Quotes from Richard Matheson

To be half of one can only be a torment when the other half is gone.

Cornered again, Mr. Cook reluctantly made a third duplicate; then a fourth, a fifth. The city, albeit large, soon became thick with William O. Cooks. He would come upon himself at corners, discover himself asking himself for lights, end up, quite literally, beside himself.

All right, little boy, he tried kidding himself, calm down now. Santa Claus is coming to town with all the nice answers. No longer will you be a weird Robinson Crusoe, imprisoned on an island of night surrounded by oceans of death.

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

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.

Goddamn your bones, that is the first step.

He forgot everything, time and place; it was just the two of them together, needing each other, survivors of a black terror embracing because they had found each other.

The origin of the word "body" is the Anglo-Saxon "bodig" meaning abode. Which is what the physical body is, you see, Robert. A transient dwelling for the real self.

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

If I could die now, he thought; peacefully, gently, without a tremor or a crying out. If I could be with her. If I could believe I would be with her. His

Perhaps jungle life, despite physical danger, was a relaxing one. Surely it was free of the petty grievances, the disparate values of society. It was simple, devoid of artifice and ulcer-burning pressures.

But now, in the final hours, even hope had vanished. Yet he could smile. At a point without hope he had found contentment. He knew he had tried and there was nothing to be sorry for. And this was complete victory, because it was a victory over himself.

Death is a fascinating lure to men who can stand aside and watch it operate on someone else.

Toward the end of the plague, yellow journalism had spread a cancerous dread of vampires to all corners of the nation. He could remember himself the rash of pseudo-scientific articles that veiled an out-and-out fright campaign designed to sell papers. There was something grotesquely amusing in that; the frenetic attempt to sell papers while the world died. Not that all newspapers had done that. Those papers that had lived in honesty and integrity died the same way.

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.

No snow or sleet. What about people who like snow? This wouldn't be heaven to them.

Never bear a grudge, old fellow. If a stranger starts to rile you, kill him right away. That way you get it out of your blood, so to speak, and are not poisoned.

He knew he should burn up the paper plates and utensils too, and dust the furniture and wash out the sinks and the bathtub and toilet, and change the sheets and pillowcase on his bed; but he didn't feel like it. For he was a man and he was alone and these things had no importance to him.

Time had lost its multidimensional scope. There was only the present for Robert Neville; a present based on dayto-day survival, marked by neither heights of joy nor depths of despair. I am predominantly vegetable, he often thought to himself. That was the way he wanted it

Morality fell with society

They were completely devoted to each other. Except for us children, they seemed to have need for no one but each other. Not that they didn't see people. People liked them and wanted to see them, you know that; they were great friends with your Mom and Dad. But togetherness meant more to them than anything.

Fresh air, quiet, and the calming stimulus of the movement on the earth beneath the sky; that's why she loves to walk so much.

Why do you want me to stay?" she asked unhappily. He looked at her without a definite answer in his mind. Then he said, "Even if you are infected, I can't let you go out there. You don't know what they'd do to you." Her eyes closed. "I don't care," she said. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN "I don't understand it," he told her over supper.

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.