The Best Rod Serling quotes

Infinitely more taboos, on television. — Rod Serling

Television is very much like the weather: Much can be said of it, but very damn little can be done about it. — Rod Serling

I find it very difficult to live through the censorship of profanity on television. — Rod Serling

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. — Rod Serling

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. — Rod Serling

I choose to think of tv audience as nameless, formless, faceless people who are all like me. And anything that I write, if I like it, they’ll like it. — Rod Serling

A bAsic ‘must’ for every writer: A simple solitude–physicAl & mentAl. — Rod Serling

Why do I write? I guess that’s been asked of every writer. I don’t know. It isn’t any massive compulsion. — Rod Serling

If you need drugs to be a good writer, you are not a good writer. — Rod Serling

Writers vary tremendously. Was it Tom Wolfe who stood up or was it [Ernest] Hemingway who had to stand up? I don’t know. — Rod Serling

The writer’s no different. When he’s rejected, that paper is rejected, in a sense, a sizeable fragment of the writer is rejected as well. It’s a piece of himself that’s being turned down. — Rod Serling

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

I don’t know what my friends do. Generally they become producers. That way they can stop writing! — Rod Serling

Writing is a demanding profession and a selfish one. And because it is selfish and demanding, because it is compulsive and exacting, I didn’t embrace it. I succumbed to it. — Rod Serling

Somehow, some way, incredibly enough, good writing ultimately gets recognized. If you’re a really good writer and deserve that honored position, then by God, you’ll write, and you’ll be read. — Rod Serling

There are millions of ways to not be writing. You say you’re not in the mood, you’ll pick it up tomorrow. — Rod Serling

I don’t enjoy any of the process of writing. I enjoy it when it goes on if it zings and it has great warmth and import and it’s successful. — Rod Serling

I would guess that the price of the script really is secondary. The credit is much more the essence. — Rod Serling

Being like everybody is the same as being nobody. — Rod Serling

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. — Rod Serling

Imagination… its limits are only those of the mind itself. — Rod Serling

I don’t feel, God dictated that I should write. — Rod Serling

I’d love to be able to write an in–depth piece of what causes men like [Richard] Nixon and [H.R.]Haldeman and [John] Ehrlichman and all the rest of them not only to run, but what causes us to vote for them. — Rod Serling

Every Superstate has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and the truth is a menace. — Rod Serling

All the Dachaus must remain standing. — Rod Serling

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. — Rod Serling

But like every one of the super–states that preceded it–it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy, and truth is a menace. — Rod Serling

We are not permitted to forewarn them. You, Mr. Bookman, fall into the category of natural causes. — Rod Serling

Justice can span years. Retribution is not subject to a calendar. — Rod Serling

Formerly, a fixture of the summer, formerly a rather minor component to a hot July, but throughout his life, a man beloved by the children, and therefore a most important man. — Rod Serling

As long as they talk about you, you’re not really dead, as long as they speak your name, you continue. A legend doesn’t die, just because the man dies. — Rod Serling

I guess we all have a little vaunting itch for immortality, I guess that must be it. — Rod Serling

If you want to prove that God is not dead, first prove that man is alive. — Rod Serling

There is nothing in the dark that isn’t there when the lights are on. — Rod Serling

I write much better in the nonconfines of the early morning than I do the clutter of the day. — Rod Serling

I’d rather go along with this sense of illusion that I’m a neutral beast going along through life doing everything that’s preordained. — Rod Serling

I think I would like to be in Victorian times. Small town. Bandstands. Summer. That kind of thing. Without disease. — Rod Serling

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. — Rod Serling

On being born on Christmas Day, 1924) I was a Christmas present that was delivered unwrapped. — Rod Serling

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. — Rod Serling

Hollywood’s a great place to live… if you’re a grapefruit. — Rod Serling

If you write beautifully, you write beautifully, that’s all. — Rod Serling

The first sale, that’s the one that comes with magic. — Rod Serling

Not since the British raided Cologne had so many bombs landed in such a small space in such a short time. — Rod Serling

Every man is put on earth condemned to die. Time and method of execution unknown. — Rod Serling

Now death is with us in such abundance and hovers over us in so massive a form that we don’t have time to invent a mythology, nor is our creativity directed toward same. Now it’s to prevent death. — Rod Serling