submitted for your approval, the words of a master..... Rod Serling 1924-1975


~ The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosives and fallout. These are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy. And a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all it's own for the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is, is that these things cannot be confined to the twilight zone.

~ I happen to think that the singular evil of our time is prejudice. It is from this evil that all other evils grow and multiply. In almost everything I have written there is a thread of this: a man's seemingly palpable need to dislike someone other than himself.

~ If survival calls for the bearing of arms, bear them you must. But the most important part of the challenge is for you to find another means that does not come with the killing of your fellow man.

~ 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.

~ Every writer is a frustrated actor who recites his lines in the hidden auditorium of his skull.

~ I don't believe in reincarnation. That's a cop-out.... I anticipate death will be totally unconscious void in which you float through eternity with no particular consciousness of anything.

~ Ideas come from the earth. They come from every human experience that you've either witnessed, or have heard about, translated into your brain, in your own sense of dialogue, in your own language form. Ideas are born from what is smelled, heard, seen, experienced, felt, emotionalized. Ideas are probably in the air, like little tiny items of ozone. That's the easiest thing on earth is to come up with an idea. And the second thing is, the hardest thing on earth, is to put it down.

~ It may be said with a degree of assurance that not everything that meets the eye is as it appears.

~ Whenever you write, whatever you write, never make the mistake of assuming the audience is any less intelligent than you are.

~ The creation of an idea, the following of a story germ, the building up of a plot, the creating of people of flesh and blood character - these are not easy things, they are extremely difficult. But conversely, don't be put off by the fact that this month you can't do it and next month is maybe even harder. That is, if not a lifetime process, it's awfully close to it. The writer broadens, become deeper, becomes more observant, becomes more tempered, becomes much wiser over a period of time passing. It is not something that is injected into him by a needle. It is not something that comes on a wave of flashing, explosive light one night and says, "Huzzah! Eureka! I've got it" and then proceeds to write the great American novel in eleven days. It doesn't work that way. It's a long, tedious, tough, frustrating process, but never, ever be put aside by the fact that it's hard.

~ I was traumatized into writing by war events. By going through a war in a combat situation and feeling the desperate sense of terrible need for some sort of therapy. To get it out of my gut, I wrote it down. This us the way it began for me.

~ There is a fifth dimension beyond which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of a mans fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area we call the Twilight Zone.

Born in Syracuse, New York on Christmas Day in 1924, Rod Serling would refer to himself as the "present that came unwrapped". He would grow up in Binghamton, New York the son of a butcher. After graduating from high school in 1942, Serling would join the army and see first hand the horrors of war during World War II. This very experience would make him have a profound concern about a moral society. Upon his retrun to the states, Serling would enter Antioch College and enroll himself in the physical education program. Still, a longing call would make him alter his major to English literature, where he would try his hand at writing. After marriage in his senior year to Carolyn Kramer, he would win an award for a script he had written for television. Feeling encouraged by that, he would continue to write more scripts, submitting them to radio and television, finding a home for his unique writing style. His scripts consisted of psychological dramas; real issues of the time, such as lynching, racism, and union organizing.
However, due to his controversial style, and fed up with the conservative censors over how a character was displayed, Serling switched to science fiction and fantasy. He would say that the characters were more believable in his stories if they were aliens or monsters, rather than being portrayed as real men. In doing so, The Twilight Zone series was born, and an ingenious blend of fable and fantasy writing was able to circumvent his television networks and sponsors. At this level he could address different controversial subjects, saying, " I found that it was all right to have martians saying things Democrats and Republicans would never say."
He would win several Emmys for his outstanding work on his series, and go on to the big screen co-writing for movies. One such script was "The Planet Of The Apes".
In June of 1975, Serling would succumb to a heart attack while on the operating table during heart by-pass surgery. The world would loose a master and pioneer of television writing.... but would never lose the cult status the Twilight Zone has given us.