Robert Neville Quotes

“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.”

“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.”