You walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads to the future. Not a future that will be but one that might be. This is not a new world. It is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator that has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements. Technological advances and the more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the superstates that preceded it, it has one iron rule; logic is an enemy and truth is a menace. This is Mr. Romney Wordsworth, in his last 48 hours on earth. He is a citizen of the state but will soon have to be eliminated, because he is built out of flesh, and because he has a mind. Mr. Romney Wordsworth, who will draw his last breaths, in the Twilight Zone.
S2 E29The Obsolete Man
I am a librarian, sir. That is my occupation. That is my profession. If you people choose to call that obsolete...
A librarian. Having to do with books?
Yes sir, books.
And since there are no more books, there are no more libraries. Therefore,it follows there would be little use for the services of a librarian. Case in point,a minister would say his profession is preaching the word of God. And,of course, since the state has proven that there is no God, that would make the function of a minister somewhat academic as well.
There is a God!
You are in error, Mr. Wordsworth. There is no God. The state has proven that there is no God.
You cannot erase God with an edict!
You are obsolete, Mr. Wordsworth.
A lie. No man is obsolete
You have no function, Mr. Wordsworth. You're an anachronism. Like a ghost from another time.
I am nothing more than a reminder to you that you cannot destroy truth by burning pages.
You're a bug, Mr. Wordsworth. A crawling insect. An ugly misformed little creature who has no purpose here, no meaning.
I am a human being!
You're a Librarian, Mr. Wordsworth. A dealer in Books and two cent fines and pamphlets and closed stacks and the musty insides of a language factory that spews out meaningless words on an assembly line. Words, Mr. Wordsworth, that have no substance and no dimension like air, like the wind,like a vacuum that you make believe has an existence by scribbling index numbers on little cards!
I don't care. I tell you, I don't care! I am a human being! And if I speak one thought aloud, that thought lives, even after I've been shoveled into my grave!
Delusions, Mr. Wordsworth. Delusions that you inject into your veins with printer's ink. The narcotics that you call literature. The Bible, poetry, essays of all kind an opiate to make you think you have a strength when you have no strength at all! You have nothing but spindly limbs and a dream and the state has no use for your kind!
I am a librarian, sir. That is my occupation, and my profession. If you people choose to call that obsolete.....
Request clarification of the term.
Yes, Mister Wordsworth, the term "You People," do you make reference to The State?
I make reference to The State.
And you persist in declaring your occupation as that of a librarian. Is that correct?
Yes, sir, that is correct.
(his voice sneering) A librarian! Having to do with books!
Yes sir, books.
And since there are no more books, there are no more libraries. Therefore, it follows there would be little use for the services of a librarian. Case in point: a minister would say his profession is preaching the word of God. And, since the State has proven that there is no God, that would make the function of a minister somewhat academic as well.
There is a God!
(The Chancellor is starting to show annoyance at Wordsworth)
You are in error, Mr. Wordsworth. There is no God. [grabbing loudspeaker] The State has proven that there is no God!
You cannot erase God with an edict!
You are Obsolete, Mr. Wordsworth.
A lie. No man is Obsolete.
You have no function, Mr. Wordsworth. You're an anachronism, like a ghost from another time.
I am nothing more than a reminder to you that you cannot destroy truth by burning pages.
You're a bug, Mr. Wordsworth. A crawling insect. An ugly misformed little creature who has no purpose here, no meaning.
I am a human being!
You're a Librarian, Mr. Wordsworth. A dealer in books and two-cent fines and pamphlets and closed stacks and the musty insides of a language factory that spews out meaningless words on an assembly line. Words, Mr. Wordsworth, that have no substance and no dimension. Like air, like the wind, like a vacuum that you make believe has an existence by scribbling index numbers on little cards!
I don't care! I am a human being! And if I speak one thought aloud, that thought lives, even after I've been shoveled into my grave!
Delusions, Mr. Wordsworth. Delusions that you inject into your veins with printer's ink. The narcotics that you call literature. The Bible, poetry, essays of all kind an opiate to make you think you have strength when you have no strength at all! You have nothing but spindly limbs and a spindly dream. The State has no use for your kind!
[The Chancellor has just escaped the bomb that destroyed Wordsworth's quarters; now he enters the hall of judgment where our story began]
[speaking as the new Chancellor] Stand where you are. No further. You have been removed from office; the field investigators have declared you Obsolete.
[The former Chancellor stares incredulously]
Obsolete?
You have disgraced the State, you have proven yourself a coward, you have therefore no function. You are Obsolete.
But I'm not. I'm not Obsolete.
You are Obsolete!
Obsolete! Obsolete!
YOU ARE OBSOLETE!
Obsolete! Obsolete! Obsolete! Obsolete! Obsolete! Obsolete!
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.
[The Subaltern snaps his fingers. A guard slowly walks up to the Chancellor, who tries to run, but he finds one side of the crowd rising against him, he goes in the opposite direction, and the same happens, he looks desperately around]
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]
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.
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.
S3 E1Two
This is a jungle, a monument built by nature honoring disuse, commemorating a few years of nature being left to its own devices. But it's another kind of jungle, the kind that comes in the aftermath of man's battles against himself. Hardly an important battle, not a Gettysburg or a Marne or an Iwo Jima. More like one insignificant corner patch in the crazy quilt of combat. But it was enough to end the existence of this little city. It's been five years since a human being walked these streets. This is the first day of the sixth year, as man used to measure time. The time? Perhaps a hundred years from now. Or sooner. Or perhaps it's already happened two million years ago. The place? The signposts are in English so that we may read them more easily, but the place is the Twilight Zone.
This has been a love story about two lonely people who found each other in the Twilight Zone.
S3 E2The Arrival
This object, should any of you have lived underground for the better parts of your lives and never had occasion to look toward the sky, is an airplane, its official designation a DC-3. We offer this rather obvious comment because this particular airplane, the one you're looking at, is a freak. Now, most airplanes take off and land as per scheduled. On rare occasions they crash. But all airplanes can be counted on doing one or the other. Now, yesterday morning this particular airplane ceased to be just a commercial carrier. As of its arrival it became an enigma, a seven-ton puzzle made out of aluminum, steel, wire and a few thousand other component parts, none of which add up to the right thing. In just a moment, we're going to show you the tail end of its history. We're going to give you ninety percent of the jigsaw pieces and you and Mr. Sheckly here of the Federal Aviation Agency will assume the problem of putting them together along with finding the missing pieces. This we offer as an evening's hobby, a little extracurricular diversion which is really the national pastime in the Twilight Zone.
Picture of a man with an Achilles' heel, a mystery that landed in his life and then turned into a heavy weight, dragged across the years to ultimately take the form of an illusion. Now, that's the clinical answer that they put on the tag as they take him away. But if you choose to think that the explanation has to do with an airborne Flying Dutchman, a ghost ship on a fog-enshrouded night on a flight that never ends, then you're doing your business in an old stand in the Twilight Zone.
S3 E3The Shelter
Grace...now, if it is a bomb, there's no assurance it'll land near us. And if it doesn't--
But if it does, Bill, New York is only forty miles away. And New York's going to get it. We know that. So we'll get it too. All of it. The poison, the radiation, the whole mess. We'll get it.
We'll be in a shelter, Grace, and with any luck at all, we'll survive. We've got food and water enough to last us for two weeks. Maybe even longer if we use it wisely.
Then what, Bill? Then what? We crawl out of here like gofers to tip-toe through all that rubble up above? The rubble and the ruin and the bodies of our friends? Bill, why is it so necessary to survive? What's the good of it? [begins to sob] Wouldn't it...just be...better and easier...just quicker if we...just...
[calls from the other room] Got the tools, Pa. Anything else you need from out here?
Grace...that's why we have to survive. That's the reason. He may only inherit rubble now, but he's twelve years old. He's only twelve years old, Grace.
We could throw a nice big block party, just like old times! Anything to get back to normal! Right, Bill?
Normal? ...I don't know what normal is. I thought I did once; I don't anymore.
Oh, we'll pay for all the damages, Bill.
Damages? I wonder...if any of us has any idea what those "damages" really are. Maybe one of them was finding out what we're really like when we're "normal." The kind of people we are, just underneath the skin--and I mean all of us--a lot of naked, wild animals who put such a price on staying alive that they'll claw their own neighbors to death just for the privilege! We were spared a bomb tonight, but I wonder...if we weren't destroyed even without it.
What you're about to watch is a nightmare. It is not meant to be prophetic, it need not happen. It's the fervent and urgent prayer of all men of good will that it never shall happen. But in this place, in this moment, it does happen. This is the Twilight Zone.
We could have a block party tomorrow night or something. A big celebration!
Hey, there's an idea! A block party! Anything to get back to normal, huh?
Normal? I don't know. I don't know what normal is. I thought I did once. I don't anymore.
I told you we'd pay for the damages, Bill.
Damages? I wonder. I wonder if any of us has any idea what those "damages" really are. Maybe one of them is finding out what we're really like when we're "normal." The kind of people we are, just underneath the skin. I mean all of us. A lot of primal, savage animals...who put such a price on staying alive that they'll claw their own friends to ribbons, trample their own neighbors into the ground just for that privilege! We were spared a bomb tonight, but I wonder...I wonder if we weren't destroyed even without it.
No moral, no message, no prophetic tract. Just a simple statement of fact. For civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized. Tonight's very small exercise in logic from the Twilight Zone.
S3 E4The Passersby
This road is the afterwards of the Civil War. It began at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and ended at a place called Appomattox. It's littered with the residue of broken battles and shattered dreams. In just a moment, you will enter a strange province that knows neither North nor South, a place we call the Twilight Zone.
Incident on a dirt road during the month of April, the year 1865. As we've already pointed out, it's a road that won't be found on a map, but it's one of many that lead in and out of the Twilight Zone.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's The Twilight Zone (1959) pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.