Grab your garlic, crucifixes, and wooden stakes, we're heading to Transylvania to rid the world of the devilish and vile Count Dracula! Bram Stoker's gothic horror classic comes alive again with LitJoy's special edition . Stoker's Dracula is the definitive origin of modern vampire art: alluring, enchanting, mesmerizing and predatorily evil! We've pulled 21 of our favorite quotes from Bram Stoker's Dracula to seduce your spooky senses.
Before we go deep into the dark woods, let's clarify one rather monstrous misquote—a line often attributed to our vampire friend. The gruesome declaration, "I vant to suck your blood" was never uttered by Bram Stoker's Dracula in text or in movies. Of course, he does want your blood, but this line is a parody of Bela Lugosi's Hungarian accent in his 1931 portrayal of Dracula. So now with that out of the way...
Quotes from Dracula himself
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“Enter freely and of your own free will!”~Count Dracula to Mr. Jonathan Harker, found in Harker's journal dated 5 May, Chapter 2. These are the first words spoken by Count Dracula in Bram Stoker's novel. Dracula's first words quoted come in the form of a letter to Mr. Harker in Chapter 1, but this welcome signifies the first meeting and emphasizes the "free will" by which Harker enters Dracula's home and by which Dracula is able to entrap his victims. |
"The blood is the life! The blood is the life!"
~Renfield, Dr. John Seward's patient, Seward's diary entry on 17 September, Chapter 11. Renfield mutters this over and over as he licks the blood pooling from Seward's wrist after attacking him with a knife. In Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film version, this maniacal utterance was turned into Vlad the Impaler's line—played by Gary Oldman—before becoming Dracula. Vlad returns home from war to find his wife has died by suicide. Vlad strikes the cross at the altar with his sword, blood begins to spill from it. He then grabs the chalice, fills it with the blood, and drinks it, declaring: "The blood is the life...and it shall be mine!" A fantastic scene and an incredible reworking of Bram Stoker's text. Dramatic much, Vlad?
“Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!”
~Count Dracula to Mr. Jonathan Harker found in Harker's journal dated 5 May, Chapter 2. Have you ever heard wolves howl? It is quite intoxicating.
"My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be mine—my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed."
~Dracula to Van Helsing’s group, Dr. Seward's diary dated 3 October, Chapter 23. Dracula declares his vengeful intention to continue to prey for centuries to come.
"I've crossed oceans of time to find you."
~Dracula portrayed by Gary Oldman to Mina Murray Harker (Winona Ryder) in Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Let's get this straight—this quote is NOT directly from Dracula by Bram Stoker, but it is seductively sweet.
Johnathan Harker Quotes
"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."~Mr. Jonathan Harker's journal entry dated 5 May, Chapter 2. Bram Stoker's Dracula is a spellbinding charmer and Mr. Harker has been trapped! As the readers, we discover more about Dracula during Mr. Harker's stay and shudder as the truth comes to the surface. |
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"Then as time went on, and I had got somewhat bolder, I asked him of some of the strange things of the preceding night, as, for instance, why the coachman went to the places where he had seen the blue flames. He then explained to me that it was commonly believed that on a certain night of the year—last night, in fact, when all evil spirits are supposed to have unchecked sway—a blue flame is seen over any place where treasure has been concealed."
~Mr. Jonathan Harker's journal 5 May, Chapter 2. May 4th—the eve of St. George—is said to be one of the most dangerous days of the year when evil spirits run free. If you happen to have watched the 1992 adaptation, this is Keanu Reeves' blue inferno.
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"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."~Mr. Jonathan Harker's journal, 29 June, Chapter 4. Mr. Harker now understands this business trip is much more than he bargained for and the Count is no ordinary man. |
Mina Murray Harker Quotes
"I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air."
~Miss Mina Murray to Lucy Westenra in a letter dated 6 May, Chapter 5. What beautiful imagery of the closest of friends who dream of galavanting together by the sea. Little do they know what Bram Stoker has in store for them soon.
“There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the lights of all lights.”
~Dr. John Seward to Mina Harker found in her journal entry dated 25 September, Chapter 14. In Stoker's Dracula, Mina is the ideal virtuous and wholesome Victorian woman.
"We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the mother-spirit is invoked."
~Mina Harker's journal dated 30 September, Chapter 17. Poor Arthur Holmwood, Lucy Westenra's fiancé, needs the comfort of a mother figure—Mina—after driving a stake through his undead lover's heart.
"I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there."
~Mina Harker's journal entry on 6 November, Chapter 27. Oh, Mina! Ever the ideal Madonna. Even though Dracula wreaks havoc for centuries, and kills her best friend and countless others, the undead Mina cannot bring herself to hate him and finds comfort in the peace on his face as he vanishes. But...is he really gone?
Lucy Westenra Quotes
"Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?"
~Lucy Westenra to Miss Mina Murray in a letter dated 24 May, Chapter 5. Oh, don't we all, Lucy? But what's more trouble: turning them down or living with them? Lucy Westenra is quite the model of purity in this moment, but this quote in Bram Stoker's Dracula book foreshadows the lustful and sexualized vampire she will become.
"Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness."
~Dr. John Seward's diary dated 26 September, Chapter 16. Here we are 21 chapters later and Lucy Westenra (now a vampire) who previously represented the ideal Victorian feminine—beautiful, delicate, pure, innocent...angelic—has unleashed her repressed sexuality and become the aggressor.
Life Lessons from Bram Stoker
“The world seems full of good men–even if there are monsters in it.”
~Mrs. Mina Harker's journal entry on 29 September, Chapter 17. In this infamous quote, Mina refers to Dr. Seward, but it is also a metaphor for the world at large and even today, right? Even though there are many evils in the world, many good people can still be found.
"I want you to believe...To believe in things you cannot."~Professor Abraham Van Helsing to Dr. John Seward found in Seward's diary dated 26 September, Chapter 14. Van Helsing knows the truth about Dracula, but as of yet, he is not believed. |
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"I want you to believe...To believe in things you cannot."
~Professor Abraham Van Helsing to Dr. John Seward found in Seward's diary dated 26 September, Chapter 14.
"We learn from failure, not from success!"
~Professor Abraham Van Helsing to Dr. John Seward as noted in Seward's diary dated 7 September, Chapter 10.
Bram Stoker Quotes about Death
"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."
~Mr. Swales to Mina (Murray) Harker as noted in her journal dated 6 August. Bram Stoker's quote here is poignant...and wrong if we're talking about vampires!
“Truly there is no such thing as finality.”
~Dr. John Seward's diary dated 26 September, Chapter 14. Professor Abraham Van Helsing informs Dr. Seward that Lucy Westenra has risen from her grave and is now a blood-sucking vampire. Even death isn't final, who knew?
“'Euthanasia' is an excellent and a comforting word! I am grateful to whoever invented it."
~Dr. John Seward's diary dated 25 October. Wow, Bram Stoker, let us readers know what you really think! Mrs. Mina Harker has been bitten by Dracula and fed his blood, destining her to become a vampire upon her death. But, Mina, our Victorian role model, has made the group promise to kill her if she ever fully changes.
"We ride to death of some one. God alone knows who, or where, or what, or when, or how it may be...."
~Dr. John Seward's diary, 5 November. Onward to Dracula's castle! Let's ride!
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