Study Guide
Bram Stoker's
Dracula is a classic vampire tale. First published in 1897, the novel drew from vampire myth to create a literary legacy. Even though stories like Polidori's "The Vampire" and Le Fanu's
Carmilla already existed at the time
Dracula was first published, Stoker helped to spawn a new dimension in horror literature. Here are a few quotes from
Bram Stoker's
Dracula.
- "I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 1, Dracula
- "Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor's clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner?"
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 2, Dracula
- "As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me... a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 2, Dracula
- "When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demonaic fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away, and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 2, Dracula
- "The fair girl went on her knees and bent over me, fairly gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal... I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the supersensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 3, Dracula
- "I bent over him, and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 4, Dracula
- "But, oh, Mina, I love him; I love him; I love him!"
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 5, Dracula
- "Oh Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my friend whose happiness is yours; but I must only wait on hopeless and work. Work! work!"
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 6, Dracula
- "The man was simply fastened by his hands, tied one over the other, to a spoke of the wheel. Between the inner hand and the wood was a crucifix..."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 7, Dracula
- "a man, tall and thin, and ghastly pale... I crept behind It, and gave It my knife; but the knife went through It, empty as the air."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 7, Dracula
- "there, on our favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining figure, snowy white... something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, I could not tell."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 8, Dracula
- "Between me and the moonlight flitted a great bat, comeing and going in great, whirling circles."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 8, Dracula
- "I don't want to talk to you: you don't count now; the Master is at hand."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 8, Dracula
- "I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave..."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 8, Dracula
- it will be for her sake, and I must not hesitate to ask, or you to act."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 9, Dracula
- "All over! all over! He has deserted me."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 9, Dracula
- "The whole bed would have been drenched to a scarlet with the blood the girl must have lost..."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 10, Dracula
- "No man knows till he experiences it, what it is like to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the woman he loves."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 10, Dracula
- "The blood is the life!"
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 11, Dracula
- "If that were all, I would stop here where we are now, and let her fade away into peace..."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 12, Dracula
- "Not so! Alas! Not so. It is only the beginning!"
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 12, Dracula
- "He was very pale, and his eyes seemed bulging out as, half in terror and half in amazement, he gazed at a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose and black moustache and pointed beard..."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 13, Dracula
- "Mein Gott! Mein Gott! So soon! So soon!"
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 14, Dracula
- "They were made by Miss Lucy!"
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 14, Dracula
- "In trance she died, and in trance she is Un-Dead, too... There is no malign there, see, and so it make it hard that I must kill her in her sleep."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 15, Dracula
- "I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall drive a stake through her body."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 15, Dracula
- "The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 16, Dracula
