Quotes from Rod Serling

I don't think playing it safe constitutes a retreat, necessarily. In other words, I don't think if, by playing safe he means we are not going to delve into controversy, then if that's what he means he's quite right. I'm not going to delve into controversy. Somebody asked me the other day if this means that I'm going to be a meek conformist, and my answer is no. I'm just acting the role of a tired non-conformist.

It may be said with a degree of assurance that not everything that meets the eye is as it appears.

In eleven or twelve years of writing, Mike, I can lay claim to at least this: I have never written beneath myself. I have never written anything that I didn't want my name attached to. I have probed deeper in some scripts and I've been more successful in some than others. But all of them that have been on, you know, I'll take my lick. They're mine and that's the way I wanted them.

As long as they talk about you, you're not really dead, as long as they speak your name, you continue. A legend doesn't die, just because the man dies.

You see, we can feed the stomach with concentrates, we can supply microfilm for reading, recreation, even movies of a sort, we can pump oxygen in, and waste material out, but there's one thing we can't simulate. That's a very basic need. Man's hunger for companionship. The barrier of loneliness, that's one thing we haven't licked yet.

The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices—to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own for the children … and the children yet unborn. (a pause) And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to The Twilight Zone!

he's not a piece of meat you can job off the market by the pound. because, if you do,maish, if you do, you'll rot in hell.

A place . . . a time . . . where a man can live his life full measure.

I only wanted to tell you that this was the wonderful time for you. Don't let any of it go by without enjoying it. There won't be any more merry-go-rounds. No more cotton candy. No more band concerts. I only wanted to tell you, Martin, that this is the wonderful time. Now! Here! That's all. That's all I wanted to tell you.

Formerly, a fixture of the summer, formerly a rather minor component to a hot July, but throughout his life, a man beloved by the children, and therefore a most important man.

Never make the mistake of assuming the audience is any less intelligent than you are.

You gotta BELIEVE, Bolie!

And something inside the young man cracked. The small compartment in the back of his mind, where man closets his fears, ties them up, controls and commands them, broke open and they surged across brain and nerves and muscles—a nightmare flood in open rebellion.

A small footnote found in the court records of some parallel world. The name of Mitchell Chaplin, who served his sentence of invisibility and learned his lesson well. Too well. This time, however, he will wear his invisibility like a shield of glory. A shield forged in the very heart...of the Twilight Zone.

The crowd slowly dispersed in soft, whispering groups, voices muted by the fascination of death that all men carry with them in small pockets deep inside them.

No audience likes a writer's opinion thrust down their gullet as simply a tract. It has to be dramatized and made acceptably palatable within a dramatic form.

Trying to be the best at anything carries its own special risks, in or out of the Twilight Zone.

The cemetery, my dear. The repository of the deceased. The tomb … the vault … the crypt … the resting place … the ossuary. Dig? Boot Hill, baby." Pamela

The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices—to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own for the children … and the children yet unborn.

And what I further don't understand is how little you appreciate the nature of your departure. Think of all the poor souls who go in violent accidents. These are the nonprecognition victim. We are not permitted to forewarn them. You, Mr. Bookman, fall into the category of natural causes.

As he looked at his reflection in the dresser mirror, he felt that recurring surprise that the tall, attractive man staring back was he, and beyond that was the wonder that the image bore no real relationship to the man himself.

There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition.

Hollywood's a great place to live... if you're a grapefruit.

My favorite. "Every writer is a frustrated actor who recites his lines in the hidden auditorium of his skull." ? Rod Serling