At best you can hold death at bay, you can pretend it isn't there; but to deny it totally is a sickness. And I think that horror fiction is one of the ways to approach these problems, and, perversely perhaps, to enjoy a vicarious confrontation with them.

Perhaps a wiser eye than hers would be able to read tomorrow in tonight's stars, but where was the fun in that? It was better not to know. Better to be alive in the Here and the Now--in this bright, laughing moment--and let the Hours to come take care of themselves.

Richard Christian Matheson is a master of compression. He knows how to catch a moment in words and convey it straight to the reader's heart.

Gather experience... Look at what you should not look at. A feeling of anxiety is the sure and certain evidence that you should do this.

My feet are killing me." "I knew somebody who had feet like that. They'd walk all over him. Archie Kashanian was his name. He used to wake up with footprints all over his chest, all over his face. It was the death of him, finally.

I haven't even had a life I could call my own, and you're ready to slot me into the grand design. Well, I don't think I want to go. I want to be my own design.

You just have to trust your own madness.