he said. 'It's as though the fact that I am alive is injected into me; I am a character in a fairytale, bursting with life.”

“I don't belong anywhere. I am neither a heart, a diamond, a club, nor a spade. I am neither a King, a Jack, an Eight, nor an Ace. As I am here - I am merely the Joker, and who that is I have had to find out for myself.Every time I toss my head, the jingling bells remind me that I have no family. I have no number - and no trade either. I have gone around observing your activities from the outside.Because of this I have also been able to see things to which you have been blind.Every morning you have gone to work, but you have never been fully awake. It is different for the Joker, because he was put into this world with a flaw: he sees too deeply and too much.Truth is a lonely thing.”

“If just one of [those people] experiences life as a crazy adventure--and I mean that he, or she, experiences this every single day... Then he or she is a joker in a pack of cards.”

“Athens is like a sluggish horse, and I am the gadfly trying to sting it into life.”

“Imagine that one day you are out for a walk in the woods. Suddenly you see a small spaceship on the path in front of you. A tiny Martian climbs out the spaceship and stands on the ground looking up at you…What would you think? Never mind, it’s not important. But have you ever given any thought to the fact that you are a Martian yourself?It is obviously unlikely that you will ever stumble upon a creature from another planet. We do not even know that there is life on other planets. But you might stumble upon yourself one day. You might suddenly stop short and see yourself in a completely new light. On just such a walk in the woods. I am an extraordinary being, you think. I am a mysterious creature.You feel as if you are waking from an enchanted slumber. Who am I? you ask. You know that you are stumbling around on a planet in the universe. But what is the universe?If you discover yourself in this manner you will have discovered something as mysterious as the Martian we just mentioned. You will not only have seen a being from outer space. You will feel deep down that you are yourself an extraordinary being.”

“A Russian cosmonaut and a Russian brain surgeon were once discussing Christianity. The brain surgeon was a Christian, but the cosmonaut wasn’t. ‘I have been in outer space many times,’ bragged the cosmonaut, ‘but I have never seen any angels.’ The brain surgeon stared in amazement, but then he said, ‘And I have operated on many intelligent brains, but I have never seen a single thought.”

“But all fairytales have rules, and perhaps it’s their rules that actually distinguish one fairytale from the other. These rules never need to be understood. They only need to be followed. If not, what they promise won’t come true.”