Bram Stoker Quotes

“Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are; that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplate by men´s eyes, because they know -or think they know- some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain.”

“We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the mother-spirit is invoked.”

“For life be, after all, only a waitin’ for somethin’ else than what we’re doin’; and death be all that we can rightly depend on.”

“Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer--both in waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams.”

“No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be.”

“I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him.”

“There is a reason why all things are as they are.”

“Though sympathy can’t alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable.”

“The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me, with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of.”

“It is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles. And yet when King Laugh come, he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall, all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come, and like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again, and we bear to go on with our labor, what it may be.”

“No man knows till he experiences it, what it is like to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the woman he loves.”

“Oh, the terrible struggle that I have had against sleep so often of late; the pain of the sleeplessness, or the pain of the fear of sleep, and with such unknown horror as it has for me! How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.”

“No one but a woman can help a man when he is in trouble of the heart.”

“Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!”

“I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air.”

“Loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings.”

“I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.”

“I want you to believe...to believe in things that you cannot.”

“We learn from failure, not from success!”

“Remember my friend, that knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should not trust the weaker.”

“Despair has its own calms.”

“She has man’s brain--a brain that a man should have were he much gifted--and woman’s heart. The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me when He made that so good combination.”

“How good and thoughtful he is; the world seems full of good men--even if there are monsters in it.”

“The blood is the life!”

“I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity in strait-waistcoats.”

“That is why, I suppose, you wished him to go on to Bukovina. You cannot deceive me, my friend; I know too much, and my horses are swift.”

“It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that to-night, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?”

“I felt a little strangely, and not a little frightened. I think had there been any alternative I should have taken it, instead of prosecuting that unknown night journey.”

“By-and-by, however, as I was curious to know how time was passing, I struck a match, and by its flame looked at my watch; it was within a few minutes of midnight. This gave me a sort of shock, for I suppose the general superstition about midnight was increased by my recent experiences.”

“Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!”

“Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely; and leave something of the happiness you bring!”

“I am Dracula; and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house. Come in; the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and rest.”

“I pray you, be seated and sup how you please. You will, I trust, excuse me that I do not join you; but I have dined already, and I do not sup.”

“Listen to them—the children of the night. What music they make!

These companions”—and he laid his hand on some of the books—“have been good friends to me, and for some years past, ever since I had the idea of going to London, have given me many, many hours of pleasure.

Through them I have come to know your great England; and to know her is to love her.

I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is.

“But alas! as yet I only know your tongue through books. To you, my friend, I look that I know it to speak.”

“Well, I know that, did I move and speak in your London, none there are who would not know me for a stranger. That is not enough for me.

“Here I am noble; I am boyar; the common people know me, and I am master. But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one; men know him not—and to know not is to care not for.”

I am content if I am like the rest, so that no man stops if he see me, or pause in his speaking if he hear my words, ‘Ha, ha! a stranger!’

I have been so long master that I would be master still—or at least that none other should be master of me.

“You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors are locked, where of course you will not wish to go. There is reason that all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes and know with my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand.”

“We are in Transylvania; and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things. Nay, from what you have told me of your experiences already, you know something of what strange things there may be.”

We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may lie amongst the common dead.

A house cannot be made habitable in a day; and, after all, how few days go to make up a century.

“I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which please the young and gay. I am no longer young; and my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth.”

“Ah, coming on the top of so many strange things, was beginning to increase that vague feeling of uneasiness which I always have when the Count is near; but at the instant I saw that the cut had bled a little, and the blood was trickling over my chin. I laid down the razor, turning as I did so half round to look for some sticking plaster. When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat.”

Where ends the war without a brain and heart to conduct it?

and besides, while Count Dracula was speaking, there was that in his eyes and in his bearing which made me remember that I was a prisoner, and that if I wished it I could have no choice.”

“The Count saw his victory in my bow, and his mastery in the trouble of my face...”

Let me advise you, my dear young friend—nay, let me warn you with all seriousness, that should you leave these rooms you will not by any chance go to sleep in any other part of the castle. It is old, and has many memories, and there are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely.”

God knows that there is ground for my terrible fear in this accursed place!

The Count’s mysterious warning frightened me at the time; it frightens me more now when I think of it, for in future he has a fearful hold upon me. I shall fear to doubt what he may say!

“Despair has its own calms.”

I knew then that to struggle at the moment against the Count was useless. With such allies as these at his command, I could do nothing.

But oh, Mina, I love him; I love him; I love him!

Mina, pray for my happiness.”

“My dear, it never rains but it pours. How true the old proverbs are. Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never had a proposal till to-day, not a real proposal, and to-day I have had three.”

You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and are going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can despise vanity.

Men like women, certainly their wives, to be quite as fair as they are; and women, I am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they should be.

“And then, Mina, I felt a sort of duty to tell him that there was some one. I only told him that much, and then he stood up, and he looked very strong and very grave as he took both my hands in his and said he hoped I would be happy, and that if I ever wanted a friend I must count him one of my best.”

I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him.

″‘Lucy, you are an honest-hearted girl, I know. I should not be here speaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean grit, right through to the very depths of your soul. Tell me, like one good fellow to another, is there any one else that you care for? And if there is I’ll never trouble you a hair’s breadth again, but will be, if you will let me, a very faithful friend.‘”

Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?

“That’s my brave girl. It’s better worth being late for a chance of winning you than being in time for any other girl in the world.

Little girl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and that’s rarer than a lover; it’s more unselfish anyhow.

“My dear, I’m going to have a pretty lonely walk between this and Kingdom Come. Won’t you give me one kiss? It’ll be something to keep off the darkness now and then.”

I am very, very happy, and I don’t know what I have done to deserve it.

I must only try in the future to show that I am not ungrateful to God for all His goodness to me in sending to me such a lover, such a husband, and such a friend.

We promise you a hearty welcome, and a loving greeting, and a health as true as your own right hand. We shall both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep to a certain pair of eyes. Come!”

“It was very good and very wholesome; that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him.”

For life be, after all, only a waitin’ for somethin’ else than what we’re doin’; and death be all that we can rightly depend on. But I’m content, for it’s comin’ to me, my deary, and comin’ quick.

“There’s something in that wind and in the hoast beyont that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death. It’s in the air; I feel it comin’. Lord, make me answer cheerful when my call comes!”

I believe we forgot everything except, of course, personal fear, and it seemed to wipe the slate clean and give us a fresh start.

“Then I had a vague memory of something long and dark with red eyes, just as we saw in the sunset, and something very sweet and very bitter all around me at once; and then I seemed sinking into deep green water, and there was a singing in my ears, as I have heard there is to drowning men; and then everything seemed passing away from me; my soul seemed to go out from my body and float about the air.”

“I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave, and You will reward me, for I shall be faithful. I have worshipped You long and afar off. Now that You are near, I await Your commands, and You will not pass me by, will You, dear Master, in Your distribution of good things?”

“He is only a wreck of himself, and he does not remember anything that has happened to him for a long time past.”

‘Are you willing, Wilhelmina, to share my ignorance? Here is the book. Take it and keep it, read it if you will, but never let me know; unless, indeed, some solemn duty should come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, sane or mad, recorded here.’

“He answered his ‘I will’ firmly and strongly. I could hardly speak; my heart was so full that even those words seemed to choke me. The dear sisters were so kind. Please God, I shall never, never forget them, nor the grave and sweet responsibilities I have taken upon me.”

“Well, my dear, what could I say? I could only tell him that I was the happiest woman in all the wide world, and that I had nothing to give him except myself, my life, and my trust, and that with these went my love and duty for all the days of my life.”

“My dear, please Almighty God, your life may be all it promises: a long day of sunshine, with no harsh wind, no forgetting duty, no distrust. I must not wish you no pain, for that can never be; but I do hope you will be always as happy as I am now.”

“Come, we must see and act. Devils or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not; we fight him all the same.”

“If that were all, I would stop here where we are now, and let her fade away into peace, for I see no light in life over her horizon.”

“The first gain is ours! Check to the King!”

“A brave man’s blood is the best thing on this earth when a woman is in trouble.

Well, the devil may work against us for all he’s worth, but God sends us men when we want them.”

“Good, oh my friend John! Well thought of! Truly Miss Lucy, if she be sad in the foes that beset her, is at least happy in the friends that love her. One, two, three, all open their veins for her, besides one old man. Ah yes, I know, friend John; I am not blind! I love you all the more for it! Now go.”

“I am too miserable, too low-spirited, too sick of the world and all in it, including life itself, that I would not care if I heard this moment the flapping of the wings of the angel of death.”

“You must not be alone; for to be alone is to be full of fears and alarms.”

“She is dying. It will not be long now. It will be much difference, mark me, whether she dies conscious or in her sleep. Wake that poor boy, and let him come and see the last; he trusts us, and we have promised him.”

″‘My true friend,’ she said, in a faint voice, but with untellable pathos, ‘My true friend, and his! Oh, guard him, and give me peace!‘”

“But why do it at all? The girl is dead. Why mutilate her poor body without need? And if there is no necessity for a post-mortem and nothing to gain by it—no good to her, to us, to science, to human knowledge—why do it? Without such it is monstrous.”

“Friend John, I pity your poor bleeding heart; and I love you the more because it does so bleed.

But there are things that you know not, but that you shall know, and bless me for knowing, though they are not pleasant things.

“John, my child, you have been my friend now many years, and yet did you ever know me to do any without good cause? I may err—I am but man; but I believe in all I do.”

“You loved her too, old fellow; she told me all about it, and there was no friend had a closer place in her heart than you. I don’t know how to thank you for all you have done for her. I can’t think yet....”

“Oh, Jack! Jack! What shall I do! The whole of life seems gone from me all at once, and there is nothing in the wide world for me to live for.”

“I hope I may always have the title of a friend.”

“I know it was hard for you to quite trust me then, for to trust such violence needs to understand; and I take it that you do not—that you cannot—trust me now, for you do not yet understand. And there may be more times when I shall want you to trust when you cannot—and may not—and must not yet understand. But the time will come when your trust shall be whole and complete in me, and when you shall understand as though the sunlight himself shone through. Then you shall bless me from first to last for your own sake, and for the sake of others and for her dear sake to whom I swore to protect.”

“And you are right. There will be pain for us all; but it will not be all pain, nor will this pain be the last. We and you too—you most of all, my dear boy—will have to pass through the bitter water before we reach the sweet. But we must be brave of heart and unselfish, and do our duty, and all will be well!”

Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall—all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him.

Then tears come; and, like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break.

I suppose a cry does us all good at times—clears the air as other rain does.

“I am daze, I am dazzle, with so much light, and yet clouds roll in behind the light every time.”

“There are darknesses in life, and there are lights; you are one of the lights. You will have happy life and good life, and your husband will be blessed in you.”

“My life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work that I have not had much time for friendships; but since I have been summoned to here by my friend John Seward I have known so many good people and seen such nobility that I feel more than ever—and it has grown with my advancing years— the loneliness of my life.

I have learned not to think little of any one’s belief, no matter how strange it be.

I have tried to keep an open mind; and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane.”

Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain.

“I heard once of an American who so defined faith: ‘that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue.’ For one, I follow that man. He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of a big truth...”

“Then you want me not to let some previous conviction injure the receptivity of my mind with regard to some strange matter. Do I read your lesson aright?”

It is so hard to accept at once any abstract truth, that we may doubt such to be possible when we have always believed the ‘no’ of it;

“Here, there is one thing which is different from all recorded; here is some dual life that is not as the common. She was bitten by the vampire when she was in a trance, sleep-walking—oh, you start; you do not know that, friend John, but you shall know it all later—and in trance could he best come to take more blood. In trance she died, and in trance she is Un-Dead, too.

“I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall drive a stake through her body.”

“Is it possible that love is all subjective, or all objective?”

“But this night our feet must tread in thorny paths; or later, and for ever, the feet you love must walk in paths of flame!”

“My Lord Godalming, I, too, have a duty to do, a duty to others, a duty to you, a duty to the dead; and, by God, I shall do it! All I ask you now is that you come with me, that you look and listen; and if when later I make the same request you do not be more eager for its fulfilment even than I am, then—then I shall do my duty, whatever it may seem to me. And then, to follow of your Lordship’s wishes I shall hold myself at your disposal to render an account to you, when and where you will.”

For her—I am ashamed to say so much, but I say it in kindness—I gave what you gave; the blood of my veins; I gave it, I, who was not, like you, her lover, but only her physician and her friend.

If ever a face meant death—if looks could kill—we saw it at that moment.

“Do as you will, friend; do as you will. There can be no horror like this ever any more;”

“My friend Arthur, you have had a sore trial; but after, when you look back, you will see how it was necessary. You are now in the bitter waters, my child. By this time tomorrow you will, please God, have passed them, and have drunk of the sweet waters; so do not mourn overmuch. Till then I shall not ask you to forgive me.”

“They cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world; for all that die from the preying of the Un-Dead becomes themselves Un-Dead, and prey on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone thrown in the water.”

But of the most blessed of all, when this now Un-Dead be made to rest as true dead, then the soul of the poor lady whom we love shall again be free.

Only think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray for you all the time.”

He was never so resolute, never so strong, never so full of volcanic energy, as at present.

We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the mother-spirit is invoked; I felt this big sorrowing man’s head resting on me, as though it were that of the baby that some day may lie on my bosom, and I stroked his hair as though he were my own child.

“If a man’s esteem and gratitude are ever worth the winning, you have won mine to-day.”

“I wish I could comfort all who suffer from the heart. Will you let me be your friend, and will you come to me for comfort if you need it?”″

“I positively opened my eyes at this new development. Here was my own pet lunatic—the most pronounced of his type that I had ever met with—talking elemental philosophy, and with the manner of a polished gentleman.

“Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has man’s brain—a brain that a man should have were he much gifted—and a woman’s heart.

The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good combination.

However, ‘the milk that is spilt cries not out afterwards,’ as you say.

That mighty brain and that iron resolution went with him to his grave, and are even now arrayed against us.