Poe never wrote this. No record of it exists in his works, and the Poe credit spread mainly from a title card in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 (1987). The closest older wording we could find is film dialogue. In Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), the villain Count Saknussemm says, “I don’t sleep. I hate those little slices of death.” The popular “how I loathe them” version was possibly adapted from it; no source has been traced.
“Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them” Not by Edgar Allan Poe. The Poe credit spread from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 (1987); a near-identical line, "I don't sleep. I hate those little slices of death," is spoken by Count Saknussemm in Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959). — Quotle.info
Can you use it?
? We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.
Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool
In context
Evoking the themes of mortality and time. Theme: "Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The closest documented line
Work
Journey to the Center of the Earth (film)
Released
16 December 1959, 20th Century Fox
Speaker
Count Saknussemm (played by Thayer David)
Screenplay
Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch, from the novel by Jules Verne
I don’t sleep. I hate those little slices of death.
Film dialogue
Dialogue as given on Wikiquote’s page for the 1959 film. The popular “Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them” wording does not appear here. The Poe Museum relays a suggestion that it may derive from this line.
Wikiquote’s Poe page lists “Sleep. Those little slices of death. How I loathe them.” under Misattributed. It says the Poe credit comes “primarily” from a title card in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, and that there is no record of Poe ever saying it. Wikiquote: Edgar Allan Poe ↗
The Poe Museum in Richmond, writing in 2014, says it could not trace the quote, notes that the film credited it to Poe, and concludes that it is not a Poe quote. Poe Museum: Did Poe Really Say That? ↗
The same Poe Museum post points to the 1959 film Journey to the Center of the Earth as a possible source. Wikiquote transcribes Count Saknussemm’s line there as “I don’t sleep. I hate those little slices of death.” Wikiquote: Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959) ↗
In March 2014 a Wikiquote editor proposed listing the line as a false attribution, noting that it is “widely attributed to Poe, possibly because Nightmare on Elm Street 3 claimed so.” Wikiquote: Talk page ↗
The popular “how I loathe them” wording has no identified source, so we assert no copyright status for it. The closest documented line comes from a 1959 film (20th Century Fox), well after the pre-1931 public-domain cutoff, so it should not be treated as public domain. It is not a Poe text either, so Poe’s public-domain status does not cover it.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
How Poe got the credit
This line is pinned to Poe on quote sites, posters and social media. The attribution runs through two films and none of Poe’s own writing.
✕
Popular attributionEdgar Allan Poe Misattributed
No record of the line exists in Poe’s works. Wikiquote lists it under Misattributed, and the Poe Museum says it is not a Poe quote. Poe Museum ↗
~
Main popularizerA Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) Spread the credit
According to Wikiquote, the Poe attribution comes “primarily” from a title card in this film. That made a horror-franchise epigraph about sleep the main source for the “Poe” version. Wikiquote ↗
~
Closest older wordingJourney to the Center of the Earth (1959) Film dialogue
The villain Count Saknussemm says, “I don’t sleep. I hate those little slices of death.” The Poe Museum relays a suggestion from the blog World of Poe that the “Poe” line may come from this film. Wikiquote ↗Poe Museum ↗
✓Poe did not write it. The “slices of death” image appears as film dialogue in Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959) Wikiquote: 1959 film ↗, and the Poe credit spread from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 (1987). Wikiquote: Misattributed ↗
Context
Why it sticks to Poe
The line sounds like Poe: it is morbid, insomniac and a little theatrical, and it matches the popular image of him as a writer of death and sleepless nights. That fit is what makes an unsourced line easy to believe, and it is why Poe attracts so many lines he never wrote.
A Nightmare on Elm Street film is about characters who dare not fall asleep, so a Poe-credited epigraph about hating sleep gave the line a natural stage. Since then the “how I loathe them” version has been copied onto quote sites without any citation to a Poe work.
I don’t sleep. I hate those little slices of death. — Count Saknussemm, 1959
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1809–1849 · American poet, short-story writer and critic
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) wrote “The Raven” and tales of horror and detection, and his image as a poet of death and sleepless nights makes him a natural home for morbid lines he never wrote. This is one of them: it is not in his writings, and the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia, says it is not a Poe quote. The credit spread mainly from a title card in a 1987 horror film.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Cite this
Brackett, Charles, and Walter Reisch, screenplay. Journey to the Center of the Earth. Directed by Henry Levin. 20th Century Fox, 1959. Count Saknussemm: “I don’t sleep. I hate those little slices of death.” Popular variant misattributed to Edgar Allan Poe; see Wikiquote, “Edgar Allan Poe,” Misattributed.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them’?” Last verified 3 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/sleep-those-little-slices-of-death-how-i-loathe-them/