Richard Matheson Quotes

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

Did you know, Robert, that, in extreme unction, the seven centers of the body — covering the vital organs — are anointed to assist the dying person to withdraw vitality from those organs in preparation for complete withdrawal through the silver cord? And absolution of the dead was established to make certain that the silver cord is severed and all etheric matter withdrawn from the body.

They sat there in the evening of the last day. And, though there was no actual point to it, they loved each other.

He was out hunting for Cortman. It had become a relaxing hobby, hunting for Cortman; one of the few diversions left to him.

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

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

Still alive, he thought, heart beating senselessly, veins running without point, bones and muscles and tissue all alive and functioning with no purpose at all.

After a while, though, even the deepest sorrow faltered, even the most penetrating despair lost its scalpel edge. The flagellant’s curse, he thought, to grow inured even to the whip.

Life is a risk; so is writing. You have to love it.

To me, I don't even think of life after death. To me, life after death and reincarnation are just slices of the pie. Life is a huge wheel and it goes around and around, and life after death is just a segment of that. It comes down to spiritual growth. I think that we keep coming back until we learn what we need to learn, until we get it right. I think we've all lived hundreds, maybe thousands of times. That which you think becomes your world. It's only when we're alive and in this world that we have the chance to progress. From the state of the world today, we haven't made much progress.

All through the years, I've had many interests. I always wanted to write a swashbuckler; I still do. I love Westerns. I wrote a western called "Journal of the Gun Years," which won the Golden Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. It had been written some time ago and rejected by every publisher, perhaps because I had been cast in the science fiction mold. I finished writing a combination western and horror story indigenous to the period. And horror takes many forms: Indians had their own superstitions based on things that they didn't understand. In a way, I like to be confusing by combining genres. I've always been fascinated by parapsychology, and I think that we've all lived before. In "The Path" I've explored that and a few other age-old questions like why are we here and what's our purpose in life.

George Romero filmed an homage to the book, and he called it Night of the Living Dead. Homage means I can make the picture and I don't have to pay you for your book. As a teen-ager I saw the movie "Dracula," and it occurred to me that if one vampire was scary, a whole world populated by vampires would be really scary.

I've always considered myself an offbeat writer. Out here in California they like to categorize, so I'm a science fiction writer. I wrote science fiction to break into the writing business. My love is fantasy. I wrote one of my early novels in four days sitting in a closet which I'd converted into an office, using an old Smith-Corona that my parents had given me for Christmas when I was 12.

When I first joined my local library, I read endlessly. I immediately headed for the fantasy section, fairy tales, you name it. As a teen-ager, I read every novel by Kenneth Roberts, who wrote historical novels about the Revolutionary War period. My mother used to read to me. Heidi was one of my childhood favorites.

I've been very fortunate throughout my career. And I've been lucky enough to have worked with some great and talented people, like Price and Serling. I was just a part of the whole phenomenon coming together. They were exciting times that bubbled over with energy for all those involved.