Aaron Sorkin is why people hate liberals. He's a smug, condescending know-it-all who isn't as smart as he thinks he is.
There's an element of ego to writing the Riddler. You research a lot of things that you end up jettisoning as a writer, and Riddler was a lot of fun to get to have that sort of annoying know-it-all personality lording over the city. He's a lot of fun to write about.
Pete: Well hell, it ain't square one! Ain't nobody gonna pick up three filthy, unshaved hitch-hikers, and one of them a know-it-all that can't keep his trap shut.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Pete, the personal rancor reflected in that remark I don't intend to dignify with comment. But I would like to address your general attitude of hopeless negativism.
Consider the lilies of the goddamn field or... hell! Take at look at Delmar here as your paradigm of hope.
Delmar O'Donnell: Yeah, look at me.
Reese Bobby: [walks into the classroom] Excuse me, darling. I'm Reese Bobby. I'm here for career day with my son, Ricky.
10-year-old Ricky: Dad!
Reese Bobby: Hey there, boy! Man, you got big. How long's it been? Three, four months?
10-year-old Ricky: Ten years.
Reese Bobby: Ten years?
Man, I gotta lay off the peyote.
[puts a cigarette in his mouth]
Schoolteacher: Mr. Bobby, there's no smoking in here.
Reese Bobby: Oh, it's all right, darling, I'm a volunteer fireman. Okay, I am a semi-professional racecar driver and an amateur tattoo artist.
Classmates: OOOOHHHH!
Reese Bobby: And the first
thing you gotta learn if you're gonna be a racecar driver, is that you don't listen to losers like your know-it-all teacher here.
Schoolteacher: Okay, I think that's enough.
Reese Bobby: Your teacher wants you to go slow, and she's wrong because it's the fastest who get paid and it's the fastest who get laid.
[classmates all cheer]
Erica Barry: [on her play] It's about a divorced woman, a writer. She's this high-strung, overamped, controlling, know-it-all neurotic.
[Everyone stares at her]
Erica Barry: ... who's incredibly *cute*, and lovable.