Quotes / Exposition of Immortality

Film

"Do you think you can destroy me with your idols? I who served the cross, I who commanded nations, hundreds of years before you were born?"

— Dracula, Bram Stoker's Dracula

"So... You play your wits against mine. Me, who commanded armies hundreds of years before you were born. Fools!"

— Dracula, Bram Stoker's Dracula (1973)

"I am Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. I was born in 1518 in the village of Glenfinnan on the shores of Loch Shiel. And I am immortal."

— Connor MacLeod, Highlander

Nicky: Booker was the last: 1812.
Nile: No way.
Booker: Yeah, I died fighting with Napoleon.
Nile: So... you're even older... than him.
Joe: Nicky and I met in the Crusades.
Nile: The Crusades?!
Nicky: The love of my life was of the people I've been taught to hate.
Joe: [laughing] We, we killed each other.
Nicky: Many times.
Nile: [to Andy] You're the oldest. [Andy nods] Well, how old are you?
Andy: [Beat] Older.

— The Old Guard

Caleb: How old are you?
Jesse: Let me put it this way...I fought for the South. *beat* We lost.

— Near Dark

Literature

I have had a long talk with the Count. I asked him a few questions on Transylvanian history, and he warmed up to the subject wonderfully. In his speaking of things and people, and especially of battles, he spoke as if he had been present at them all.

— Jonathan Harker's Journal, Dracula

"My injuries? My pain? Hah! When I wore the dragonhelm and got a lance through my visor, which broke the bridge of my nose, shot through and smashed out the back of my skull, that was pain! Pain, aye, for part of me — the real ME — had been hurt. That was Silistria, where we crushed the Ottoman. Oh, I know pain, my friend. We are old, old acquaintances, pain and I. In 1204 at Constantinople it was Greek fire. I had joined the Fourth Crusade in Zara, as a mercenary, and was burned for my trouble at the height of our triumph! Ah, but didn't we make them pay for it? For three whole days we pillaged, raped, slew. And I — in my agony, half eaten away, burned through almost to the very heart of ME — I was the greatest slayer of all! The human flesh had shriveled, but the Wamphyri lived on!"

— Faethor Ferenczy, Necroscope

"You think yourself old. I ate of sacrifical children on the altars of Arcadia before even Europe came to be, before that tricksy carpenter of Bethlehem died to conjure a new god for the nations to come. The sons of Lycaon himself split my soul in two long before this shape you wear was spewed into existence."

— Makedon, The Devourers

Polgara: I was happy here. The walls were high, and the towers soared. We all thought it would last forever. Over there was a flower-filled garden where ladies in pale yellow dresses used to sit while young men sang to them from beyond the garden wall. The voices of the young men were very sweet, and the ladies would sigh and throw bright red roses over the wall to them. And down that avenue was a marble-paved square where the old men met to talk of forgotten wars and long-gone companions. Beyond that there was a house with a terrace where I used to sit with friends in the evening to watch the stars come out while a boy brought us chilled fruit and the nightingales sang as if their hearts were breaking. But then the Asturians came. You'd be surprised at how little time it takes to tear down something that took a thousand years to build ... I didn't think the trees would come back so fast. I thought they might have waited a little longer.
Belgarath: It's been almost twenty-five centuries, Pol.
Polgara: Really? It seems like only last year.

— Queen of Sorcery, The Belgariad

"I wish I could trust you, I really do. But everything is in far too delicate a state at the moment. I think it was twenty thousand years ago, give or take, that I decided the little details weren't worth bothering with. Ended up being thrown in a volcano for my sloppiness. Let me tell you, Mr Dionysus, there's nothing like having to claw and scrape your way through a sea of molten lava to remind one to keep an eye on the details."

—Lotus, Monster

"My name is Harry August. My father is Rory Edmond Hulne, my mother died before I was born. This is my fourth life. I have lived and I have died many times before now, but it is always the same life. In a matter of weeks, a scandal is going to break in the US that will topple President Nixon. Capital punishment will be abolished in England, and Black September terrorists will open fire in Athens airport."

—The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

"I am a warrior of ages, Anasûrimbor... ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury."

—Cet'ingira, The Darkness that Comes Before

Live-Action TV

"I've lived for 400 years, who's to say I won't live 400 more?"

— Adam Monroe, Heroes, "Powerless."

"I taught Nero the tune, and together we watched Rome burn. I rode with Charlemagne, and taught Genghis Khan the art of war."

— LaCroix, Forever Knight

Amy: Then why am I here??
The Doctor: Because...because I can't see it anymore!
Amy: See what?
The Doctor: I'm nine hundred and seven. After a while, you just can't...see it.
Amy: See what?
The Doctor: Everything! I look at a star, and it's just a big ball of burning gas. And I know how it began, and I know how it ends, and I was probably there both times. After a while, everything is just stuff. That's the problem, you make all of space and time your back yard, and what do you have? A back yard. But you, you can see it. And when you see it, I see it.
Amy: And that's the only reason you took me with you?
The Doctor: There are worse reasons.
Amy: *snorts* I was certainly hoping so!

— Amy and the Doctor, Doctor Who

Video Games

"I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice."

— CEO Nwabudike Morgan, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri "MorganLink 3D-Vision Interview" (accompanying completion of the secret project; The Longevity Vaccine.)

"I'm something of an expert on Zarosian history, would you not say? [...] Remember that I KNOW where the secrets are buried. It's something of a cheat, as an archaeologist, to be sure."

— Azzanadra, RuneScape

Webcomics

Monkey: It's a good story, Master. But... if you were alive during the Multiversal War, you would be hundreds of years old.
Maya: Hm. Yes. It does seem implausible, doesn't it? Well, never mind.

— Kill Six Billion Demons, King of Swords 6-59

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