Rod Serling
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.Collection: Science
Imagination... its limits are only those of the mind itself.Collection: Imagination
There is nothing in the dark that isn't there when the lights are on.
There are weapons that are simply thoughts. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy.
Some people possess talent, others are possessed by it. When that happens, a talent becomes a curse.
It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
It may be said with a degree of assurance that not everything that meets the eye is as it appears.
Every writer is a frustrated actor who recites his lines in the hidden auditorium of his skull.
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 who 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 a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like everyone of the super-states that preceded it - it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace.Collection: Iron
You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into… the Twilight Zone.Collection: Moving
Every Superstate has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and the truth is a menace.Collection: Iron
We're developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won't be able to think.Collection: Thinking
For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.Collection: Children
If you write, fix pipes, grade papers, lay bricks or drive a taxi - do it with a sense of pride. And do it the best you know how. Be cognizant and sympathetic to the guy alongside, because he wants a place in the sun, too. And always...always look past his color, his creed, his religion and the shape of his ears. Look for the whole person. Judge him as the whole person.Collection: Writing
Being like everybody is the same as being nobody.Collection: Twilight Zone
In almost everything I've written there is a thread of this: man's seemingly palpable need to dislike someone other than himself.Collection: Men
Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man, that state is obsolete.Collection: Men
I found that it was all right to have Martians saying things Democrats and Republicans could never say.Collection: Republican
This highway leads to the shadowy tip of reality: you're on a through route to the land of the different, the bizarre, the unexplainable...Go as far as you like on this road. Its limits are only those of mind itself. Ladies and Gentlemen, you're entering the wondrous dimension of imagination. . . Next stop The Twilight Zone.Collection: Twilight
Someplace between apathy and anarchy is the stance of the thinking human being; he does embrace a cause, he does take a position, and can't allow it to become business as usual. Humanity is our business.Collection: Thinking
You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead—your next stop, the Twilight Zone.Collection: Twilight
All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes - all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge,,then we become the gravediggers.Collection: Men
According to the Bible, God created the heavens and the Earth. It is man’s prerogative - and woman’s - to create their own particular and private hell.Collection: Men
for civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized.Collection: Peace
It has forever been thus: So long as men write what they think, then all of the other freedoms - all of them - may remain intact. And it is then that writing becomes a weapon of truth, an article of faith, an act of courage.Collection: Writing
Somewhere between apathy and anarchy lies the thinking human being.Collection: Lying
I think the destiny of all men is not to sit in the rubble of their own making but to reach out for an ultimate perfection which is to be had. At the moment, it is a dream. But as of the moment we clasp hands with our neighbor, we build the first span to bridge the gap between the young and the old. At this hour, it’s a wish. But we have it within our power to make it a reality. If you want to prove that God is not dead, first prove that man is alive.Collection: Dream
You see. No shock. No engulfment. No tearing assunder. What you feared would come like an explosion is like a whisper. What you thought was the end is the beginning.Collection: Twilight Zone
The writer's role is to menace the public's conscience. He must have a position, a point of view. He must see the arts as a vehicle of social criticism and he must focus on the issues of his time.Collection: Art
The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices . . . . And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.Collection: Attitude
Most shows, buying shows, have a standard fee for the first shot of the writer and if you have a very militant agent, I suppose he might jack it up four percent or something. But in essence, you sell for what is the going rate.Collection: Essence
The tendency when you dictate is to overwrite, because you're not counting pages, you don't really know what the hell the page count is.Collection: Pages
When I first went into freelancing, I think there was a period of about eight months when nothing happened. Everything that I wrote crumbled up, and then it became a self-destructive thing - when you begin to doubt yourself, when doubt turns into - it's sort of like impotence. Once impotent, you're forever impotent. Because you're always worried about being impotent.Collection: Thinking
I miss the comraderie of live television - the fact that you were on the set, you worked closely with the director and the cast, that I miss. But, no, I'm happy, I'm happy doing film.Collection: Missing
I find dictating in the mass media particularly good because you're writing for voice anyway; you're writing for people to say a line and, consequently, saying a line through a machine is quite a valid test for the validity of what you're saying.Collection: Writing
The major difference frequently is in time. The motion picture, for example, gives you considerably more freedom of expression than does the confined thirty-minute television show. But in essence, they're not that dissimilar.Collection: Expression
I don't think it's man's function to write. I don't think it's a normal thing like teeth-brushing and going to the bathroom. It's a supered position on the animal.Collection: Writing
I write much better in the nonconfines of the early morning than I do the clutter of the day.Collection: Morning
The good agent probably is not the reader, he's just the guy who can put together a deal.Collection: Guy
I think the essence of the argument has always been, first of all, the Guild doesn't want writing on spec. And that's been a major problem over the years. But obviously, to the young writer that's unfair and it's discriminatory, and it can be very hurtful to one's career.Collection: Writing
I don't have close relationships with agents. They're friends, but they're not confidants.Collection: Agents
Over the long haul I'd say that most directors I've worked with have been pretty sensitive to the quality of the interpreted scenes.Collection: Long
Good evening, and welcome to a private showing of three paintings, displayed here for the first time. Each is a collectors' item in its own way - not because of any special artistic quality, but because each captures on a canvas, and suspends in time and space, a frozen moment of a nightmare.Collection: Art
Personally, my daughter's wedding gave me a tremendous pleasure. And the wedding was a radiant event and I enjoyed it. I was afraid I'd cry. I'm given to crying at odd times, and I was very much afraid of the emotionalism of that moment, but I didn't even come close to crying.Collection: Daughter
I think I would like to be in Victorian times. Small town. Bandstands. Summer. That kind of thing. Without disease.Collection: Summer
You know, writer can write about the Foreign Legion without ever having been in the Foreign Legion, but that doesn't necessarily mean that what he's written doesn't necessarily reflect the nature of him as an individual - or her. Using the male gender because it's me speaking. I don't mean to put down the female.Collection: Writing
I don't believe in reincarnation. That's a cop-out. . . . I anticipate death will be a totally unconscious void in which you float through eternity with no particular consciousness of anything.Collection: Believe
I was deeply interested in conveying what is a deeply felt conviction of my own. This is simply to suggest that human beings must involve themselves in the anguish of other human beings. This, I submit to you, is not a political thesis at all. It is simply an expression of what I would hope might be ultimately a simple humanity for humanity's sake.Collection: Simple
How can you put out a meaningful drama when every fifteen minutes proceedings are interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits with toilet paper? No dramatic art form should be dictated and controlled by men whose training and instincts are cut of an entirely different cloth. The fact remains that these gentlemen sell consumer goods, not an art form.Collection: Meaningful
I find it very difficult to live through the censorship of profanity on television.Collection: Television