"Like perfectly meshed gears, all my plans slip exactly into place!"
— Doctor Sun, Nova #23
Will Graham: I thought you might be curious to find out if you’re smarter than the person I’m looking for.
Hannibal: Then by implication, you think that you are smarter than me, since you caught me.
Graham: No. I know that I'm not smarter than you.
Hannibal: Then how did you catch me, Will?
Graham: You had disadvantages.
Hannibal: What disadvantages?
Graham: You're insane.
Hannibal: Then by implication, you think that you are smarter than me, since you caught me.
Graham: No. I know that I'm not smarter than you.
Hannibal: Then how did you catch me, Will?
Graham: You had disadvantages.
Hannibal: What disadvantages?
Graham: You're insane.
Somerset: This guy's methodical, exacting, and worst of all, patient.
Mills: He's a nutbag! Just because the fucker's got a library card doesn't make him Yoda!
Mills: He's a nutbag! Just because the fucker's got a library card doesn't make him Yoda!
— Se7en
"I'm a genius. No, several geniuses. A gaggle, a swarm, a flock of freakin' Freuds!"
— The Riddler, Batman Forever
"He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order."
— The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Final Problem
"Windom Earle's mind is like a diamond: it's cold, and hard, and brilliant."
— Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks ("Double Play")
"He absorbed all kinds of knowledge, as if he hungered for bombs. Most of the students at Indian Head flunk out of what is truly a hellish curriculum. Despite this environment, he achieved extraordinarily high marks that were without precedent... While being the most peculiar of my students, he was also the most talented. Be sure not to underestimate him. Are we clear?"
— Peter Stillman on Fatman, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
"...the Joker, to me, has always been crazy, but intelligently crazy. Maniacal, he's an anarchist, but he's able to rally people to his cause; he's able to outsmart Batman. He can't physically fight Batman, so he has to have that level of intelligence in order to outwit him."
— Mike on Joker (2019), Half in the Bag
"We introduced a new enemy that’s finally able to speak on the level of Picard. They’re not grunting, they’re not giggling, they’re not mutes or all-knowing entities. Here are the Cardassians who also graduated first in their class and they’re able to carry on highly intelligent conversations with Picard, but they’re sinister as hell."
— Chip Chalmers on directing Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Wounded"
Ignorance is bliss, they say, and according to one source, whoever increases knowledge also increases sorrow. Is that, perhaps, why Genius slashers are so angry, why they hate people with normal intellects so much? Do they feel a twisted sense of jealousy, wishing they could ignore what their minds tell them?
—Hunter: The Vigil: Slasher
