Louis Do you have enough [tape] for the story of a life?
More lines from Louis
12 quotes Louis Louis I'm flesh and blood, but not human. I haven't been human for two hundred years.
To Daniel Malloy
Louis You lack the courage of your convictions, sir. Do it.
Louis I saw it as though it was my last, but I could recall no other before it.
Louis Forgive me if I have a lingering respect for life.
Louis Her blood coursed through my veins sweeter than life itself. And as it did, Lestat's words made sense to me. I knew peace only when I killed, and when I heard her heart in that terrible rhythm, I knew again what peace could be.
Louis A little child she was, but also a fierce killer, now capable of the ruthless pursuit of blood with all a child's demanding.
Louis How do we seem to you? Do you find us beautiful, magical? Our white skin, our fierce eyes? "Drink me," you ask me; do you have any idea of the thing you will become?
Louis Whatever happened to Lestat I do not know. I go on, night after night. I feed on those who cross my path. But all my passion went with her golden hair. I'm a spirit of preternatural flesh. Detached. Unchangeable. Empty.
Louis I'm flesh and blood, but not human. I haven't been human for 200 years. Please, how shall I put you at ease? Shall we begin like David Copperfield? 'I am born... I grew up.' Or shall we begin when I was born to darkness, as I call it? That's really where we should start, don't you think?... 1791 was the year it happened. I was 24. Younger than you are now. But times were different then. I was a man at that age. The master of a large plantation, just south of New Orleans. I had lost my wife in childbirth. She and the infant had been buried less than half a year. I would've been happy to join them. I couldn't bear the pain of their loss. I longed to be released from it. I wanted to lose it all: my wealth, my estate, my sanity....Most of all, I longed for death. I know that now. I invited it. A release from the pain of living. My invitation was open to anyone. To the whore at my side. To the pimp that followed. But it was a vampire that accepted.
Louis That morning I was not yet a vampire, and I saw my last sunrise. I remember it completely, and yet I can't recall any before it. I watched the whole magnificence of the dawn for the last time as if it were the first. And then I said farewell to sunlight, and set out to become what I became.
Louis [Walks out front door of plantation master house to meet lynching intentioned mob of torch wielding slaves while carrying lifeless body of house servant Yvette]
Hear me now! This place is cursed! Damned! And, yes, your master is the devil! Get out while you can! You're all free! Do you hear me?! [Hands body of Yvette to slaves] Run! Run! [Grabs a torch, swipes it at slaves to scare them off only to have them follow him to door and he proceeds set fire to the plantation master house]
Scenes with Louis
14 scenes Louis Where are we?
Where do you think, my idiot friend? We're in a nice, filthy cemetery. Does this make you happy? Is this fitting, proper enough?
Louis We belong in Hell.
And what if there is no Hell, or they don't want us there? Ever think of that?
Louis But there was a Hell, and no matter where we moved to, I was in it.
You ... fed on me.
Louis Yes. And he found me with you, and he cut his wrist and fed you from it, and you were a vampire, and have been every night thereafter.
You both did it.
Louis I took your life ... he gave you another one.
And here it is, and I hate you both!
More melancholy nonsense. I swear, you grow more and more like Louis each day. Soon you'll be eating rats!
Rats? When did you eat rats, Louis?
Louis It was a long, long time ago, before you were born. [playfully slurps] And I don't recommend them.
I thought you could use one more.
Why always on this night?
What do you mean?
You always give me a doll on the same night of the year.
Oh? I didn't realize.
Is this my birthday? You dress me like a doll. You make my hair like a doll. Why?
Lestat (trying to change the subject): Some of these, Claudia, are so old ... tattered. You should throw them away.
I will, then!
[Claudia begins removing the dolls from her bed, revealing the naked corpse of a woman lying underneath.]
Claudia? Claudia? Claudia! What have you done?
What you told me to do!
Louis Leave a corpse here to rot?
I wanted her! I wanted to be her!
Louis Claudia.
Pollutes the very house we live in!
Do you want me to be a doll forever?!
Louis [Takes out a pair of scissors and holds them to her hair]
Claudia, don't!
Why not? Can't I change, like everybody else?!
[Proceeds to cut off her hair then runs into her bedroom. Seconds later Claudia's screams are heard from within her room. Louis busts in to find Claudia in front of the mirror with a full head of curls]
Which one of you did it?! [pushes past Louis and confronts Lestat] Which one of you made me the way I am?!
What you are? A vampire gone insane, that pollutes its own bed?
And if I cut my hair again!
It will grow back again.
But it wasn't always so. I had a mother once. And Louis, he had a wife. He was mortal, the same was she. And so was I!
Louis Claudia!
You made us what we are! Didn't you?
Stop her, Louis!
Did you do it to me?
[Claudia cuts Lestat's cheeks with the scissors. Lestat looks at Claudia stunned]
How did you do it?
And why should I tell you? It's in my power.
Why yours alone? Tell me how it was done!
Be glad I made you what you are.
[Lestat jumps out of the chair he had been sitting in and grabs Claudia by the throat]
You'd be dead now if I hadn't. Liked that damned corpse. Now get rid of it!
You get rid of it!
[She drops the scissors, then storms out]
Absinthe. You've given them absinthe.
No, laudanum. It killed them, unfortunately, but it keeps the blood warm.
Listen, Louis. There's life in these old hands still. Not quite Furioso. Moderato? Cantabile, perhaps.
How could it be?
Ask the alligator. His blood helped. Then on the diet of the blood of snakes, toads, and all the putrid life of the Mississippi, slowly, Lestat became something like himself again. Claudia ... you've been a very, very naughty little girl.
Louis Vampires pretending to be humans pretending to be vampires.
How avant-garde!
They had forgotten the first lesson, that we are to be powerful, beautiful, and without regret.
Louis And you can teach me this?
Yes.
Louis To be without regret?
Yes.
Louis Then what a pair we could make ... but what if it's a lesson I don't care to learn?
What do you mean?
Louis What if all I have is my suffering, my regret?
Don't you want to lose it?
Louis Why? So you can have that too? The heart that mourns her; her, that you burnt to a cinder?
Louis, I swear that I ...
Louis Ah, but I know you did. I know. You who regrets nothing, you who feels nothing, if that's all I have left to learn, I can do that on my own ... and as much as your invitation may appeal to me, I must regretfully decline.
No one could resist me. Not even you, Louis.
Louis I tried.
Lestat (smiling): And the more you tried, the more I wanted you.
[Lestat catches Louis killing the poodles of his victim; a wealthy plantation owner woman instead of her, then breaks her neck and scolds Louis.] [Angrily]
You whining coward of a vampire who prowls the night feeding on... rats and poodles! You could have finished us both!
Louis [Baring fangs]
You condemned me to Hell!
I don't know any hell.
[Crashes through window of ablaze plantation master house]
Perfect! Perfect! Just burn the place! Burn everything we own! Have us living out in a field, like cattle!
Louis [Sitting on floor leaning against wall]
You thought you could have it all...
Oh, shut up, Louis! [Grabs Louis by shirt and forces him up] Come on! [Slaves cheer and dance at sight of ablaze plantation master house]
Prostitute 1
[Lestat is pinning down a prostitute on a couch with her legs around him]
Your skin is icy.
Prostitute 2
Don't worry. I can warm that cold skin of yours better than she can.
Do you think so?
Prostitute 2
Why... you're warm now! But the price is high.
Your pretty friend, I exhausted her. [Caressing prostitute's cheek] Soft. So soft. I can see you lying on a bed of satin.
Prostitute 2
Such things you say.
Do you know what manner of bed? Should we put out the light? And then put out the light. But once I've put out thy light... I cannot... give it vital breath again. Its needs must wither. [Bites prostitute's wrist, pours it out in glass and holds out the glass to Louis] For you, Louis. You can pretend it's wine.
Louis She's not dead!
You're in love with your mortal nature. You resist what can bring you peace.
Louis You call this peace?!
We're predators, whose all-seeing eyes give them detachment!
Louis The girl, Lestat!
Take her! End that hunger!
Louis No!
Now, my child. You're tired, you want to sleep! [Swipes coffin lid off and picks up prostitute 2 and dumps her in]
Prostitute 2
It's a coffin! A coffin! Let me out! [Lestat slides coffin lid shut] I'm not dead! [Lestat leaps to sit on coffin and knocks at coffin's head]
It's your coffin my love, enjoy it! Most of us never get to know what it feels like!
Louis Why do you do this?
I like to do it! I enjoy it! Take your aesthete's taste to purer things! Kill them swiftly if you will, but do it! For do not doubt you are a killer, Louis! [Flips coffin lid off and kneels down] What's that?!
Prostitute 2
It's a coffin!
So it is! You must be dead!
Prostitute 2
I'm not dead, am I?
Louis You're not dead.
Not yet.
Louis [To Lestat]
Finish this now!
You finish it!
Prostitute 2
Save me from him! Save me! You'll let me go? I can't die like this! I need a priest!
My friend is a priest. He'll hear your sins before you die. Unless... I make her one of us.
Louis No!
Then take her, Louis. End her suffering! End yours!
Louis No.
Louis My God! To think you... are all I have to learn from.
In the Old World.... they called it the "dark gift." And I gave it to you.
Daniel Molloy
[Louis weeps after recounting how the Parisian vampires killed Madeleine and Claudia]
So a vampire can cry.
Louis Once, maybe twice, in his own eternity. Maybe it was to quench those tears forever that I took such revenge on them.
Santiago Two lovers... wandering down their violet way... whose passionate embraces, each to each... permit no meditations on decay... until they find themselves... within my reach!
Louis Vampires who pretend to be humans pretending to be vampires.
How avant-garde.
Santiago The monk whose soul with Heaven doth commune... and spends his days... in pious contemplation... finds he will meet his Maker all too soon. For all his prayers gets no remuneration. The lesson endeth here... and it is this: Each one of you, my clammy hands must touch. Each one must bend his forehead to my kiss. But, hark! Methinks a mortal doth approach! [Santiago minions bring forth mortal woman prey] What have we here? What beauty by my side? A rose in bloom, a shrinking violet? Perhaps she has a mind to be my bride. Perhaps my lesson has not ended yet!
Mortal woman prey
I don't want to die!
Santiago But death we are and have always been.
Mortal woman prey
Someone help me! Please! [Santiago minions grab ahold of woman prey and begin to undress her] What have I done?!
Santiago We all die!
Mortal woman But I'm young!
Santiago Death is no respecter of age! It can come any time, any place. [Undoes her blouse and takes it off] Just as this flesh is pink now... so it will turn gray and wrinkle with age.
Mortal woman prey
Let me live! I don't care!
Santiago Then why should you care if you die now? And suppose death had a heart to love and to release you? To whom would he turn his passion? Would you choose a person from the crowd there? A person to suffer as you do?
Audience woman [Stands up]
Monsieur Vampire, take me! I adore you!
Santiago You wait your turn! [Audience chuckles] Well... Do you know what it means to be loved by death? To become our bride? [Fire explodes with Armand making entrance]
No pain. No pain.
Louis [Armand pulls down woman's dress rendering her fully nude]
Monstrous.
We live beneath. Let me show you.
Louis Monstrous.
Yes. But very beautiful. Welcome to my home. [Prepubescent boy walks over and Armand puts arm around him] Try him. [Louis takes boy's hand, realizes of previous bite marks then finds another unbitten spot and chomps]
