Robert Neville looked out over the new people of the earth. He knew he did not belong to them; he knew that, like the vampires, he was anathema and black terror to be destroyed. And, abruptly, the concept came, amusing to him even in his pain. ... Full circle. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.
Richard MathesonWe've forgotten much. How to struggle, how to rise to dizzy heights and sink to unparalleled depths. We no longer aspire to anything. Even the finer shades of despair are lost to us. We've ceased to be runners. We plod from structure to conveyance to employment and back again. We live within the boundaries that science has determined for us. The measuring stick is short and sweet. The full gamut of life is a brief, shadowy continuum that runs from gray to more gray. The rainbow is bleached. We hardly know how to doubt anymore. (โThe Thingโ)
Richard MathesonHe stood there for a moment looking around the silent room, shaking his head slowly. All these books, he thought, the residue of a planetโs intellect, the scrapings of futile minds, the leftovers, the potpourri of artifacts that had no power to save men from perishing.
Richard MathesonNot only did I rediscover every experience of my life, I had to live each unfulfilled desire as wellโas though theyโd been fulfilled. I saw that what transpires in the mind is just as real as any flesh and blood occurrence. What had only been imagination in life, now became tangible, each fantasy a full reality. I lived them allโwhile, at the same time, standing to the side, a witness to their, often, intimate squalor. A witness cursed with total objectivity.
Richard Matheson