Richard Matheson Quotes

The red hands had stopped at four-twenty-seven. He wondered what day they had stopped. As he descended the stairs with his armful of books, he wondered at just what moment the clock stopped. Had it been morning or night? Was it raining or shining? Was anyone there when it stopped? ~ Richard Matheson

Here we are, kiddies, sitting like a bug in a rug, snugly, surrounded by a battalion of bloodsuckers who wish no more than to sip freely of my bonded, 100 proof hemoglobin. Have a drink, men, this one's really on me. ~ Richard Matheson

He ignored that, beginning to suspect his mind of harboring an alien. Once he might have termed it conscience. Now it was only an annoyance. Morality, after all, had fallen with society. He was his own ethic. ~ Richard Matheson

In less than an hour I have to hold class for a group of idiot freshmen. And, on a desk in the living room, is a mountain of midterm examinations with essays I must suffer through, feeling my stomach turn at their paucity of intelligence, their adolescent phraseology. And all that tripe, all those miles of hideous prose, had been would into an eternal skein in his head. And there it sat unraveling into his own writing until he wondered if he could stand the thought of living anymore. I have digested the worst, he thought. Is it any wonder that I exude it piecemeal? ("Mad House") ~ Richard Matheson

If you go too far in fantasy and break the string of logic, and become nonsensical, someone will surely remind you of your dereliction ... Pound for pound, fantasy makes a tougher opponent for the creative person. ~ Richard Matheson

There was no sound but that of his shoes and the now senseless singing of birds. Once I thought they sang because everything was right with the world, Robert Neville thought. I know now I was wrong. They sing because they're feeble minded. ~ Richard Matheson

In a typical desperation for quick answers, easily understood, people had turned to primitive worship as the solution. With less than success. Not only had they died as quickly as the rest of the people, but they had died with terror in their hearts, with a mortal dread flowing in their very veins. ~ Richard Matheson

As for the writers who have influenced me they are many. Hemingway, Chandler, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, William Goldman, Flannery O'Conner, Carson McCullers, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and so many others. As a kid Kipling and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Robert E. Howard. ~ Joe R. Lansdale

When I was in middle school, the librarian there was secretary for a couple of groups of professional writers. She introduced me to Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson, and I became very friendly with them over a period of two years. Both of them were very generous with their time, guidance and advice. ~ Jonathan Maberry

... Not that it was unjust; not that the scales were forced out of balance. Where there had been good, it showed as clearly. Kindnesses, accomplishments, all those were present, too. ~ Richard Matheson

Everything seemed to flood over him then. It was as though he'd been the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, refusing to let the sea of reason in. ~ Richard Matheson

Morality, after all, had fallen with society. He was his own ethic. Makes ~ Richard Matheson

Quiet is here and all in me. ("Dress of White Silk") ~ Richard Matheson

But it was hard to keep his hands still. He could almost feel them twitching emphatically with his strong desire to reach out and stroke the dog's head. He had such a terrible yearning to love something again, and the dog was such a beautiful ugly dog. ~ Richard Matheson

I had to write about realistic circumstances. That's the way my brain works. And I think that gave me a sort of place in the field. ~ Richard Matheson

To look at the entire journey all at once was stupidity. You thought of it in segments; that was the only way. ~ Richard Matheson

As her analyst had told her: the deeper buried the distress, the further into the body it went. The digestive system was about as far as it could go to hide. ~ Richard Matheson

I think What Dreams May Come is the most important (read effective) book I've written. It has caused a number of readers to lose their fear of death the finest tribute any writer could receive ... Somewhere In Time is my favorite novel. ~ Richard Matheson

I stood there feeling nowhere. ~ Richard Matheson

It is my conviction that basic Reality is not all that perplexing. What seems difficult to assimilate are the manifold details of Reality, not its fundamental elements. ~ Richard Matheson

I could never write about strange kingdoms. I could never do 'Harry Potter' or anything like that. Even when I did science-fiction, I didn't write about foreign planets and distant futures. I certainly never did fantasies about trolls living under bridges. ~ Richard Matheson

Memory was such a worthless thing, really. Nothing it dealt with was attainable. It was concerned with phantom acts and feelings, with all that was uncapturable except in thought. It was without satisfaction. ~ Richard Matheson

Let this hell be our heaven. ~ Richard Matheson

He brushed his teeth carefully and used dental floss. He tried to take good care of his teeth because he was his own dentist now. Some things could go to pot, but not his health, he thought. Then why don't you stop pouring alcohol into yourself? he thought. Why don't you shut the hell up? he thought. ~ Richard Matheson

Patience, he told himself. Get yourself at least one virtue, anyway. ~ Richard Matheson

What would a Mohammedan vampire do if faced with a cross? ~ Richard Matheson

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. ~ Richard Matheson

God, how impossible life is without money. Nothing can ever overcome it, it's everything when it's anything. How can I write in peace with endless worries of money, money, money? ("Disappearing Act") ~ Richard Matheson

How shall I typify what happened? Passion play? Somewhat. Weird tale? Indubitably. Horror story? Pretty close. Grotesque melodrama? Certainly. Black comedy? Your point of view will determine that. Perhaps it was a combination of them all ...
So, to the story. A chronicle of greed and cruelty, horror and rapacity, sadism and murder.
Love, American style. ~ Richard Matheson

If you only knew the beauty which awaits you, Daniel. If you only knew how lovely are the realms which lie beyond this house. Would you keep yourself locked in a barren cell when all the beauties of the universe await you on the outside? ~ Richard Matheson

But it's so hard to make things simple and so easy to make them complicated. ~ Richard Matheson

I'm sitting in my office trying to squeeze a story from my head. It is that kind of morning when you feel like melting the typewriter into a bar of steel and clubbing yourself to death with it. ("Advance Notice") ~ Richard Matheson

Was the life force something more than words, a tangible, mind-controlling potency? Was nature somehow, in him, maintaining its spark against its own encroachments? ~ Richard Matheson

When Morton Silkline reached the hall, his customer was just flapping out a small window. Quite suddenly, Morton Silkline found the floor. ~ Richard Matheson

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. ~ Richard Matheson

They won't accept reasonable things with their minds but the fantastic things they'll swallow whole when their emotions are brought into play. Because the emotions have no limits on belief. The emotions will swallow anything - and they do. ~ Richard Matheson

I don the robe of hermit without a cry. ~ Richard Matheson

... Those who've marred their appearance in any way by their actions in life aren't forced to witness that marring. If they were, they'd become self-conscious and be unable to concentrate on improving themselves. ~ Richard Matheson

Everyone has a secret place in his mind. Otherwise relationships would be impossible. ~ Richard Matheson

Chris:I forgive you.
Annie: For killing my children and my sweet husband?
Chris: For being so wonderful a guy would choose hell over heaven just to be around you.
~ Richard Matheson

To me there is nothing that goes against nature. If it seems incomprehensible, it's only because we haven't been able to understand it yet. ~ Richard Matheson

God help me, he thought. God help all us poor wretches who could create and find we must lose our hearts for it because we cannot afford to spend our time at it. ("Mad House") ~ Richard Matheson

From that day on he learned to accept the
dungeon he existed in, neither seeking to escape with sudden derring-do nor beating his pate
bloody on its walls.
And, thus resigned, he returned to work. ~ Richard Matheson

No, by God, he had no intention of going on like a blind man, plodding down a path of brainless, fruitless existence until old age or accident took him. Either he found the answer or he ditched the whole mess, life included. ~ Richard Matheson

The cross. He held one in his hand, gold and shiny in the morning sun. This, too, drove the vampires away.
Why? Was there a logical answer, something he could accept without slipping on banana skins of mysticism? ~ Richard Matheson

There seemed no answer. He wasn't resigned to anything, he hadn't accepted or adjusted to the life he'd been forced into. Yet here he was, eight months after the plague's last victim, nine since he's spoken to another human being, ten since Virginia had died. Here he was with no future and a virtually hopeless present. Still plodding on.
Instinct? Or was he just stupid? Too unimaginative to destroy himself? Why hadn't he done it in the beginning when he was in the very depths? What had impelled him to enclose the house, install a freezer, a generator, an electric stove, a water tank, build a hothouse, a workbench, burn down the houses on each side of his, collect records and books and mountains of canned supplies, even - it was fantastic when you thought about it - even put a fancy mural on the wall?
Was the life force something more than words, a tangible, mind-controlling potency? Was nature somehow, in him, maintaining its spark against its own encroachments?
He closed his eyes. Why think, why reason? There was no answer. His continuance was an accident and an attendant bovinity. He was just too dumb to end it all, and that was about the size of it. ~ Richard Matheson

And, before science had caught up with the legend, the legend had swallowed science and everything. ~ Richard Matheson

That which you believe becomes your world. ~ Richard Matheson

Now when I die, I shall only be dead. ~ Richard Matheson

All of us have a path to follow and the path begins on earth. ~ Richard Matheson

What dreams you white-frocked kiddies have in the sanctified cloister of your laboratories. You can make yourself believe anything after a while. As long as you can make up a measurement for it. ~ Richard Matheson

Maybe I can do some writing then. The phrase made him sick. It had no meaning anymore. Like a word that is repeated until it becomes gibberish that sentence, for him, had been used to extinction. It sounded silly; like some bit of cliché from a soap opera. Hero saying in dramatic tones – Now, by God, maybe I can do some writing. Senseless. For a moment, though, he wondered if it was true. Now that she was leaving could he forget about her and really get some work done? Quit his job? Go somewhere and hold up in a cheap furnished room and write? You have $123.89 in the bank, his mind informed him. He pretended it was the only thing that kept him from it. But, far back in his mind, he wondered if he could write anything. Often the question threw itself at him when he was least expecting it. You have four hours every morning, the statement would rise like a menacing wraith. You have time to write many thousands of words. Why don't you? And the answer was always lost in a tangle of becauses and wells and endless reasons that he clung to like a drowning man at straws.("Mad House") ~ Richard Matheson

The day the library was shut down, he thought, some maiden librarian had moved down the room, pushing each chair against its table. Carefully, with a plodding precision that was the cachet of herself. ~ Richard Matheson

Because there was only one thing worse than dying. And that was knowing you were going to die. And where. And how. ("Death Ship") ~ Richard Matheson

You bastard, he thought, almost affectionately, watching the minuscule protoplasm fluttering on the slide. You dirty little bastard. ~ Richard Matheson

Desperate need to believe in a God that shepherded his own creations. ~ Richard Matheson

That's what was wrong with drinking too much. You became immune to drunken delights. There was no solace in liquor. Before you got happy, you collapsed. ~ Richard Matheson

Heaven would never be heaven without you. ~ Richard Matheson

How quickly one accepts the incredible if only one sees it enough. ~ Richard Matheson

Our world is in profound danger. Mankind must establish a set of positive values with which to secure its own survival.
This quest for enlightenment must begin now.
It is essential that all men and women become aware of what they are, why they are here on Earth and what they must do to preserve civilization before it is too late. ~ Richard Matheson

Chris Nielsen: Thank you for every kindness. Thank you for our children. For the first time I saw them. Thank you for being someone I was always proud to be with. For your guts, for your sweetness. For how you always looked, for how I always wanted to touch you. God, you were my life. I apologize for everytime I ever failed you. Especially this one ... ~ Richard Matheson

I hate it when something I've had published "inspires" some nut to imitate what I've written, or some teacher gets fired for having her students read one of my stories or novels. ~ Richard Matheson

Really now, search your soul, lovie-is the vampire so bad?
All he does is drink blood. ~ Richard Matheson

Normalcy was a majority concept, the standard of many and not the standard of just one man. ~ Richard Matheson

She doesn't have to even give me supper. Im not hungry anyway.
Im full. (Dress of White Silk) ~ Richard Matheson

Yet, despite all, it is a difficult thing to admit the existence of ghosts in a coldly factual world. One's very instincts rebel at the admission of such maddening possibility. For, once the initial step is made into the supernatural, there is no turning back, no knowing where the strange road leads except that it is quite unknown and quite terrible. ("Slaughter House") ~ Richard Matheson

Then he went into the dining room, consulting his watch. It was ten thirty already. More than half the morning was gone. More than half the time for sitting and trying to write the prose that would make people sit up and gasp. It happened that way more often now than he would even admit to himself. Sleeping late, making up errands, doing anything to forestall the terrible moment when he must sit down before his typewriter and try to wrench some harvest from the growing desert of his mind. ("Mad House") ~ Richard Matheson

A man could get used to anything if he had to. ~ Richard Matheson

(After death.) So few people who come across, possess awareness of any kind. All they bring along with them are worthless values. All they desire is continuation of what they had in life no matter how misguided or degraded ... Will those people ever progress, even with our help? ~ Richard Matheson

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. Self delusion was impossible, truth exposed in this blinding light. Nothing as I thought it had been. Nothing as I hoped it had been. Only as it had been. ~ Richard Matheson

He stood there for a moment looking around the silent room, shaking his head slowly. All these books, he thought, the residue of a planet's intellect, the scrapings of futile minds, the leftovers, the potpourri of artifacts that had no power to save men from perishing. ~ Richard Matheson

'I Am Legend' is quite unusual for its time. I just wanted to write a story about female boxers, and I couldn't get that going in my mind. I don't know exactly where the idea of just a man pitting himself against a robot boxer came from. ~ Richard Matheson

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. ~ Richard Matheson

As he stepped into the sunlight, he heard the seals barking loudly. They must have an audience. Slick glory seekers. Whiskered prima donnas. ~ Richard Matheson

It was a fairy tale, no fooling. It was unreality becoming real. This frightened her. Because people don't care for unreality becoming real. It pricks their well-fed minds, you see, with something like a hunger pang. They prefer the logical stuffiness of expectancy. It is only at certain times that they weaken, letting imagination in. That's the time to get them. ("The Disinheritors") ~ Richard Matheson

Everyone has something to hide. And if they couldn't hide it the world would be in a lot worse mess than it is. ~ Richard Matheson

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. ~ Richard Matheson

What condemnation could possibly be more harsh than one's own, when self-pretense is no longer possible? ~ Richard Matheson

We've forgotten much. How to struggle, how to rise to dizzy heights and sink to unparalleled depths. We no longer aspire to anything. Even the finer shades of despair are lost to us. We've ceased to be runners. We plod from structure to conveyance to employment and back again. We live within the boundaries that science has determined for us. The measuring stick is short and sweet. The full gamut of life is a brief, shadowy continuum that runs from gray to more gray. The rainbow is bleached. We hardly know how to doubt anymore. ("The Thing") ~ Richard Matheson

He hungered for peace and there was no peace. Terror was his only food. ~ Richard Matheson

The vampire was real. It was only that his true story had never been told. ~ Richard Matheson

Let the jagged edge of sobriety be now dulled. ~ Richard Matheson

Come out, Neville. ~ Richard Matheson

Goddamn your bones, that is the first step. ~ Richard Matheson

He fought because he actually felt safer fighting than running. ~ Richard Adams

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion. ~ Richard Dawkins

Richard grinned, very pleased with himself for having found a way to honor his mother, thwart his father, and serve God, while having a grand adventure at the same time. ~ Sharon Kay Penman

So when you try to squeeze light too much to make sure it's going in only a straight line, it refuses to cooperate and begins to spread out. ~ Richard Feynman

Global climate change has become entangled with the problem of invasive species. A warmer climate could allow some invaders to spread farther, while causing native organisms to go extinct in their traditional habitats and making room for invaders. ~ Richard Preston

The great improvement of the radio over the telephone is that it may be turned off without offending the speaker. ~ Richard Armour

The journey to happiness involves finding the courage to go down into ourselves and take responsibility for what's there: all of it. ~ Richard Rohr

The influence of mankind on climate is trivially true and numerically insignificant. ~ Richard Lindzen

I write about race in America in hopes of undermining the notion of race in America. ~ Richard Rodriguez

We hope to find more pieces of the puzzle which will shed light on the connection between this upright, walking ape, our early ancestor, and modern man. ~ Richard Leakey

They knew that Roosevelt and the Democratic party made a difference on them, on their quality of life issues, and they believed in that. But today it is completely different. ~ Richard M. Daley

The cultural Left has contributed to the formation of this politically useless unconscious not only by adopting "power" as the name of an invisible, ubiquitous, and malevolent presence, but by adopting ideals which nobody is yet able to imagine being actualized.

Among these ideals are participatory democracy and the end of capitalism. Power will pass to the people, the Sixties Left believed only when decisions are made by all those who may be affected by the results. This means, for example, that economic decisions will be made by stakeholders rather than by shareholders, and that entrepreneurship and markets will cease to play their present role. When they do, capitalism as we know it will have ended, and something new will have taken its place.

[…] Sixties leftists skipped lightly over all the questions which had been raised by the experience of non market economies in the so-called socialist countries. They seemed to be suggesting that once we were rid of both bureaucrats and entrepreneurs, "the people" would know how to handle competition from steel mills or textile factories in the developing world, price hikes on imported oil, and so on. But they never told us how "the people" would learn how to do this.

The cultural Left still skips over such questions. Doing so is a consequence of its preference for talking about "the system" rather than about specific social practices and specific changes in those practices. The rhetoric of this Le ~ Richard M. Rorty

I won't talk about what it was like in prison, except to say I'm glad I'm out and that I plan never to go back and to pay my taxes every day. ~ Richard Pryor

Would kill them at once, and blame it on Richard. If he found my sons alive, he ~ Philippa Gregory

If you don't understand how something
works, never mind: just give up and say God did it. You don't
know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don't understand
how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis
a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don't go
to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God. ~ Richard Dawkins

When a fresh-faced guy in a Chevy offered him a lift, Parker told him to go to hell. ~ Richard Stark