Our list of the best quotes from Netflix horror anthology television series created by Guillermo del Toro. Cabinet of Curiosities is a collection of eight sinister stories, told by some of today’s most revered horror creators.
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1. Lot 36'The older we get, the stranger.' - Nick Appleton (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
Eddie: Folks who don’t trust banks, who stash gold bricks inside of old couch cushions, fur coats in boxes. And for some reason, they leave it all behind. You know, the three Ds. Death, divorce, debt. Bad luck for them, good luck for you. But sometimes we roll up the door praying for a big score only to find a pile of s**t on the other side.
Eddie: We’re short and sweet today, starting with lot thirty-six. This is the one owned for decades by the same man. May he rest in peace up there, down there, or wherever he may be. I’m just covering all the bases.
Eddie: Let the bidding begin!
Bill: [as Nick bids] I got four bills. Four bills I got. Four hundred going once, twice, three times. Sold, to the shy man with the deep pockets.
2. Graveyard Rats
'Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.' - Masson (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
Masson: [to the grave robbers] Are you aware that the very foundations of society are built on the respectful interment of the dead? We stopped being apes when we dug our first graves. It was the birth of civilization. And it will be its end when we cease to honor those that came before.
Masson: The problem is the rats.
Hans Overfist: The rats?
Masson: Yes, the rats. They’ve infested my cemetery. The beasts steal the bodies before I have a chance to extract the items which constitute my stock-in-trade. Why, often is the time that after digging for hours in the dampness and the coldn of a miserable night, I reach my prize only to discover that it’s merely an empty box!
Hans Overfist: So you’s telling me rats is stealing bodies out of coffins.
Masson: What did I just say? It’s an epidemic.
Masson: And Salem’s rats are no ordinary rodents. No, they come from far-off lands. Have done for hundreds of years.
Masson: God in Heaven only knows what’s breeding down there.
Hans Overfist: They’re rats. Just kill them.
Masson: I have employed both guile and brute force to destroy these pests. Traps, poison, even gas. Nothing has stopped them. Their warrens are complex and well fortified. Not to mention I’m a certified claustrophobe. Small spaces are unbearable to me.
3. The Autopsy'This is one of those nightmare specials. The kind you never get to the bottom of.' - Sheriff Nate Craven (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
Sheriff Nate Craven: You’re so thin. They could use you for a whip. What’s your secret?
Dr. Carl Winters: Ah, you know, biology.
Dr. Carl Winters: Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?
Sheriff Nate Craven: What did they say in Montague?
Dr. Carl Winters: Not too much. Ten men dead.
Sheriff Nate Craven: Nine men. And one inhuman son of a b**ch. What would you call a man who…
Dr. Carl Winters: As bad as that?
'We're all on the same conveyor belt. Some of us fall off a bit sooner than the rest, but we're all heading for the same destination.' - Dr. Carl Winters (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
Sheriff Nate Craven: I think I’m cursed.
Dr. Carl Winters: Cursed?
Sheriff Nate Craven: Well, for laxity and uselessness. The innocent get punished, and everything is just dust. I think I’m cursed by the Lord. I truly do.
Dr. Carl Winters: Nate, I’ve known you forty years. From the bottom of my heart, you’re not that special. That’s ego. Who are you to claim special qualities of sin from the rest of us? If you’re cursed, we’re all cursed. And I meant that in the nicest possible way.
4. The Outside
'True acceptance, harmony, peace, and divinity. All that stuff is a lie. We all just want to be good looking. - Alo Glo Man (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
Gina: I don’t get it. Twenty-five grand on liposuction, she’s still eating donuts. I mean, hello? It’s one or the other, sweetheart.
Gina: When Peter leaves me, I’m going to cut off his balls. I’m going to take the house, half his retirement, and he is going to be eating frozen dinners and Viagra trying to keep up with his new girlfriend.
'Men can be fat, and hairy, and ugly, and impolite, and old, and nobody cares.' - Stacey (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
Stacey: [after Gina invites her to her party] It’s just women, you know? It takes a while for certain women to invite someone like me.
Keith: Oh, what do you mean, “someone like you”?
Stacey: You know, I’m just me. I don’t match.
Keith: Yeah. And thank God you don’t, Stace.
'It gets worse before it gets better.' - Stacey (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
Stacey: [referring to Gina] She invited me to her Secret Santa, and I’m just dying to see the inside of her house. I bet it’s magnificent. I bet it’s like a catalog. I mean, her whole life is like a catalog. She’s got the most beautiful skin, and her hair is always so shiny. And she could walk into a room and make friends with anyone, you know? Imagine that.
Keith: You walked into a room and made friends with me, didn’t you?
'Side effects may include change of mood, stiff joints, hallucinations, fear of intimacy, internal emptiness, lack of ambition, lack of individualization, lack of independent thought and opinion. But it's all worth it.' Click To Tweet
Kathy: And that is the upside of getting divorced. Getting away from that boring little d**k I was married to.
5. Pickman’s Model
'Suffering is living. We cannot let sympathy, or altruism shield us from finding the truths of this world.' - Richard Upton Pickman (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
William Thurber: I’d say you fellas could use a little of the new kid’s imagination.
Joe Minot: New kid? Pickman? That guy’s got to be at least eighty years-old. And from what I hear, he’s a wet fish.
Smithfield: [referring to Pickman] If his piece today was any indication, he won’t make it at Miskatonic. I mean, the entire point of the class is to draw what you see, not rotting flesh.
Joe Minot: Perhaps that is what he saw.
'Tradition is important. It endures. But what is art in this modern world without truth? A little risk?' - William Thurber (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
William Thurber: [to Pickerman] So do you do this kind of thing a lot? Haunt cemeteries in the dead of night?
Richard Upton Pickman: Oh, I’m not very interested in prizes.
William Thurber: Then what are you interested in, Dickie?
'Life can't always be beautiful.' - Rebecca (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
William Thurber: [referring to Pickerman’s drawings] These are powerful.
Richard Upton Pickman: The darkness. The ugliness. The corruption. Suffering is living. We cannot let sympathy, or altruism shield us from finding the truths of this world.
'It's the world that's mad. That's what breeds fear. Knowing what lurks in the darkness. Knowing where fear lives.' - Richard Upton Pickman (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
6. Dreams in the Witch House'What I've done cannot be undone.' - Jenkins Brown (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
Jenkins Brown: This is a fable about love and life. The story of two fellas, myself and myself. But don’t you worry, I’ll help you figure it out, and I promise you a happy ending.
Epperley Gilman: It’s coming.
Young Walter Gilman: What do you mean? Who’s coming?
Epperley Gilman: The ghosts. I don’t want to go with them. I don’t want to go.
Young Walter Gilman: Listen to me, okay, you’re not going anywhere. I won’t let you.
Epperley Gilman: Where am I? What’s happening? Walt? Am I…
Young Walter Gilman: A ghost!
Walter Gilman: I know the other side is real. I’ve seen it. But how am I ever supposed to prove that to the masses?
7. The Viewing
'Everyone has two lives, and the second life begins the moment you realize that, all along, you only had one.' - Lionel Lassiter (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
Charlotte Xie: You guys are here for the viewing, right?
Targ Reinhhard: Indeed, we are gathered for the viewing.
Guy Landon: Yeah. So far, we’ve established the three of us have been on late-night talk shows. What about you?
Charlotte Xie: Me? Yeah, I have. That’s weird.
'Science tells us that you can never truly know the future state of a particle.' - Charlotte Xie (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
Targ Reinhhard: But even I cannot pierce the veil of secrecy surrounding our host.
Guy Landon: Really? That’s a little dramatic. There’s plenty of rich, powerful people that nobody knows about.
Targ Reinhhard: Yes, but there was a time when everyone knew everything about him. Surely men like ourselves, accustomed to being in the public spotlight, know how difficult it is to retreat from glory.
Guy Landon: Speak for yourself.
'There's a void inside of me, you, everyone. An endless abyss. And everything you collect, every success, everything you take to shrink that void down, none of it works. It's like a black hole.' - (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
Charlotte Xie: I’m an astrophysicist.
Randall Roth: Maybe this is a dumb question, but where does someone like you stand on horoscopes?
Charlotte Xie: If I’m honest with myself, I’d say they’re not for me.
Randall Roth: Very Capricorn of you.
Targ Reinhhard: Where should we sit?
Hector: By your favorite drink, of course.
8. The Murmuring'If there is a God, he certainly is a very cruel one.' (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
Nancy Bradley: To those unfamiliar with the dunlin, it would appear to be an unremarkable bird. But to those familiar with its breathtaking flight patterns, known as murmurations, this species is a miracle of nature. And a never-ending source of mystery.
Nancy Bradley: We are not entirely convinced there’s anything as mystical as bird mind-reading going on. But we are entirely devoted to finding out answers.
'They roll like a drunken fingerprint across the sky.' - Edgar Bradley (Cabinet of Curiosities) Click To Tweet
Mr. Montague: What about you, Mrs. Bradley? What do you love most about birds?
Nancy Bradley: Oh. Their freedom. Who wouldn’t want to lift off and fly away from the world like that sometimes?
Edgar Bradley: What are you doing here in the gloom? You’ll ruin your eyes.
Nancy Bradley: They’re already ruined.
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