I don't believe terror and horror are just vicarious pleasures. I think it routes itself in your mind. It can affect your mind. Look at what's going on in the America today. The violence is just awful and I think a lot of has to do with what they are showing on the movies and television.
Richard MathesonIn a typical desperation for quick answers, easily understood, people had turned to primitive worship as the solution. With less than success. Not only had they died as quickly as the rest of the people, but they had died with terror in their hearts, with a mortal dread flowing in their very veins.
Richard MathesonEveryone has something to hide. And if they couldn't hide it the world would be in a lot worse mess than it is.
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 MathesonWhen I'm writing, especially when I'm writing in first person, I don't think about the characterization, or how they are going to express themselves, I just express my own approach to these things. I think most writers can never divorce themselves from their private lives and personas; they are the ones that are writing. And the more they remove themselves from their own persona, the more, perhaps, mechanical the work becomes.
Richard Matheson