The Dark Knight Rises Quotes

Jim Gordon: I never cared who you were...
Batman: And you were right.
Jim Gordon: ...but shouldn't the people know the hero whot saved them?
Batman: A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boy's shoulders to let him know that the world hadn't

ended.
[takes off in the Bat]
Jim Gordon: Bruce Wayne?

Blind Prisoner: You do not fear death. You think this makes you strong. It makes you weak.
Bruce Wayne: Why?
Blind Prisoner: How can you move faster than possible, fight longer than possible without the most powerful impulse of the spirit: the fear of death.
Bruce Wayne: I do fear death. I fear dying in here,

while my city burns, and there's no one there to save it.
Blind Prisoner: Then make the climb.
Bruce Wayne: How?
Blind Prisoner: As the child did. Without the rope. Then fear will find you again.

Bruce Wayne: Why didn't you just... kill me?
Bane: You don't fear death... You welcome it. Your punishment must be more severe.
Bruce Wayne: Torture?
Bane: Yes. But not of your body... Of your soul.
Bruce Wayne: Where am I?
Bane: Home, where I learned the truth

about despair, as will you. There's a reason why this prison is the worst hell on earth... Hope. Every man who has ventured here over the centuries has looked up to the light and imagined climbing to freedom. So easy... So simple... And like shipwrecked men turning to sea water from uncontrollable thirst, many have died trying. I learned here that there can be no true despair without hope. So, as

I terrorize Gotham, I will feed its people hope to poison their souls. I will let them believe they can survive so that you can watch them clamoring over each other to "stay in the sun." You can watch me torture an entire city and when you have truly understood the depth of your failure, we will fulfill Ra's al Ghul's destiny... We will destroy Gotham and then, when it is done and Gotham is ashes,

then you have my permission to die

Bane: Theatricality and deception are powerful agents to the uninitiated... but we are initiated, aren't we Bruce? Members of the League of Shadows!
[Lifts Batman by the neck]
Bane: And you betrayed us!
Batman: You were excommunicated... by a gang of psychopaths!
[Bane viciously beats Batman and throws him to the

ground]
Bane: I AM the League of Shadows, and I'm here to fulfill Ra's al Ghul's destiny!
Bane: You fight like a younger man, with nothing held back. Admirable but mistaken.
[Batman uses an EMP device to cut the lights]
Bane: Oh, you think darkness is your ally. But you merely adopted the dark; I was born in it, moulded

by it. I didn't see the light until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but BLINDING!
[grabs Batman from the shadows and continues to beat him]
Bane: The shadows betray you, because they belong to me!
[repeatedly punches Batman in the face, breaking his cowl]
Bane: I will show you where I have made my home while preparing

to bring justice. Then I will break you.
[hits detonator, blowing a hole into the bottom of Wayne Enterprise]
Bane: Your precious armory, gratefully accepted! We will need it.
[Batman desperately stands and swings at Bane]
Bane: Ah, yes... I was wondering what would break first...
[lifts Batman high]
Bane:

Your spirit, or your body?
[slams him on his knee]

Jim Gordon: [reading from the book "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens] I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do,

than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.

CIA Agent: [to three prisoners] The flight plan I just filed with the agency lists me, my men, Dr. Pavel here but only one of you! First one to talk gets to stay on my aircraft!
[grabs a hood]
CIA Agent: Who paid you to grab Dr. Pavel?
[No answer, the agent fires his gun away from the prisoner's head]
CIA Agent: He

didn't fly so good!
[pulls the hood back into the plane]
CIA Agent: Who wants to try next?
[grabs another prisoner]
CIA Agent: Tell me about Bane! Why does he wear the mask? A lot of loyalty, for a hired gun!
Bane: Or perhaps he's wondering why someone would shoot a man, before throwing him out of a plane?

CIA Agent: At least you can talk. Who are you?
Bane: It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
[the Agent removes the hood]
Bane: No one cared who I was until I put on the mask.
CIA Agent: If I pull that off, would you die?
Bane: It would be extremely painful.

CIA Agent: You're a big guy!
Bane: For you.
CIA Agent: Was getting caught part of your plan?
Bane: Of course... Dr. Pavel refused our offer in favor of yours, we had to find out what he told you.
Dr. Pavel: Nothing! I said nothing!
CIA Agent: Well,

congratulations! You got yourself caught! Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Bane: Crashing this plane... with no survivors!

Alfred: I'll get this to Mr. Fox, but no more. I've sewn you up, I've set your bones, but I won't bury you. I've buried enough members of the Wayne family.
Bruce Wayne: You'll leave me?
Alfred: You see only one end to your journey. Leaving is all I have to make you understand, you're not Batman anymore. You have to find another way.

You used to talk about finishing a life beyond that awful cape.
Bruce Wayne: Rachel died believing that we would be together; that was my life beyond the cape. I can't just move on. She didn't, she couldn't.
Alfred: What if she had? What if, before she died, she wrote a letter saying she chose Harvey Dent over you? And what if, to spare your pain, I

burnt that letter?
Bruce Wayne: How dare you use Rachel to try to stop me?
Alfred: I am using the truth, Master Wayne. Maybe it's time we all stop trying to outsmart the truth and let it have its day. I'm sorry.
Bruce Wayne: You're sorry? You expect to destroy my world and then think we're going to shake hands?

Alfred: No... no, I know what this means.
Bruce Wayne: What does it mean?
Alfred: It means your hatred... and it also means losing someone that I have cared for since I first heard his cries echo through this house. But it might also mean saving your life. And that is more important.
Bruce Wayne: Goodbye,

Alfred.

Alfred: [to Bruce] Remember when you left Gotham? Before all this, before Batman? You were gone seven years. Seven years I waited, hoping that you wouldn't come back. Every year, I took a holiday. I went to Florence, there's this cafe, on the banks of the Arno. Every fine evening, I'd sit there and order a Fernet Branca. I had this fantasy, that I would look across the tables and

I'd see you there, with a wife and maybe a couple of kids. You wouldn't say anything to me, nor me to you. But we'd both know that you'd made it, that you were happy. I never wanted you to come back to Gotham. I always knew there was nothing here for you, except pain and tragedy. And I wanted something more for you than that. I still do.

Bane: [addressing media reporters outside the prison] Behind you is a symbol of oppression. Blackgate Prison, where a thousand men have languished under the name of this man,
[holds up a picture of Harvey Dent]
Bane: Harvey Dent, who has been held up to you as the shining example of justice!
John Blake: [to Gordon, at Blake's

apartment] Commissioner, we need to keep you moving until we can get you in front of a camera.
Bane: You have been supplied with a false idol to stop you from tearing down this CORRUPT CITY! Let me tell you the truth about Harvey Dent from the words of Gotham's police commissioner, James Gordon.
[holds up Gordon's speech papers and begins to read]

Bane: "The Batman didn't murder Harvey Dent, he saved my boy then took the blame for Harvey's appalling crimes so that I could, to my shame, build a lie around this fallen idol. I praised the mad man who tried to murder my own child but I can no longer live with my lie. It is time to trust the people of Gotham with the truth and it is time for me to resign."
[calls to

prisoners]
Bane: And do you accept this man's resignation? Do you accept the resignation of all these liars? Of all the CORRUPT?
[prisoners roar with approval]
John Blake: Those men locked up for eight years in Blackgate, and denied parole under the Dent Act, based on a lie?
Jim Gordon: Gotham needed a hero...

John Blake: It needs it now more than ever. You betrayed everything you stood for.
Jim Gordon: There's a point, far out there when the structures fail you, and the rules aren't weapons anymore, they're... shackles letting the bad guy get ahead. One day... you may face such a moment of crisis. And in that moment, I hope you have a friend like I did, to

plunge their hands into the filth so that you can keep yours clean!
John Blake: [disgusted] Your hands look plenty filthy to me, Commissioner.

Bane: We take Gotham from the corrupt! The rich! The oppressors of generations who have kept you down with myths of opportunity, and we give it back to you... the people. Gotham is yours. None shall interfere. Do as you please. Start by storming Blackgate, and freeing the oppressed! Step forward those who would serve. For and army will be raised. The powerful will be ripped from

their decadent nests, and cast out into the cold world that we know and endure. Courts will be convened. Spoils will be enjoyed. Blood will be shed. The police will survive, as they learn to serve true justice. This great city... it will endure. Gotham will survive!

John Daggett: What. The hell. Is going on?
Bane: Our plan is proceeding as expected.
John Daggett: Oh really? Do *I* look like I'm running Wayne Enterprises right now? Your hit, on the stock exchange, it didn't work, my friend! And now you have my construction crews going around the city at 24 hours a day! How exactly is that

supposed to help my company absorb Wayne's?
Bane: [to Stryver] Leave us!
John Daggett: No! You stay here, I'm in charge!
Bane: [puts his hand on Daggett's shoulder] Do you *feel* in charge?
[Stryver leaves]
John Daggett: I paid you a small fortune.
Bane: And this gives you

*power* over me?
John Daggett: What is this?
Bane: Your money and infrastructure have been important... 'til now!
John Daggett: What are you?
Bane: I'm Gotham's reckoning. Here to end the borrowed time you've all been living on!
John Daggett: You're pure evil!

Bane: I'm *necessary* evil!
[breaks Daggett's neck; Stryver flinches]

John Blake: Not a lot of people know what it feels like to be angry, in your bones. I mean, they understand, foster parents, everybody understands, for awhile. Then they want the angry little kid to do something he knows he can't do, move on. So after awhile they stop understanding. They send the angry kid to a boys home. I figured it out too late. You gotta learn to hide the

anger, practice smiling in the mirror. It's like putting on a mask.