It was a high ceilinged room with tall, large-panes windows. Apart from the doorway was the desk where book had been checked out in days when books w… - 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.

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.

Crossing your fingers, Neville? Knocking on wood?
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.
Makes a good excuse, doesn’t it, Neville? Oh, shut up.

Such thoughts were a hideous testimony to the world he had accepted; a world in which murder was easier than hope.

I thought what father said. Oh god he said. And only eight.