“I will not be tortured! I tear torture out of myself by torturing you!”

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

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

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.

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

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.

It took several years of hard work in small roles before I attained stardom.

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

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.

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

I’ll take any story if it’s good.

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.

I never drink… wine.

To win a woman, take her with you to see Dracula.

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

Of all the roles I’ve done on the stage, I’m partial to Cyrano de Bergerac.

I never play without my cape.

And even a liar can be scared into telling the truth, same as honest man can be tortured into telling a lie.

Humans, the only self-regarding animals, blessed or cursed with this torturing higher faculty, have always wanted to know why.

Put me into a crusader’s armor, a cardinal’s vestments. Let me feel the pygmy’s heartbeat, the queen’s breast, the torturer’s pleasure, the Nile’s taste, or the nomad’s thirst.

Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and murder a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense.

It is true, as Sartre once wrote, referring to French Army atrocities in Algeria, that the real tragedy in our time is that any of us can be, interchangeably, victim or torturer.

It was pure bliss and absolute torture at the same time. I was in daze, as if my brain had suddenly packed up and gone on vacation. I could barely string words together in a sentence.

As I say the UK’s position on the issue of torture and the use of torture has not changed. Our policy is the same as it has been. We condemn torture.

The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn’t call.