Abraham Setrakian quotes from The Strain

Abraham Setrakian

[voiceover] Hunger, a poet once said, is the most important thing we know, the first lesson we learn. But hunger can be easily quieted down, easily satiated. There is another force, a different type of hunger, an unquenchable thirst that cannot be extinguished. It's very existence is what defines us, what makes us human. That force is love.

Abraham Setrakian

Listen very carefully, son. I know your little friend has a gun and the hammer is cocked, but I don't care. I can control your entire body weight from this pressure point. And this knife is pointing straight at your radial artery. By the time he clears his coat pocket, your artery will be punctured and sliced wide open from top to bottom. You fall down bleeding, I go under the counter and your friend starts shooting at an empty space. I can guarantee you this. You will bleed out before the 9-1-1 operator answers the phone. That is Option One. Option Two is you release the bills, your friend gives me the gun – he can keep the bullets, I don't care – and you leave this store. Now, son... you have a choice.

Abraham Setrakian

Mourn Matt's passing, then move on. Life will insist. You mustn't fail life.

Abraham Setrakian

I prepared, yes, but I had resigned myself to the reality that I would pass from this world without ever facing him again. Seeing the Master in the tunnels after all that time, I, uh I lost perspective. I realize that now. I reacted with raging impulses, and anger, and emotion. I-I apologize.

Abraham Setrakian

Too long I've lived, too much I've seen. This planet, our host, once so wild and unknown; we've mapped it, paved it, arranged it on a grid, never imagining that something else was watching us, a creature even more ruthless and predacious than we are, eager to exploit the very infrastructure we so obligingly arranged. Is the war already lost? Are we destined to be cattle for monsters? Or, now that the enemy has finally shown his face, do we have a fighting chance? The world today is not what it was one week ago. What will it be one week from now? One month from now? Nothing is written that cannot be changed. It is a small world, after all. We made it that way.

Abraham Setrakian

[in a stand-off with Alonso Creem] A chain of events is about to play out here, Mr. Creem. Your loyal bodyguards will riddle me with bullets, but not before I draw this blade across your throat. To put it in language we both understand, you will not come out well in this trade.

Thomas Eichhorst

The great game is over, Jew.

Abraham Setrakian

Not while I still breathe.

Thomas Eichhorst

Amazing. Despite all evidence to the contrary, you cling to the delusion that you will prevail. Don't tell me you still believe in that God of yours. So where is He? Why has He done nothing? Face the truth. He is nothing but a figment of your imagination. Your arrest report says you were apprehended with an antique sword. Is it Sardu's?

Abraham Setrakian

Don't worry. I will give it back to your Master in due time.

Nora Martinez

What was in that coffin?

Abraham Setrakian

A thing of enormous power and terrible will. A will to devour the world and swallow the light.

Nora Martinez

Is the military covering it up?

Abraham Setrakian

Do not be so easily distracted. He thrives on human self-interest and bureaucratic complacency. You and Dr. Goodweather, you think that being good is enough? Being good means nothing, unless you are willing to do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done.

Thomas Eichhorst

Ha! Ha! I think the Third Reich is in its death throes.

Abraham Setrakian

Very likely.

Thomas Eichhorst

But suppose a new Reich rose from the ashes of this one, led by a new Führer, who's able to deliver everything Hitler promised and more.

Abraham Setrakian

I think that would be a very sad day for humanity.

Thomas Eichhorst

Quite the opposite, my friend. It's what humanity craves: a strong leader, a visionary...

Abraham Setrakian

Visionary? Hitler is a megalomaniac who declared himself dictator.

Thomas Eichhorst

Wrong! Hitler was elected democratically! He went before the Reichstag. He asked the elected representatives of the people to grant him extraordinary powers! And they did by an overwhelming majority!

Abraham Setrakian

Because they were terrified.

Thomas Eichhorst

Yes! Terrified of democracy! They had lived through the chaos of the Weimar Republic: governments gridlocked by parties and bickering! They realized Plato was right: the republic can only be led by a philosopher king with the wisdom to look after the needs of the many.

Abraham Setrakian

Unless you are a Jew.

Thomas Eichhorst

Ah You see? This is the problem. You take all of this too personally.

Abraham Setrakian

After the murder of my family, I suppose I do.

Thomas Eichhorst

Oh, the nobility of the victim! I see. You comfort yourself with the fantasy that you're morally superior to me, but you're not. First day you arrived, I asked if anyone was a carpenter, and you eagerly threw up your hands! And from that day on, you've labored here, working on behalf of the Third Reich!

Abraham Setrakian

I had no choice!

Thomas Eichhorst

Yes, you have! But you're afraid of the choice.

Vasily Fet

I need the rules. What kills these things, aside from direct sunlight?

Abraham Setrakian

The brainstem must be destroyed or severed from the spinal cord.

Vasily Fet

So, beheading or rebar bashing.

Once I turn, I'm gonna go after them, right?

Abraham Setrakian

The ones you love, yes. The cruelest feature of this dark curse is that the bond that joins you in life, human love, is corrupted into the need to consume those closest to you.

Zach Goodweather

Why did you call him a vampire?

Abraham Setrakian

Because that's what he turned into.

Zach Goodweather

My dad didn't use that word.

Abraham Setrakian

He will. Trust me. There's power in naming things.

Vasily Fet

Where the hell were you all day?

Abraham Setrakian

Don't concern yourself with me.

Vasily Fet

Did you think that maybe, "Gee, uh, I should check in, let them know that I'm not dead, let 'em know I'm not a vampire"?

Abraham Setrakian

I'm not dead. I'm not a vampire.

Vasily Fet

Just checking in, you know. It's almost noon and you hadn't come out and, uh...

Abraham Setrakian

You thought I dropped dead.

Vasily Fet

I figured there was a 20% chance. Now look, Dutch and I, we're we're gonna go clear out some local munchers. I just wanted to check in and see if you need anything before I go.

Abraham Setrakian

No, nothing.

Vasily Fet

All right. Well, don't forget to eat something, all right?

Abraham Setrakian

You want to remind me to go to the toilet, too?

Vasily Fet

Professor, I was wondering, what do you hope to find in these books?

Abraham Setrakian

Something I overlooked. Of all the evils a man faces, growing old is the one I cannot do anything about. When I was young, I could hold all this in my head, and now it seems to be slipping away from me.

Eldritch Palmer

Abraham. Look at you. Withered by age and failure, yet your blind optimism carries you on. Don't tell me you still cling to your belief in the Supreme Being?

Abraham Setrakian

You should fear His wrath.

Eldritch Palmer

Your "Being" doesn't exist. Realized that when I was 10 years old. Prayed for Him to heal me. He never answered.

Abraham Setrakian

Yes, He did. The answer was no.