219 Quotes by Rod Serling

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.

I’m sufficiently independent to know that I can live well and comfortably all the rest of my life whether I’m rejected or not.

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.

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.

Most screenplays, most motion pictures, owe much more to the screenplay. Ingmar Bergman has such an economy of language, so little language in his piece, it is so visual, his moods are introduced and buttressed by camera rather than by word or character. But again, that’s unique.

I just want people to remember me a hundred years from now. I don’t care that they’re not able to quote any single line that I’ve written. But just that they can say, “Oh, he was a writer.” That’s sufficiently an honored position for me.

Beasley was a little man whose face looked like an X ray of an ulcer.

If it sounds good as you say it, likely as not it’ll sound good when an actor’s saying it.

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.