Bela Lugosi Quotes

 "People, chained by monotony, afraid to think, clinging to certainties... they live like ants." ~ Bela Lugosi

"I guess I'm pretty much of a lone wolf. I don't say I don't like people at all, but, to tell you the truth, I only like it then if I have a chance to look deep into their hearts and their minds." ~ Bela Lugosi

"In making theories, always keep a window open so that you can throw one out if necessary." ~ Bela Lugosi

"To win a woman, take her with you to see Dracula." ~ Bela Lugosi

"Every actor's greatest ambition is to create his own, definite and original role, a character with which he will always be identified. In my case, that role was Dracula." ~ Bela Lugosi

"It is women who bear the race in bloody agony. Suffering is a kind of horror. Blood is a kind of horror. Women are born with horror in their very bloodstream. It is a biological thing." ~ Bela Lugosi

"I have never met a vampire personally, but I don't know what might happen tomorrow." ~ Bela Lugosi

"The love-bite, it is the beginning. You will be irresistible." ~ Bela Lugosi

"To die, to be really dead, that must be glorious." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "It is women who love horror. Gloat over it. Feed on it. Are nourished by it. Shudder and cling and cry out-and come back for more." ~ Bela Lugosi

"Every actor is somewhat mad, or else he'd be a plumber or a bookkeeper or a salesman." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "I have lived too completely. I think I have known every human emotion." ~ Bela Lugosi

"To portray a maniac offers a compelling challenge." ~ Bela Lugosi

"Women have a predestination to suffering." ~ Bela Lugosi

"My body grew hot, then cold. I tried to eat the bed sheets. My heart beat madly. Every joint in my body ached. When I took the cure they took it all away from me." ~ Bela Lugosi

"I don't have a dime left. I am dependent on my friends for food and a small old-age pension." ~ Bela Lugosi

"I'll be truthful. The weekly paycheck is the most important thing to me." ~ Bela Lugosi

"I look in the mirror and say to myself, Can it be you once played Romeo?" ~ Bela Lugosi

 "It was hell to go through what I went through. I didn't know I had so many friends. Many people gave a damn about my situation. They helped cure me." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "Circumstances made me the theatrical personality I am, which many people believe is also a part of my personal life." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "It took several years of hard work in small roles before I attained stardom." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "The role seemed to demand that I keep myself worked up to fever pitch, so I took on the actual attributes of the horrible vampire, Dracula." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "There was no male vampire type in existence. Someone suggested an actor of the Continental School who could play any type, and mentioned me." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "Actors were exploited no less by the capitalist managers than they were by the state." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "I will not be tortured! I tear torture out of myself by torturing you!" ~ Bela Lugosi

 "I'd like to quit the supernatural roles and play just an interesting, down-to-earth person." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "That is different, to have someone think that I am evil when I really am not." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "If you are not serious, people will sense it." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "The vampire was a complete change from the usual romantic characters I was playing, but it was a success." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "The stage is near and dear to me." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "A screen actor is compensated in the knowledge that millions will see his performance at one time, where only hundreds will see it on the stage." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "The actor depends wholly on himself. He gives his performance in what, to him, seems the most effective manner." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "The former ruling class kept the community of actors in ignorance by means of various lies." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "Martyrdom was the price of enthusiasm for acting." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "Supernatural perhaps...baloney, perhaps not!" ~ Bela Lugosi

 "Of all the roles I've done on the stage, I'm partial to Cyrano de Bergerac." ~ Bela Lugosi

"You can't make people believe in you if you play a horror part with your tongue in your cheek." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "In the studio the director controls the actor's every move, every inflection, every expression." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "It took me years to live down Dracula and convince the film producers that I would play almost any other type of role." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "I have played Dracula a thousand times on stage and I find I have become thoroughly settled in the technique of the stage and not of the screen." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "The screen magnifies everything, even the way you are thinking." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "If my accent betrayed my foreign birth, it also stamped me as an enemy, in the imagination of the producers." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "Because of my language and the pantomime with which most Europeans accompany their speech, I was catalogued as a heavy." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "Every producer in Hollywood had set me down as a type. I was both amused and disappointed." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "Without movie parts I was reduced to freak status. I just couldn't stand it." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "When a film company is in the red they come to me. Always it is the same." ~ Bela Lugosi

 "I studied at the Budapest Academy of Theatrical Arts for four years and emerged with a degree." ~ Bela Lugosi