What is your favourite quote from a novel of all time?

Firstly, this site's author posed this above question – I advise a visit! Also these have answered in their own special ways 1 2 3 4 5 - Go see!

Well, I doubt this will be my number one favourite quote from a novel, forever. But right now I’m reading the fabulous Bram Stoker's Dracula and so it’s my number one now. 


This is a classic vampire tale, which everyone will have heard of, though I imagine most will know it from the movie, made in 1992. Recently, I have found the movie to be a significant distortion of the book. You can find out for yourself, it’s for sale here. 

First published in 1897, the novel pulled details from the prevalent vampire myth and created a literary legacy. And although stories like Polidori's "The Vampyre" (that I have not read yet – get it here)... 

“John William Polidori (7 September 1795 – 24 August 1821) was an English writer and physician of Italian descent. He is known for his associations with the Romantic movement and credited by some as the creator of the vampire genre of fantasy fiction. His most successful work was the 1819 short story, The Vampyre, the first vampire story in English. Although originally and erroneously accredited to Lord Byron, both Byron and Polidori affirmed that the story is Polidori's.[1]

 From http://en.wikipedia.org 

....and Le Fanu’s Carmilla (I have read – a beautifully haunting horror – get it here) ..... 

“Carmilla is a Gothic novella by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. First published in 1872, it tells the story of a young woman's susceptibility to the attentions of a female vampire named Carmilla. Carmilla predates Bram Stoker's Dracula by 25 years, and has been adapted many times for cinema.”

 From http://en.wikipedia.org 


....had already existed for many years at the time of Dracula’s publication, Bram certainly nurtured the seed which they'd planted. A seed from which grew an exciting new element in horror literature.

To get all three vampire tales in one fabulous book try here. 

So, enough of all the facts. Here is my favourite quote from Bram Stoker's 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 super sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there." 

This is from Bram Stoker's Dracula in Chapter 3 

For me this really shows how brilliantly Bram wrote spine-tingling scenes in his excellent book. His detail wasn’t there to bore you, as so often happens. Rather, every word written was placed to make an impact. That is what I’ll take from this book: Every word has to make an impact – There’s a quote from me!

So what's your favourite quote from a novel?