May 26, 2021

“Children of the night. What music they make!”

Dracula 1931 Bela Lugosi - children of the night WM

THE CLASSIC BOOK AND MOVIE QUOTES:

“Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!” [1924 novel]
“Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make!” [1931 movie]
      
Dracula 
       One of his most famous lines in the novel by
Bram Stoker and the popular Universal Studios movie adaptation 
       In Stoker’s novel and
the 1931 film Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula, the title character says the “children of the night” lines about the wolves howling outside his castle in Transylvania. The book and movie versions of the quotation are almost identical, with the exception of the word the in front of children in the book.
       Dracula says the lines to Jonathan Harker, a British legal solicitor who is sent to Dracula’s home to facilitate the Count’s purchase of a property in England. The quote comes early in the book (
in Chapter 2) and in the movie, as do two other famous quotes that are well known to Dracula fans.
       As Harker enters the Count’s spooky castle, Dracula greets him with the words: “I am Dracula, and I bid you welcome.” In the 1931 movie, this is broken into two lines, separated by a comment by Harker.
       In the movie, as Dracula is standing on the huge stone stairway after welcoming Harker, they hear the wolves howling and Lugosi speaks the famous “children of the night” lines. Shortly thereafter, in the next scene, Dracula serves some food to Harker, then pours him a glass of “very old wine.”
       “Aren’t you drinking?” asks Harker. Lugosi, smiling, says
a third line immortalized by the movie: “I never drink – wine.”
       This chuckleworthy nod to the fact that Dracula survives solely by drinking human blood is not in the novel. In that, as Harker is preparing to eat, Dracula apologizes for not joining him, saying: “I have dined already, and I do not sup.” He does offer Harker some “very old tokay wine.” But he says nothing about never drinking wine himself.

Love at First Bite - shut up quote WM

CLASSIC COMEDY SPOOF VERSION #1:

“Children of the night – shut up!”
       Actor George Hamilton as Dracula, in the comedy movie Love at First Bite (1979)
       Hamilton
says the line in the opening of the movie as he’s playing the piano and the howling of wolves interrupts and annoys him.

Dead and Loving It - children of the night mess quote WM

CLASSIC COMEDY SPOOF VERSION #2:
   
“Children of the night. What a mess they make.”
       Actor Leslie Nielsen, as Dracula, in Dead and Loving It (1995)
       In this campy version,
Nielsen says the line after pointing to some bats flying above him as he stands on the stone stairway of his castle. The camera briefly shows a dollop of bat poop on one of the stone steps. Then we see Nielsen’s shoe step on the poo, causing him to slip and fall down the stairs.

Twilight sucks - Robert Pattinson

NOT-SO-CLASSIC MOVIE VARIATION #1:

“Fame has bitten Robert Pattinson...His mere arrival at a promotional autograph session is enough to set off a sonic frenzy of squeals and shrieks. Tweens, teens and Twilight moms scream en masse with pent-up desire and devotion, delighted to just gaze upon their idol in the flesh. Listen to them. Children of the night. What a racket they make.”
      
Susan Wloszczyna
       American movie reviewer
      
In an article about Pattinson in USA TODAY published in 2008, at a time when the first movie in the Twilight series was suddenly making him a huge celebrity – at least among teenage movie fans.
       Pattinson has suggested he’s not personally a fan of the movies that made him world famous. In one interview, when asked what his view of the series might be if he weren't in it, he responded: “I would just mindlessly hate it.”

Dracula 3D graphic

NOT-SO-CLASSIC MOVIE VARIATION #2:

“The entertainment value in Argento’s sad, befuddled decline wears thin before long; after that it’s just boring. It isn’t until the 70-minute mark that the promise of the opening credits – ‘and Rutger Hauer as Van Helsing’ – is fulfilled, and by then it’s too late for anything to salvage the wreck. Listen to the children of the night! What garbage they make.”
      
Eric D. Snider
       American movie reviewer
      
In his review of Dario Argento’s movie Dracula 3D, posted on Movies.com site on May 20, 2012 
      

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Comments? Corrections? Questions? Email me or post them on my Famous Quotations Facebook page.

Related reading and viewing…

May 4, 2021

That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. (Or not.)


NIETZSCHE’S FAMOUS MAXIM:

“What does not kill me makes me stronger.”
(“Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich stärker.”)
      
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
       German philosopher
       His famous maxim in Twilight of the Idols (1888) 
       The sayings “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” “That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” and similar lines are all descendants of the aphorism above, which comes from
the “Maxims and Arrows” section of Nietzsche’s book Twilight of the Idols. His original German line has been translated in several ways. Sometimes “Whatever” or “That which” is used in place of “What.” Sometimes “destroy” or some other verb is used in place of “kill” (though the German word Nietzsche used, umbringt, is derived from the verb umbringen, which is generally translated as meaning “to kill”).
      
       Today, English translations and variations of Nietzsche’s maxim are often used for ironic effect. But they are also frequently used in a positive way, to express optimism and determination in the face of adversity.


JAX TELLER’S COUNTERQUOTE:

“There’s an old saying: that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I don’t believe that. I think the things that try to kill you make you angry and sad. Strength comes from the good things — your family, your friends, the satisfaction of hard work. Those are the things that keep you whole. Those are the things to hold on to when you’re broken.”
      
Jackson “Jax” Teller (played by actor Charlie Hunnam) 
       Speaking in a voiceover
in the “Sovereign” episode of the TV series Sons of Anarchy. (Season 5, Episode 1. First aired September 11, 2012)


CHUCK LORRE’S COUNTERQUOTE:

“What doesn’t kill us makes us bitter. I used to believe that to be both funny and true...I now have a thicker skin, I’m less likely to sweat the small stuff, and, perhaps most importantly, I have a renewed sense of humility. All in all, better. That being said, I still try to stay reasonably bitter in order to maintain my eligibility in the Writers Guild of America.”
        
Chuck Lorre
       American TV show producer
       An excerpt from
one of the popular “vanity cards” shown at the end of television shows he produces. This one comes from the “Spy Gaming” episode of his sitcom Big Bang Theory. (Season 4 Episode 22, first aired on May 5, 2011.) Lorre picked What Doesn't Kill Us Makes Us Bitter as the title of a book collecting his TV vanity cards.


TAYARI’S COUNTERQUOTE:

“People say, That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But they are wrong. What doesn’t kill you, doesn’t kill you. That’s all you get. Sometimes, you just have to hope that’s enough.”                
       
Tayari Jones

       American novelist
       In the epilogue of her novel Silver Sparrow (2011)


CHOKO’S COUNTER-COUNTERQUOTE:

“Of course, what doesn’t make you stronger, will kill you, so there’s also that.”                
      
Kaarli Sylvester Makela (a.k.a. Choko)
       American author
      
In her book Pure Speculation: One Juggalo’s Strange Story (2005)

See more witty variations of “What does not kill me…” in this previous QuoteCounterquote.com post . . . 

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Comments? Corrections? Questions? Email me or post them on my Famous Quotations Facebook page.

Related reading and viewing…

Copyrights, Disclaimers & Privacy Policy


Creative Commons License
Copyright © Subtropic Productions LLC

The Quote/Counterquote blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. Any duplicative or remixed use of the original text written for this blog and any exact duplications the specific sets of quotations collected for the posts shown here must include an attribution to QuoteCounterquote.com and, if online, a link to http://www.quotecounterquote.com/

To the best of our knowledge, the non-original content posted here is used in a way that is allowed under the fair use doctrine. If you own the copyright to something we've posted and think we may have violated fair use standards, please let me know.

Subtropic Productions LLC and QuoteCounterquote.com are committed to protecting your privacy. We will not sell your email address, etc. For more details, read this blog's full Privacy Policy.