Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals.

For some folks death is release, and for others death is an abomination, a terrible thing. But in the end, I'm there for all of them.

Loyalty was a great thing, but no lieutenants should be forced to choose between their leader and a circus with elephants.

I didn't like people rewriting my dialogue. I didn't like the fact that we'd start a comic with the Joker, and by the time we inked it, he would have turned into the Scarecrow.

I always figure there are novels and short stories, and in those, I'm God. No one tells me what to do. I don't have to lose a page, or cut anything, it's just mine. Then there are other things where you're up against realities.

I liked myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children stories. They were better than that. They just were. Adult stories never made sense, and they were slow to start. They made me feel like there were secrets, Masonic, mythic secrets, to adulthood. Why didn't adults want to read about Narnia, about secret islands and smugglers and dangerous fairies?

To be Despair. It is a portrait. Only close your eyes and feel.