Bram Stoker

“3 May. Bistritz. —Left Munich at 8:35 P. M, on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible.”

“Souls and memories can do strange things during trance.”

“All men are mad in some way or another, and inasmuch as you deal discreetly with your madmen, so deal with God's madmen too, the rest of the world.”

“Trumpai tariant, tai vyras, kurio stiprybė ir drąsa puikiai tinka bet kokiam sumanymui įgyvendinti. Jis išdrįsta ir išdrįstų padaryti bet ką pasaulyje arba už jo ribų, žemėje ar po žeme, jūroje ar ore, nebijodamas nieko materialaus ar neregėto: nei žmogaus ar vaiduoklio, nei Dievo, nei Velnio.”

“It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine.”

“You are clever man, friend John; you reason well, and your wit is bold; but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. 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. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new; and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young – like the fine ladies at the opera.”

“I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe.”

“I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over the dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow, but I kept looking, and it could be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall.”

“I had heard that madmen have unnatural strength. And as I knew I was a madman, at times anyhow, I resolved to use my power.”

“And then away for home! Away to the quickest and nearest train! Away from this cursed land, where the devil and his children stil walk with earthly feet!”

“He can do all these things, yet he is not free. Nay, he is even more prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his cell. He cannot go where he lists, he who is not of nature has yet to obey some of nature's laws, why we know not. He may not enter anywhere at the first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to come, though afterwards he can come as he please. His power ceases, as does that of all evil things, at the coming of the day.”

“But he cannot flourish without this diet, he eat not as others. Even friend Jonathan, who lived with him for weeks, did never see him eat, never! He throws no shadow, he make in the mirror no reflect, as again Jonathan observe. He has the strength of many of his hand, witness again Jonathan when he shut the door against the wolves, and when he help him from the diligence too. He can transform himself to wolf, as we gather from the ship arrival in Whitby, when he tear open the dog, he can be as bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at Whitby, and as friend John saw him fly from this so near house, and as my friend Quincey saw him at the window of Miss Lucy.”

“My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side.”

“She was young and very beautiful, but pale, like the grey pallor of death.”

“He means to succeed, and a man who has centuries before him can afford to wait and to go slow.”

“I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit, I suppose it is some taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouths.”

“I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he come just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your door and say, ‘May I come in?’ is not true laughter. No! He is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person, he choose no time of suitability. He say, ‘I am here.”

“What a fine fellow is Quincey! I believe in my heart of hearts that he suffered as much about Lucy’s death as any of us, but he bore himself through it like a moral Viking. If America can go on breeding men like that, she will be a power in the world indeed.”

“These infinitesimal distinctions between man and man are too paltry for an Omnipotent Being. How these madmengive themselves away! The real God taketh heed lest a sparrow fall. But the God created from human vanity seesno difference between an eagle and a sparrow.”

“They were made by Miss Lucy!”

“There is, however, possibly a serious side to the question, for some of the children, indeed all who have been missed at night, have been slightly torn or wounded in the throat. The wounds seem such as might be made by a rat or a small dog, and although of not much importance individually, would tend to show that whatever animal inflicts them has a system or method of its own. The police of the division have been instructed to keep a sharp lookout for straying children, especially when very young, in and around Hampstead Heath, and for any stray dog which may be about.”

“And, to our bitter grief, with a smile and in silence, he died, a gallant gentleman.”

“We are all drifting reefwards now, and faith is our only anchor.”

“This will not do,' he said to himself. 'If I go on like this I shall become a crazy fool. This must stop! I promised the doctor I would not take tea. Faith, he was pretty right! My nerves must have been getting in a queer state. Funny I did not notice it. I never felt better in my life. However it is all right now, and I shall not be such a fool again.' Then he mixed himself a good stiff glass of brandy and water and resolutely sat down to his work.”

“She told me that she did not like the idea of your being in that house all by yourself, and that she thought you took too much strong tea. In fact she wants me to advise you if possible to give up the tea and the very late hours.”

“There was of course a considerable concussion as the vessel drove up on the sand heap. Every spar, rope, and stay was strained, and some of the `top-hammer' came crashing down. But, strangest of all, the very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below, as if shot up by the concussion, and running forward, jumped from the bow on the sand.”

“Yes, there is some one I love, though he has not told me yet that he even loves me.”

“For it is in the arcana of dreams that existences merge and renew themselves, change and yet keep the same.”

“You English have a saying which is close to my heart, for its spirit is that which rules our boyars: "Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.”

“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.”

“Our toil must be in silence, and our efforts all in secret; for this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength.”

“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.”

“I stood beside Van Helsing, and said;-"Ah, well, poor girl, there is peace for her at last. It is the end!" He turned to me, and said with grave solemnity:-"Not so; alas! not so. It is only the beginning!”

“I have a sort of empty feeling; nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be worth the doing.”

“Los siglos pasados tuvieron y siguen teniendo sus propios poderes que el "modernismo" no puede suprimir.”

“Fe es aquello que nos permite creer en cosas que sabemos que no son ciertas.”

“As yet we know nothing of what goes to create or evoke the active spark of life.”

“There are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely.”

“My Life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work that I have not had much time for friendships...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 lonliness of my life. Believe, me, then, that I come here full of respect for you, and you have given me hope-hope, not in what I am seeking of, but that there are good women still left to make life happy." Dr Van Helsing to Mia Seward.”

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

“Because if a woman's heart was free a man might have hope.”

“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!”

“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.”

“What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature is it in the semblance of man?”

“She is one of God's women fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth.”

“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.”

“He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little truth check the rush of the big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value him, but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe.”

“Oh, why must a man like that be made unhappy when there are lots of girls about who would worship the very ground he trod on?”

“All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of beauty of every kind. Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the top of steep hills such as we see in old missals; sometimes we ran by rivers and streams which seemed from the wide stony margin on each side of them to be subject of great floods. It takes a lot of water, and running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear.”

“The world seems full of good men, even if there are monsters in it.”