I am glad that it is old and big. I myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill me. A house cannot be made habitable in a day; and, after all, how few days go to make up a century. I rejoice also that there is a chapel of old times. We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may be amongst the common dead. 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 wearing years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken; the shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements. I love the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may.

— Bram Stoker

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

— Bram Stoker

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.

— Bram Stoker

I counsel you, put down in record even your doubts and surmises. Hereafter it may be of interest to you to see how true you guess. We learn from failure, not from success.

— Bram Stoker

If that other fellow doesn't know his happiness, well, he'd better look for it soon, or he'll have to deal with me.

— Bram Stoker

I have always thought that a wild animal never looks so well as when some obstacle of pronounced durability is between us. A personal experience has intensified rather than diminished that idea.

— Bram Stoker

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

— Bram Stoker

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 comes 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 comes when and how he is like. He asks no person, he chooses no time of suitability. Furthermore, he says, ‘I am here.

— Bram Stoker

I have read of a gentleman who owned a so fine house in London, and when he went for months of summer to Switzerland and lock up his house, some burglar came and broke window at back and got in. Then he went and made open the shutters in front and walk out and in through the door, before the very eyes of the police. Then he has an auction in that house, and advertise it, and put up big notice; and when the day come he sells off by a great auctioneer all the goods of that other man who own them. Then he goes to a builder, and he sells him that house, making an agreement that he pull it down and take all away within a certain time. And your police and other authority help him all they can. And when that owner come back from his holiday in Switzerland he finds only an empty hole where his house had been. This was all done en regale; and in our work we shall be en regale too. We shall not go so early that the policemen who have then little to think of, shall deem it strange; but we shall go after ten o’clock, when there are many about, and such things would be done were we indeed owners of the house.

— Bram Stoker

I must take action of some sort whilst the courage of the day is upon me.

— Bram Stoker