Richard Matheson Quotes

“When you sleep, your dream world is as real to you as life, isn’t it?”

“Heaven would never be heaven without you.”

“If men only felt about death as they do about sleep, all terrors would cease. . . Men sleep contentedly, assured that they will wake the following morning. They should feel the same about their lives.”

“Failures plagued me. Things I had omitted or ignored, neglected. What I should have given and hadn’t. I felt the biting pang of every unfulfillment.”

“Thank you...for gracing my life with your lovely presence, for adding the sweet measure of your soul to my existence.”

“What had only been imagination in life, now became tangible, each fantasy a full reality. I lived them all—while, at the same time, standing to the side, a witness to their, often, intimate squalor. A witness cursed with total objectivity.”

“Even though they fought, their fighting never turned them against each other. It always ended with them embracing and kissing, smiling, laughing.”

“That which you believe becomes your world.”

“Suicide only precipitates a darker continuation of the same conditions from which escape was sought. A condition under circumstances so much more painful.”

“When matter is put aside, all creation becomes exclusively mental, that’s all.”

“It’s a time when men and women come to know what they truly are. A time of purging.” I’d been looking at the ceiling as he spoke. At his final words, I turned to face him in surprise. “Is that what the Catholics mean by purgatory?” “In essence.” He nodded. “A period during which each soul is cleansed by a self-imposed recognition of past deeds—and misdeeds.”

“Each memory was brought to life before me and within me. I could not avoid them. Neither could I rationalize, explain away. I could only re-experience with total cognizance, unprotected by pretense.”

“…They think of suicide as a quick route to oblivion, an escape. Far from it. It merely alters a person from one form to another. Nothing can destroy the spirit.

“All of us have a path to follow and the path begins on earth.”

“Everything is mental,”

“Anyone who couldn’t understand that what’s important is a man’s soul, not the color of his skin, would never be content here.”

“People are not punished for their deeds but by them”

“What condemnation could possibly be more harsh than one’s own, when self-pretense is no longer possible?”

“There we will, I pray, remain and learn and grow until the time when we will rise together to the ultimate heights, changing in appearance but never in devotion, sharing the transcendent glory of our love through all eternity.”

“Not only did I rediscover every experience of my life, I had to live each unfulfilled desire as well—as though they’d been fulfilled. I saw that what transpires in the mind is just as real as any flesh and blood occurrence

“On those cloudy days, Robert Neville was never sure when sunset came, and sometimes they were in the streets before he could get back.”

“Horror he had adjusted to. But monotony was the greater obstacle, and he realized it now, understood it at long last.”

“He thought about that visionary lady. To die, he thought, never knowing the fierce joy and attendant comfort of a loved one’s embrace. To sink into that hideous coma, to sink then into death and, perhaps, return to sterile, awful wanderings. All without knowing what it was to love and be loved. That was a tragedy more terrible than becoming a vampire.”

“Something broke in Neville’s throat. He sat there silently while tears ran slowly down his cheeks. In a week the dog was dead.”

“In a way we’re like a revolutionary group-repossessing society by violence. It’s inevitable. Violence is no stranger to you. You’ve killed. Many times.”

“That’s exactly why we’re killing... to survive. We can’t allow the dead to exist beside the living. Their brains are impaired, they exist for only one purpose. They have to be destroyed.”

“After the first few weeks of building up intense hope about the dog, it had slowly dawned on him that intense hope was not the answer and never had been. In a world of monotonous horror there could be no salvation in wild dreaming.”

“Why not? His mind plodded on. Why go through all this complexity when a flung-open door and a few steps would end it all.”

“He felt himself trembling without control and he wanted to cry out loudly to stop the runaway horse of his brain. He had to find something! He raged in his mind. I won’t let it go!”

“He checked the oil, water, battery water, and tires. Everything was in good condition. It usually was, because he took special care of the car. If it ever broke down so that he couldn’t get back to the house by sunset... Well, there was no point in even worrying about that. If it ever happened, that was the end.”

“He couldn’t stop laughing because it was more than laughter; it was release... Later he cried.”

“He was getting disgusted at this increasing nostalgic preoccupation with the past. It was a weakness, he knew, a weakness he could scarcely afford if he intended to go on.”

“He turned away from the bar as if he could leave the question there. But questions had no location; they could follow him around.”

“He had wandered through the streets for hours, neither knowing nor caring where he was going. All he knew was that he couldn’t return to the empty rooms of the house, couldn’t look at the things they had touched and held and known with him.”

“Once I thought they sang because everything was right with the world... I now know I was wrong. They sing because they’re feeble-minded.”

“After a while, though, even the deepest sorrow faltered, even the most penetrating despair lost its scalpel edge.”

“It was a moment in which he felt a desperate need to believe in a God that shepherded his own creations.”

“In spite of having lived with death all these years, in spite of having walked a tightrope of bare existence across an endless maw of death- in spite of that he couldn’t understand it.”

“Personal death still was a thing beyond comprehension.”

“A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.”

“The two families rode in silence through the deserted streets to the field he warned, ‘Remember not a word from any of you.’ The guard recognized him as the chief test pilot for the new spaceship. ‘My family and some friends are coming down to watch me take off,’ he told the guard.”

“He eyes were open several seconds before the alarm was supposed to go off. Beside him, his wife touched his arm. He knew what she was going to say. ‘Are we still going?’ she asked.”

“Wilson felt the pleasure of amusement. Whoever spoke was wrong, of course - as would be established soon enough when the engine was examined and they checked his wound more closely. Then they’d realize that he’d saved them all.”

“Impulsively, Wilson drew aside the curtain. He did not know, immediately, if he would survive. [...] Imprisoned in this swollen mass, his heart pulsed strickenly, threatening to burst its case as Wilson sat, paralyzed. Only inches away, separated from him by the thickness of a piece of glass, the man was staring at him.”

″‘Whoever she is,’ Hall went on, ‘she’ll push me. And I’ll fall. Hundreds of feet.’ [...] ‘Mr. Hall, this is my receptionist, Miss Thomas.’ ‘No,’ Hall cried. ‘It’s her. It is. And I know who she is now, God save me! I know who she is!‘”

″‘I know. It’s funny; when he came in, I told him to sit down. He did. And in less than two seconds he was asleep. Then he gave that yell you heard and . . .’ ‘Heart attack?’ ‘Yes.’ The psychiatrist rubbed his cheek thoughtfully, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I guess there are worse ways to go. At least he died peacefully.‘”

″‘Where are you?’ he asked. ‘I want to talk to you.’ Claws of ice clamped down on Miss Keene’s shuddering chest. She lay petrified, unable to cut off the sound of the man’s dull expressionless voice, asking, Where are you? I want to talk to you.‘”