Rod Serling quotes from The Twilight Zone (1959)

Rod Serling

Seconds, minutes, hours. They crawl by on hands and knees for Mr. Henry Bemis, who looks for a spark in the ashes of a dead world. A telephone connected to nothingness. A neighborhood bar, a movie, a baseball diamond, a hardware store, the mailbox of what was his house and is now a rubble. They lie at his feet as battered monuments to what was, but is no more.

Henry Bemis

Helen? Helen! Where are you?

Rod Serling

Mr. Henry Bemis on an eight-hour tour of a graveyard.

Rod Serling

We hope you enjoyed tonight's romantic story on the Twilight Zone. At the same time we want you to realize that it was of course purely fictional. In real life such ridiculous nonsense could never-

Rod...you shouldn't...you shouldn't say such things as "nonsense" and "ridiculous".

Rod Serling

Well, that's the way it goes.

You pulled the body out?

Yeah. It's funny. They usually float.

What do you mean usually?

Well, he was on the bottom. He hadn't come up. He wasn't weighted either. There was nothing to hold him down.

Huh.

His eyes were open. He looked scared, like something had been chasing him or something. The neighbors said that he'd been shouting and running around last night. I wonder what it was that could've scared him.

Whatever it was, it's a little item he took along with him.

Yeah. Maybe he was drunk, imagining things.

Maybe.

Could be he had a heart attack or something.

Could be. Could just be.

Rod Serling

Yes, it could just be. It could just be that Mr. Bartlett Finchley succumbed from a heart attack and a set of delusions. It could just be that he was tormented by an imagination as sharp as his wit and as pointed as his dislikes. But as perceived by those attending, this is one explanation that has left the premises with the deceased. Look for it filed under 'M' for machines in the Twilight Zone.

[speaking as the new Chancellor] Stand where you are. No further. You have been removed from office; the field investigators have declared you Obsolete.

Chancellor

Obsolete?

You have disgraced the State, you have proven yourself a coward, you have therefore no function. You are Obsolete.

Chancellor

But I'm not. I'm not Obsolete.

You are Obsolete!

Obsolete! Obsolete!

YOU ARE OBSOLETE!

Obsolete! Obsolete! Obsolete! Obsolete! Obsolete! Obsolete!

Chancellor

You're making a terrible mistake. A tragic mistake! I'm not Obsolete! I work for the State, I help the State! I help give the State its strength! How can you call me Obsolete!? HOW CAN YOU?! [Silence fills the chamber] Please, I'm not Obsolete.

Chancellor

Please... please, I'm not obsolete. I have a function, I have a purpose. Please... I want to serve the State, please! Please, no! I'm not obsolete! No, no, I- I- please, please, I'm not- I'm not obsolete, no! I want to serve the State... Please! Please! NO! I want to serve the State! Please! [the growling jurors close in on the ex-Chancellor, who breaks away with a yell and is chased across the room to the new Subaltern's seat] PLEASE, I'M- I'M NOT OBSOLETE!!! [He is grabbed, pulled down the length of the table, and dragged off to be killed as he screams]

Rod Serling

The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so was the State, the entity he worshiped. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that state is obsolete. A case to be filed under "M" for "mankind" - in the Twilight Zone.

Rod Serling

The Chancellor, the late Chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete. A case to be filed under "M" for "Mankind" - in The Twilight Zone.

Rod Serling

Jesse Cardiff, pool shark, the best on Randolph Street, who will soon learn that trying to be the best at anything carries its own special risk in or out of the Twilight Zone.

Nerve? You mean insanity! Risking my life on a game of pool?

Someone has to keep the flame. Someone has to weed out those who haven't got what it takes. Y'see, the champions, the legends... they serve as a purpose, a challenge, an incentive.

I don't need a challenge!

Everyone needs a challenge, Jesse. Someone great out of the past to say, "Match what I've done, boy, and make it better." That's true in all walks of life.

I take them as I find them. To you, pool is not a nice, friendly game. It's a win-at-any-price affair. I acted accordingly

Now, I'm just a pool-player. There’s probably no less important thing on the face of the Earth. But mark this in your pocketbook: I'm the best. It's a proud thing to be the best at anything.

Wait a minute, Jesse. Before you shoot, think of this. Shoot that ball, and you may win more than what you bargained for.

What happened?

Bill

I pulled you out. Half of you was still here.

You mean to say you had a hold of me all this time?

Bill

That's right.

Oh, Bill. You know I didn't even feel you? Say, listen, why didn't you want me to reach in there?

Bill

And how come I kept telling you to hurry?

Yeah.

Bill

[bangs on the wall four times] That's why. It was closing up all the time you were in there. Another few seconds and half of you would've been here and the other half...

Rod Serling

The other half where? The fourth dimension? The fifth? Perhaps. They never found the answer. Despite a battery of research physicists equipped with every device known to man, electronic and otherwise, no result was ever achieved, except perhaps a little more respect for and uncertainty about the mechanisms of the Twilight Zone.

Four o' clock, Pete. That's when we'll make it occur. We'll make it occur at four o'clock. At that moment, at that precise moment, we shall...destroy evil. This is both my charge and my obligation, Pete: to destroy evil. And we shall do it at four o'clock. I'm not quite sure of the method yet, but that will come to me. It will come to me assuredly and it will be...a revelation. It will be the exploration of immorality, the exordium of the end. Four o'clock, Pete. That's when we'll make it happen, Pete, whatever form I choose. Four o'clock.

Rod Serling

That's Oliver Crangle, a dealer in petulance and poison. He's rather arbitrarily chosen four o'clock as his personal Gotterdammerung, and we are about to watch the metamorphosis of a twisted fanatic, poisoned by the gangrene of prejudice, to the status of avenging angel, upright and omniscient, dedicated and fearsome. Whatever your clocks say, it's four o'clock - and wherever you are, it happens to be the Twilight Zone.

It's alright now, darling.

I know. But I'm the only one who does know...right now.

Rod Serling

The flight of Mr. Wilson has ended now, a flight not only from point A to point B, but also from the fear of recurring mental breakdown. Mr. Wilson has that fear no longer, though, for the moment, he is, as he said, alone in this assurance. Happily, his conviction will not remain isolated too much longer, for happily, tangible manifestation is very often left as evidence of trespass, even from so intangible a quarter as the Twilight Zone.

Well, you see, Flora? As you get older, see how wise you get?

Rod Serling

It happens to be a fact: as one gets older, one does get wiser. If you don't believe it, ask Flora. Ask her any day of the ensuing weeks of her life, as she takes notes during the coming years and realizes that the worm has turned - youth has taken over. It's simply the way the calendar crumbles... in the Twilight Zone.