Joe Morton Quotes

With any villain, you have to see things from their point of view and understand that they think what they're doing will make the world a better place.

Keep in mind, Eragon, that no one thinks himself a villain, and few make decisions they think are wrong. A person may dislike his choice, but he will stand by it because, even in the worst circumstances, he believes that it was the best option available to him at the time.

White shall not neutralize the black, nor good compensate bad in man, absolve him so: life's business being just the terrible choice.

I always tried to play the bad guys as guys who didn't know they were bad guys. There are villains we run into all the time, but they don't think they are doing anything wrong. If they do, they think they are cunning and smart. When people break laws and ethical rules, they justify it in their own terms.

There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.

In all good westerns, the good guy is always a little bit questionable because he kind-of has to make moral judgments.

I feel like life is much greater than a hero or a villain: there's good people that sometimes make mistakes.

I don't think most people are all heroic or all villainous, so I find ambiguity of motivations to be a natural human condition.

Well, you know, in any novel you would hope that the hero has someone to push back against, and villains - I find the most interesting villains those who do the right things for the wrong reasons, or the wrong things for the right reasons. Either one is interesting. I love the gray area between right and wrong.

I was fascinated that everybody in the story thinks that they're in the right.

The greatest bad guys, you understand where they're coming from. They believe they're doing the right thing. Sometimes it's for greed, sometimes it's for other reasons, but they are what they call the center of good. They always believe they're doing the right thing.

I always felt that heroes were essentially dull. Villains were more exotic and could do more interesting things.

We can only write well about our sins because it is too difficult to recall a virtuous act or even whether it was the result of good or evil motives.

I don't believe that there's a good guy and a bad guy. Unless it's like Superman or Batman, there is no good guy and bad guy.

The most unrealistic thing I've ever read in comics is when some group of characters calls themselves the Brotherhood of Evil or the Masters of Evil. I don't believe any character believes their goals to be truly evil.

My general philosophy of playing bad guys, which I've sort of done, you know, half the time is, you know, very few people who we view as bad guys get out of bed and think, 'What evil, terrible thing am I going to do today?' Most people see their motivations as justified - as, you know, justifying whatever they do.

I don't think any evil character thinks that they are evil - they think they have insight that people don't.

Every villain has their belief system that makes perfect sense to them.

If you can't play the good guy, sometimes you've got to play the villain.

I think there is something about a good person doing bad things for what they consider to be a good reason. Then the battle is on to almost prove to the audience that it's justified. How far can you go with that? How far can that character go before people won't accept it? Trying to walk to edge of that line is a challenge.

Every villain is a hero in his own mind.

All wrong doing is done in the sincere belief that it is the best thing to do.

I don't know if I've ever met anyone that's purely good or purely evil myself. I think most of us live with some varying degrees between the two.

In a gray area, you don't have to provide an answer. And I don't want to. I don't want to make a comedy that's like, well, here's the answer. I don't want to make a comedy that's like, this is how to be a Muslim.

You know how great villains just believe in what they're doing? In their minds they're not villains, they're not doing anything wrong; they're just self-righteous in their dedication to their cause.