The Twilight Zone (1959) quotes

204 total quotes



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Narrator: What you're looking at is a ghost, once alive but now deceased. Once upon a time, it was a baseball stadium that housed a major-league ballclub known as the Hoboken Zephyrs. Now it houses nothing but memories and a wind that stirs in the high grass of what was once an outfield, a wind that sometimes bears a faint, ghostly resemblance to the roar of a crowd that once sat here. We're back in time now, when the Hoboken Zephyrs were still a part of the National League and this mausoleum of memories was an honest-to-Pete stadium. But since this is strictly a story of make-believe, it has to start this way. Once upon a time, in Hoboken, New Jersey, it was tryout day. And though he's not yet on the field, you're about to meet a most unusual fellow, a left-handed pitched named Casey.

Narrator: Willoughby? Maybe it's wishful thinking nestled in a hidden part of a man's mind, or maybe it's the last stop in the vast design of things, or perhaps, for a man like Mr. Gart Williams, who climbed on a world that went by too fast, it's a place around the bend where he could jump off. Willoughby? Whatever it is, it comes with sunlight and serenity, and is a part of the Twilight Zone.

Narrator: Witness Flight Lieutenant William Terrance Decker, Royal Flying Corps, returning from a patrol somewhere over France. The year is 1917. The problem is that the Lieutenant is hopelessly lost. Lieutenant Decker will soon discover that a man can be lost not only in terms of maps and miles, but also in time, and time in this case can be measured in eternities.

Narrator: Witness if you will a dungeon, made out of mountains, salt flats and sand that stretch to infinity. The dungeon has an inmate: James A. Corry. And this is his residence: a metal shack. An old touring car that squats in the sun and goes nowhere - for there is nowhere to go. For the record let it be known that James A. Corry is a convicted criminal placed in solitary confinement. Confinement in this case stretches as far as the eye can see, because this particular dungeon is on an asteroid nine million miles from the Earth. Now witness if you will a man's mind and body shrivelling in the sun, a man dying of loneliness.

Narrator: You are looking at a species of flimsy little two-legged animal with extremely small heads whose name is Man. Warren Marcusson, age thirty-five. Samuel A. Conrad, age thirty-one... They're taking a highway into space, Man unshackling himself and sending his tiny, grouping fingers up into the unknown. Their destination is Mars, and in just a moment we'll land there with them.

Narrator: You're about to meet a hypochondriac. Witness Mr. Walter Bedeker, age forty-four, afraid of the following: death, disease, other people, germs, draft, and everything else. He has one interest in life, and that's Walter Bedeker. One preoccupation: the life and well-being of Walter Bedeker. One abiding concern about society: that if Walter Bedeker should die, how will it survive without him?

Narrator: You're looking at a tableau of reality, things of substance, of physical material: a desk, a window, a light. These things exist and have dimension. Now this is Arthur Curtis, age thirty-six, who also is real. He has flesh and blood, muscle and mind. But in just a moment we will see how thin a line separates that which we assume to be real with that manufactured inside of a mind.

Narrator: You're looking at Act One, Scene One, of a nightmare, one not restricted to witching hours or dark, rainswept nights. Professor Walter Jameson, popular beyond words, who talks of the past as if it were the present, who conjures up the dead as if they were alive. In the view of this man, Professor Samuel Kittridge, Walter Jameson has access to knowledge that couldn't come out of a volume of history, but rather from a book on black magic, which is to say that this nightmare begins at noon.

Renard: C'mon old man, tell me � are these what I need?
Pedott: I didn't say they were. But I'll tell you something � they happen to be what I need.

Renard: Why does it have to stop?
Pedott: Because the things you need most, I can't supply.
Renard: What are they?
Pedott: Serenity, peace of mind, humor, the ability to laugh at one's self. Those are things you need the most, but it's beyond my power to give them to you.

Rod Serling: We hope you enjoyed tonight's romantic story on the Twilight Zone. At the same time we want you to realize that it was of course purely fictional. In real life such ridiculous nonsense could never-
Gregory West: Rod...you shouldn't...you shouldn't say such things as "nonsense" and "ridiculous".
Rod Serling: Well, that's the way it goes.

[With a few minutes to midnight, Bookman does his best to distract Death]
Mr. Bookman: And now, the final offer. My very best. What I now present has never been sold any where else in these entirety of the world. I offer...one servant, for all eternity. One man, to travel with you along the cosmos, to entice, to assist in whatever way I can. Because you see, my good sir...I offer you...
[The clock chimes midnight, and Maggie begins to stir]
Mr. Death: Why...it's midnight! It's past midnight and I've missed my appointment!