Rod Serling quotes from The Twilight Zone (1959)

Rod Serling

Street scene. Summer. The present. Man on a sidewalk named Lew Bookman, age sixtyish. Occupation: pitchman. Lew Bookman, a fixture of the summer. A rather minor component to a hot July. A nondescript, commonplace little man whose life is a treadmill built out of sidewalks. In just a moment Lew Bookman will have to concern himself with survival. Because as of three-o-clock this hot July afternoon, he'll be stalked by...Mr. Death.

Rod Serling

Lewis J. Bookman, age sixtyish. Occupation: pitchman. 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. Couldn't happen you say? Probably not in most places, but it did happen...in the Twilight Zone.

Rod Serling

Martin Sloane, age thirty-six. Occupation: vice president, ad agency, in charge of media. This is not just a Sunday drive for Martin Sloane. He perhaps doesn't know it at the time, but it's an exodus. Somewhere up the road, he's looking for sanity. And somewhere up the road, he'll find something else.

Rod Serling

A man can think a lot of thoughts and walk a lot of pavements between afternoon and night. And to a man like Martin Sloane, 'til memory has suddenly become reality, a resolve can come just as clearly and inexorably as stars in the summer night. Martin Sloane is now back in time... and his resolve is to put in a claim... to the past.

Rod Serling

Witness Mr. Henry Bemis, a charter member in the fraternity of dreamers. A bookish little man whose passion is the printed page, but who is conspired against by a bank president and a wife and a world full of tongue-cluckers and the unrelenting hands of a clock. But in just a moment, Mr. Bemis will enter a world without bank presidents or wives or clocks or anything else. He'll have a world all to himself...without anyone.

Rod Serling

You're looking at Mr. Fred Renard, who carries on his shoulder a chip the size of the national debt. This is a sour man. A friendless man. A lonely man. A grasping, compulsive, nervous man. This is a man who has lived thirty-six undistinguished, meaningless, pointless, failure-laden years...and, who at this moment, looks for an escape. Any escape. Anyway, anything, anybody to get out of the rut. And this little old man...is just what Mr. Renard is waiting for.

Rod Serling

Street scene. Night. Traffic accident. Victim named Fred Renard, gentleman with a sour face, to whom contentment came with difficulty. Fred Renard, who took all that was needed...in the Twilight Zone.

Rod Serling

Now you make tracks, Mr. Correy. You move out and up like some kind of ghostly Billy club was tapping at your ankle and telling you that it was later than you think. You scrabble up rock hills and feel hot sand underneath your feet and, every now and then, take a look over your shoulder at a giant sun suspended in a dead and motionless sky like an unblinking eye that probes at the back of your head in a prolonged accusation. [pause] Mr. Correy, last remaining member of a doomed crew, keep moving. Make tracks Mr. Correy. Push up and push out, because if you stop... if you stop, maybe sanity will get you by the throat. Maybe realization will pry open your mind and the horror that you left down in the sand will seep in. Yeah, Mr. Correy, yeah, you better keep moving. That's the order of the moment: keep moving.

Rod Serling

Maple Street, USA. Late summer. A tree-lined little world of front porch gliders, barbecues, the laughter of children and the bell of an ice cream vendor. [pause] At the sound of the roar and the flash of light, it will be precisely 6:43 PM on Maple Street [roaring and dialogue] This is Maple Street on a late Saturday afternoon. Maple Street...in the last calm and reflective moment...before the monsters came.

Rod Serling

The home of Mr. Gregory West, one of America's most noted playwrights. The office of Mr. Gregory West. Mr. Gregory West—shy, quiet, and at the moment, very happy. Mary—warm, affectionate. [dialogue between Gregory and Mary before the camera pans to Victoria] And the final ingredient: Mrs. Gregory West.

Rod Serling

The prostrate form of Mr. David Ellington, scholar, seeker of truth and, regretably, finder of truth. A man who will shortly arise from his exhaustion to confront a problem that has tormented mankind since the beginning of time. A man who knocked on a door seeking sanctuary and found, instead, the outer edges of The Twilight Zone.

Rod Serling

Suspended in time and space for a moment, your introduction to Miss Janet Tyler, who lives in a very private world of darkness. A universe whose dimensions are the size, thickness, length of the swath of bandages that cover her face. In a moment we will go back into this room, and also in a moment we will look under those bandages. Keeping in mind of course that we are not to be surprised by what we see, for this isn't just a hospital, and this patient 307 is not just a woman. This happens to be the Twilight Zone, and Miss Janet Tyler, with you, is about to enter it.

Rod Serling

Now the questions that come to mind: "Where is this place and when is it?" "What kind of world where ugliness is the norm and beauty the deviation from that norm?" You want an answer? The answer is it doesn't make any difference because the old saying happens to be true. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In this year or a hundred years hence. On this planet or wherever there is human life, perhaps out amongst the stars. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Lesson to be learned in the Twilight Zone.

Rod Serling

The hand belongs to Mr. Don S. Carter, male member of a honeymoon team en route across the Ohio countryside to New York City. In one moment, they will be subjected to a gift most humans never receive in a lifetime. For one penny, they will be able to look into the future. The time is now, the place is a little diner in Ridgeview, Ohio, and what this young couple doesn't realize is that this town happens to lie on the outskirts of the Twilight Zone.

Rod Serling

This is one of the out-of-the-way places. The unvisited places. Bleak, wasted, dying. This is a farmhouse. Handmade, crude, a house without electricity or gas. A house untouched by progress. This is the woman who lives in the house. A woman who's been alone for many years. A strong, simple woman whose only problem, up until this moment, has been that of acquiring enough food to eat. A woman about to face terror, which is, even now, coming at her from the Twilight Zone.