Bad writing Quote by Richard Matheson

““In less than an hour I have to hold class for a group of idiot freshmen. And, on a desk in the living room, is a mountain of midterm examinations with essays I must suffer through, feeling my stomach turn at their paucity of intelligence, their adolescent phraseology. And all that tripe, all those miles of hideous prose, had been would into an eternal skein in his head. And there it sat unraveling into his own writing until he wondered if he could stand the thought of living anymore. I have digested the worst, he thought. Is it any wonder that I exude it piecemeal? (“Mad House”)””

Richard Matheson

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“He thought about that visionary lady. To die, he thought, never knowing the fierce joy and attendant comfort of a loved one's embrace. To…

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“All right, little boy, he tried kidding himself, calm down now. Santa Claus is coming to town with all the nice answers. No longer…

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I think we're yearning for something beyond the every day. And I will tell you I don't believe in the supernatural, I believe in…

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Let the jagged edge of sobriety be now dulled.

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“It’s horrible," she said. He looked at her in surprise. Horrible? Wasn’t that odd? He hadn’t thought that for years. For him the word…

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In a world of monotonous horror there could be no salvation in wild dreaming. Horror he had adjusted to. But monotony was the greater obstacle, and he realized it now, understood it at long last. And understanding it seemed to give him a sort of quiet peace, a sense of having spread all the cards on his mental table, examined…

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There we will, I pray, remain and learn and grow until the time when we will rise together to the ultimate heights, changing in…

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“No, by God, he had no intention of going on like a blind man, plodding down a path of brainless, fruitless existence until old…

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Explore all 128 Richard Matheson quotes

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“He isn't a - well...eh." She made a face. "Well, yeah.”

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Good writers hate bad writing but hating bad writing doesn’t make you good. Writing badly does.

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A day of bad writing is always better than a day of no writing.

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“Is this a case of “Do as I say, not as I do?” The reader has a perfect right to ask the question, and I have a duty to provide an honest answer. Yes. It is. You need only look back through some of my own fiction to know that I’m just another ordinary sinner. I’ve been pretty good about…

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