# Quote — Richard Matheson, I Am Legend

> To his complete astonishment, he later found himself offering up a stumbling prayer that the dog would be protected. It was a moment in which he felt a desperate need to believe in a God that shepherded his own creations. But, even praying, he felt a twinge of self-reproach, and knew he might start mocking his own prayer at any second.
>
> Somehow, though, he managed to ignore his iconoclastic self and went on praying anyway. Because he wanted the dog, because he needed the dog.

- Author: [Richard Matheson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-matheson.md)
- Book: [I Am Legend](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-matheson/i-am-legend.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Matheson#I_Am_Legend_(1954)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-matheson/i-am-legend/to-his-complete

## More from this book

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-matheson/i-am-legend/robert-neville-looked.md)

> They were strange, the facts about them: their staying inside by day, their avoidance of garlic, their death by stake, their reputed fear of crosses, their supposed dread of mirrors.
>
> Take that last, now. According to legend, they were invisible in mirrors, but he knew that was untrue. As untrue as the belief that they transformed themselves into bats. That was a superstition that logic, plus observation had easily disposed of. ‘It was equally foolish to believe that they could transform themselves into wolves. Without a doubt there were vampire dogs; he had seen and heard them outside his house at night. But they were only dogs.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-matheson/i-am-legend/they-were-strange.md)

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-matheson/i-am-legend/sometimes-he-had.md)