Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

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

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

"There, did you think to kill me? There's no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill. There's only an idea. Ideas are bulletproof. Farewell."

"Are you like, a crazy person?I’m quite sure they will say so."

"We are told to remember the idea and not the man. Because a man can fail. He can be caught, he can be killed and forgotten. But 400 years later, an idea can still change the world. I have witnessed firsthand the power of ideas. I've seen people kill in the name of them. But you cannot kiss an idea... cannot touch it or hold it. Ideas do not bleed. They do not feel pain. They do not love. And it is not an idea that I miss. It is a man. A man that made me remember the 5th of November. A man that I will never forget."

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

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

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

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

"It does not do to rely too much on silent majorities, Evey, for silence is a fragile thing, one loud noise, and its gone. But the people are so cowed and disorganised. A few might take the opportunity to protest, but it'll just be a voice crying in the wilderness. Noise is relative to the silence preceding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap. Our masters have not heard the people's voice for generations, Evey and it is much, much louder than they care to remember."

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

"Happiness is a prison, Evey. Happiness is the most insidious prison of all"

"Your pretty empire took so long to build, now, with a snap of history's fingers, down it goes."

"Our masters have not heard the people's voice for generations and it is much, much louder than they care to remember."

"Equality and freedom are not luxuries to lightly cast aside. Without them, order cannot long endure before approaching depths beyond imagining."

"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."

"My mother said I broke her heart...but it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us...but within that inch we are free."

"You were already in a prison. You've been in a prison all your life. Happiness is a prison, Evey. Happiness is the most insidious prison of all. Your lover lived in the penitentiary that we are all born into, and was forced to rake the dregs of that world for his living. He knew affection and tenderness but only briefly. Eventually, one of the other inmates stabbed him with a cutlass and he drowned upon his own blood. Is that it, Evey? Is that the happiness worth more than freedom? It's not an uncommon story, Evey. Many convicts meet with miserable ends. Your mother. Your father. Your lover. One by one, taken out behind the chemical sheds... and shot. All convicts, hunched and deformed by the smallness of their cells, the weight of their chains, the unfairness of their sentences. I didn't put you in a prison, Evey. I just showed you the bars.''You're wrong! It's just life, that's all! It's just how life is. It's what we've got to put up with. It's all we've got. What gives you the right to decide it's not good enough''You're in a prison, Evey. You were born in a prison. You've been in a prison so long, you no longer believe there's a world outside. That's because you're afraid, Evey. You're afraid because you can feel freedom closing in upon you. You're afraid because freedom is terrifying. Don't back away from it, Evey. Part of you understands the truth even as part pretends not to. You were in a cell, Evey. They offered you a choice between the death of your principles and the death of your body. You said you'd rather die. You faced the fear of your own death and you were calm and still. The door of the cage is open, Evey. All that you feel is the wind from outside."

"Evey Hammond: Who are you? V: Who? Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask. Evey Hammond: Well I can see that. V: Of course you can. I'm not questioning your powers of observation I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is"

"The past can't hurt you anymore. Not unless you let it. They made you into a victim, Evey. They made you into a statistic. But, that's not the real you. That's not who you are inside."