Dr. Victor Frankenstein quotes from Penny Dreadful

Victor

My mother taught me many things. Among the most useful is that one must always have Shakespeare at hand.

Victor

Man does not live only in the empirical. We must seek the ephemeral, or why live?

Victor

The ancient Egyptian religions were unique in a way. They had a singular goal. Not transmutation to an afterlife, but something even more profound: eternal life.

Victor

Death is not serene.

Victor

When you transform a life, you're making it anew. Whatever happens to that creature downstairs, we are responsible for it. It is our burden now. Every action builds another link that binds us to it. That chain is everlasting.

Victor

You seek to threaten me with death? If you seek to threaten me, threaten me with life.

Victor

What is love but a kind of creature waiting to be unbound? A malady. What does it bring any of us but... confusion and bedevilment?

Victor

I have conquered death, and created monsters... none more so than the man who sits before you.

Victor

After all... it is our memories which make us monsters, is it not?

Victor Frankenstein

I would never chart a river or scale a peak to take its measure or plant a flag. There's no point. It's solipsistic self-aggrandizement. So too those scientists who study the planets seeking astronomical enlightenment for its own sake. The botanist studying the variegation of an Amazonian fern. The zoologist caught up in the endless fascination of an adder's coils. And for what? Knowledge for itself alone? The elation of discovery? Plant your flag on the truth? There is only one worthy goal for scientific exploration... piercing the tissue that separates life from death. Everything else, from the deep bottom of the sea to the top of the highest mountain on the farthest planet, is insignificant. Life and death, Sir Malcolm. The flicker that separates one from the other, fast as a bat's wing, more beautiful than any sonnet. That is my river. That is my mountain. There I will plant my flag.

Sir Malcolm Murray

You have the soul of a poet, sir.

Victor

And the bank account to match.

Sir Malcolm

I'm trying to rescue my daughter. To save her, I would murder the world. Join me, doctor. With me, you will behold terrible wonders.

Victor

And how much of the world will we have to murder?

Sir Malcolm

Do you care?

Victor

I've only one other question: Why me?

Sir Malcolm

Because you were unafraid to pull back the skin and look beneath.

Vanessa

"If this belief from heaven be sent, if such be nature's holy plan... "

Victor

"Have I not reason to lament... "

"What man has made of man."

Victor

Killing redskins more your line?

Ethan

You know nothing about it.

Victor

Whole Indian nations pacified into nonexistence, what don't I know?

Ethan

How do you know I was in the Indian wars?

Victor

I didn't.

Victor

I cannot unmake the past!

John Clare

I'm not concerned with the past, only the future.

John Clare

My bride must be beautiful.

Victor

To match her mate?