John Blake Quotes in The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

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.

John Blake: Bane? What do you know about him?

Selina Kyle: That you should be as afraid of him as I am.

John Blake: I just can't take it. I mean, nobody will ever know who it was who saved an entire city.

Jim Gordon: They know who it was; it was the Batman.

John Blake: You made some mistakes, Miss Kyle.

Selina Kyle: A girl's gotta eat.

John Blake: Well, you got quite an appetite.

John Blake: [to Bruce Wayne] I don't know why you took the fall for Dent's murder, but I'm still a believer in the Batman.

John Blake: When I spotted you, I was looking for a friend of mine, Bruce Wayne. Did they kill him?

Selina Kyle: I'm not sure.

[Blake captures Selina at the airport]

John Blake: I showed your picture to the Congressman. Guess what?

Selina Kyle: Don't tell me, still in love?

John Blake: Oh, head over heels. Pressing charges, though.

Jim Gordon: Can I change your mind about quitting the force?

John Blake: You were right, about the structures becoming shackles.

[Blake arrives at the Broucek Cement Company plant; as a worker leads him through the yard, Blake spots a worker that he immediately recognizes as the cement truck driver he spoke to during the Gotham Stock Exchange robbery]

John Blake: Hey! Hey!

[the driver turns]

John Blake: That was you in front of the Stock Exchange, wasn't it?

Cement Truck Driver: When?

John Blake: "When?" When half the city's cops were trying to pull onto Castle Street and your truck shut them out.

Cement Truck Driver: Oh yeah. You're that cop.

John Blake: Detective, now. And uh... as a detective, we're not allowed to believe in coincidences.

[the worker behind Blake promptly swings at him with a knife. Blake smashes his hand, pulls his sidearm out and shoots him. The driver then grabs Blake from behind. As Blake struggles with the driver, he aims his pistol, and fires into the cement mixer. The bullet ricochets and hits the the driver in the back]

John Blake: [furious] What are you doing here? What are you working on?

[the driver dies. Blake looks at his pistol, and tosses it away, disgusted. He calls Gordon on his cell phone]

John Blake: Commissioner, it's Blake. I got two dead witnesses and a lot of questions. Call me when...

[Blake freezes as he notices some barrels]

John Blake: Wait a minute. There are four barrels of Polyisobutylene. That looks like motor oil right next to it. Jesus! They're not making cement, they're making explosives!

[Blake finds Gordon on the police station roof next to the broken Bat-signal]

John Blake: Sir, Congressman Gilly's wife has been calling in. Apparently the Congressman never made it home after the Wayne Foundation event.

Jim Gordon: That's a job for the police.

John Blake: When you and Dent cleaned up the streets, you cleaned them good. Pretty soon we'll be chasing down uh... overdue library books. And yet, here you are, like we're still at war.

Jim Gordon: What's your name, son?

John Blake: Blake, sir.

Jim Gordon: You got something you wanna ask me, Officer Blake?

John Blake: It's about that night, this night, eight years ago. The night Dent died, the last confirmed sighting of the Batman. He murders those people, takes down two SWAT teams, breaks Dent's neck and then just... vanishes?

Jim Gordon: I'm not hearing a question, son.

John Blake: Don't you wanna know who he was?

[Gordon looks at the broken Bat -Signal for a moment]

Jim Gordon: I know exactly who he was. He was the Batman.

[starts walking]

Jim Gordon: Let's go see about the Congressman's wife.

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.