Dracula Blood Quotes

When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac 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

Dracula, Chapter 2. When Jonathan cuts himself shaving, Dracula cannot resist his urge for fresh blood. He attempts to attack Jonathan and drink his blood. But Jonathan is saved by the crucifix, a holy object symbolizing good, which appears to repel the evil Dracula.

I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. 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, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed to fasten on my throat. 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. I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstacy and waited – waited with beating heart.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 3. At Dracula’s castle, Jonathan Harker has a vision or dream, in which he is seduced by three sexually aggressive, predatory, vampire women. In this first supernatural act in the novel, Harker is the passive victim, a reversal of traditional gender roles.

There, in one of the great boxes, of which there were fifty in all, on a pile of newly dug earth, lay the Count! He was either dead or asleep. I could not say which, for eyes were open and stony, but without the glassiness of death, and the cheeks had the warmth of life through all their pallor. The lips were as red as ever. But there was no sign of movement, no pulse, no breath, no beating of the heart.
I bent over him, and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain. He could not have lain there long, for the earthy smell would have passed away in a few hours. By the side of the box was its cover, pierced with holes here and there. I thought he might have the keys on him, but when I went to search I saw the dead eyes, and in them dead though they were, such a look of hate, though unconscious of me or my presence, that I fled from the place, and leaving the Count’s room by the window, crawled again up the castle wall. Regaining my room, I threw myself panting upon the bed and tried to think.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 4. The real, true horror of Dracula is expressed in Jonathan Harker’s description of the Count lying in a box of newly dug earth in a vault under the castle. It is one of 50 such boxes in the vault. There is something not quite natural or human about the Count. Though Dracula’s lips are still flushed with blood, he has no pulse, is not breathing and appears dead or asleep. Harker wants to look for the keys to the castle on Dracula to escape his confinement, but he spooked and returns to his room.

Then I stopped and looked at the Count. There was a mocking smile on the bloated face which seemed to drive me mad. This was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless. The very thought drove me mad.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 4. Jonathan is looking at Dracula lying in his box. He is very troubled that he is helping this creature to move from his base in Transylvania to London and expand his power, creating a new monarchy of vampires to prey on the blood of the English.

I looked at her throat just now as she lay asleep, and the tiny wounds seem not to have healed. They are still open, and, if anything, larger than before, and the edges of them are faintly white. They are like little white dots with red centers. Unless they heal within a day or two, I shall insist on the doctor seeing about them.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 8. As Lucy fades away before her eyes and becomes more languid, her friend Mina becomes more concerned. Mina notices that the two wounds on Lucy’s thoat seem not to have healed but are even larger than before. This is where Dracula bit her and sucked her blood. This is foreshadowing of Lucy later turning into a vampire and drinking blood from children.

Once again we went through that ghastly operation. I have not the heart to go through with the details. Lucy had got a terrible shock and it told on her more than before, for though plenty of blood went into her veins, her body did not respond to the treatment as well as on the other occasions.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 12. Dr. Seward performs a blood transfusion on the ailing Lucy, but notes that she does not respond as well as on the other occasions. He is remined by Quincey Morris that Lucy has received the blood of "four strong men" in large quantities, but something appears to be taking the blood back out again at night. None of the men, apart from experienced vampire hunter Van Helsing, are aware that Lucy has fallen prey to the blood-sucking Dracula or one of his kind.

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 labour, what it may be.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 13. Van Helsing laughs hysterically after Lucy’s funeral. His laughter is triggered by Arthur’s statement that he felt married to Lucy because he donated his blood to her. The others don’t have the heart to tell him they did the same. In this passage Van Helsing, speaking to Dr. Seward, explains how he finds humor in the midst of tragedy.

Then this so sweet maid is a polyandrist, and me, with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by Church’s law, though no wits, all gone – even I, who am faithful husband to this now-no-wife, am bigamist.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 13. After Arthur compares the transfusion of blood to Lucy to marriage, Van Helsing suggests that Lucy has practiced polyandry (a woman with more than one husband) because she has received blood from four men, including Van Helsing. Van Helsing’s own wife went insane from grief after their son’s death, but as a Catholic he will not divorce her.

Can you tell me why in the Pampas, ay and elsewhere, there are bats that come out at night and open the veins of cattle and horses and suck dry their veins, how in some islands of the Western seas there are bats which hang on the trees all day, and those who have seen describe as like giant nuts or pods, and that when the sailors sleep on the deck, because that it is hot, flit down on them and then, and then in the morning are found dead men, white as even Miss Lucy was?

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 14. Van Helsing challenges Dr. John Seward’s rigid scientific thinking. He puts the case for believing in vampire bats that suck the blood of other creatures and prey on human beings like Lucy.

"Now that you are willing to understand, you have taken the first step to understand. You think then that those so small holes in the children’s throats were made by the same that made the hole in Miss Lucy?"
"I suppose so."
"Then you are wrong…it is worse, far, far worse."
"In God’s name, Professor Van Helsing, what do you mean?" I cried.
He threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair, and placed his elbows on the table, covering his face with his hands as he spoke.
"They were made by Miss Lucy!"

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 14. In a conversation with Dr. Seward, Van Helsing reveals the shocking truth that Lucy has become a fully-fledged vampire, with a lust for blood to survive, and is responsible for the child abductions happening in London. A local newspaper reported the children were temporarily abducted at Hamstead Heath – where Lucy was buried – by a strange woman the youngsters named the "Bloofer Lady." When the children returned home, they had strange wounds on their necks.

The thing in the coffin writhed, and a hideous, blood-curdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions. The sharp white teeth champed together till the lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. But Arthur never faltered. He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 16. In one of the most disconcerting scenes in the novel, Arthur Holmwood drives a stake through the undead vampire Lucy’s heart before she is beheaded and her mouth filled with garlic. Arthur was Lucy’s fiancé while she lived and the four men present agree that he is the right person for the job. There is a heavy sexual symbolism to this scene, with the stake representing a phallic symbol. Bodily fluids flow in the form of blood from Lucy’s heart. The beautiful and innocent Lucy Westenra was the evil Dracula’s first victim in England. The vampire hunters carry out their ritual on Lucy to save her soul.

I don’t want any souls, indeed, indeed! I don’t. I couldn’t use them if I had them; they would be no manner of use to me. I couldn’t eat them.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 20. Renfield, a patient at Dr. Seward’s insane asylum, argues with Seward. He says he wants life from other beings, but he does not want their souls. Renfield, who eats flies, spiders and other small creatures, consumes their flesh for the purposes of sustaining life and drinks blood for the purposes of increasing power. But he seems worried about the souls of humans, and may be expressing concern for Mina here – Dracula’s latest prey.

The attendant came bursting into my room and told me that Renfield had somehow met with some accident. He had heard him yell; and when he went to him found him lying on his face on the floor, all covered with blood.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 20. Renfield, who had warned Dr. John Seward that he was in danger and the asylum would not protect him from Count Dracula, is discovered lying on the floor with his face smashed. Initially Seward chooses to believe Renfield is the victim of an accident, and not some supernatural force.

When I came to Renfield’s room, I found him lying on the floor on his left side in a glittering pool of blood…As the face was exposed I could see that it was horribly bruised, as though it had been beaten against the floor.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 21. Dr. Seward and Van Helsing rush into Renfield’s room in the lunatic asylum to discover him on the brink of death, his back broken and face smashed in. Angry that the Count had been draining the life’s blood out of Mina, Renfield had attacked Dracula, who flung him across the room fatally injuring him.

On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan Harker, his face flushed and breathing heavily as though in a stupor. Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards was the white-clad figure of his wife.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 21. Dr. Seward describes the shocking scene that he and the others witness after breaking down the door to the Harkers’ bedroom. Jonathan Harker is in a stupor. His wife Mina has been bitten on the neck by Dracula. The Count has violated the sanctity of the Harkers’ marriage bed by attacking and biting Mina there. This is nothing less than rape.

With his left hand he held both Mrs Harker’s hands, keeping them away with her arms at full tension. His right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare chest which was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 21. In one of the most horrific scenes in the novel, Mina’s friend Dr. John Seward describes how he and Van Helsing break into Mina’s bedroom one night. Mina is kneeling on the edge of her bed while a tall figure, dressed in black, is bending over her. Mina has been bitten on the neck by Dracula and he is holding her head to a wound in his own chest, forcing her to drink the blood pouring from it. The final simile using the kitten and the child underlines Dracula’s power to take something pure and taint and distort it. The attack on Mina is viewed as a form of rape.

As we burst into the room, the Count turned his face, and the hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap into it. His eyes flamed red with devilish passion; the great nostrils of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge; and the white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood-dripping mouth, champed together like those of a wild beast.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 21. When Dr. Seward, Van Helsing and the others rush to the Harker home to save Mina from Dracula, they discover they are too late. Like a scene straight out of hell, Seward describes the wild beast appearance of the Count after he had satiated himself on the blood of Mina.
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