Richard Matheson
41 quotes
Biography
Richard Burton Matheson was an American author and screenwriter, who worked primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres.
"That which you believe becomes your world."
"Heaven would never be heaven without you."
"Thank you...for gracing my life with your lovely presence, for adding the sweet measure of your soul to my existence."
"Let this hell be our heaven."
"Somewhere In Time is the story of a love which transcends time, What Dreams May Come is the story of a love which transcends death. ... I feel that they represent the best writing I have done in the novel form."
"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."
"My wife and child and I were on a camping trip and we stopped in Virginia City. In the Opera House, I saw a photograph of Maude Adams, the famous American actress. It was such a great photograph that creatively I fell in love with her. What if some guy did the same thing and could go back in time?"
"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."
"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."
"I think we’re yearning for something beyond the every day. And I will tell you that I don’t believe in the "supernatural," I believe in the "supernormal." To me there is nothing that goes against nature. If it seems incomprehensible, it’s because we haven’t been able to understand it yet."
"I have come to the final judgment that I am not a man any longer. I am a figment, a concoction, an overblown invention born of low-grade whiskey and high-grade journalistic distortion; of street and saloon gossip and dime-novel bombast."
"I can get pissed off very easily."
"X — This day when it had light mother called me a retch. You retch she said. I saw in her eyes the anger. I wonder what it is a retch."
"It is a secret but I have pulled the chain out of the wall. I can see out the little window all I like."
"I thought what father said. Oh god he said. And only eight."
"This day father hit in the chain again before it had light. I have to try to pull it out again. He said I was bad to come upstairs. He said never do that again or he would beat me hard. That hurts."
"The memory of you shall not perish with your untimely sepulture. You are, dear friend, not so much out of the game as playing on another field."
"I don’t know why I thought that would help but I called him. I’d have called anyone just to have another mind to help. Parents are useless beings when they’re afraid for their children."
"Sometimes he had indulged in daydreams about finding someone. More often, though, he had tried to adjust to what he sincerely believed was the inevitable — that he was actually the only one left in the world. At least in as much of the world as he could ever hope to know."
"I looked at all the people, feeling sorry for them. They were still subordinate to clock and calendar. Absolved of that, I stood becalmed."
"Well, why not? My dream woman has always been unavailable to me. What difference does a mere three-quarters of a century make?"
"Maurice Nicoll says all history is a living today. We are not enjoying one spark of life in a huge, dead waste. We are, instead, existing at one point "in a vast process of the living who still think and feel but are invisible to us.""
"I wish I were a boy again—unquestioning, with no need to analyze the moment. I had that feeling when I first stared at her photograph; I was emotionally overwhelmed. Now reality impinges. I’m pulled in two directions simultaneously—toward yearning and toward reason. It’s at times like this I hate the brain. It always builds more barriers than it can topple."
"I will try to be consistent, no longer oscillating like some planet that has lost its way. For, at long last, I have found my sun."
"What does that motto on the wall of your office say? That which you believe becomes your world."