I would guess that the price of the script really is secondary. The credit is much more the essence. Rod Serling More Quotes by Rod Serling More Quotes From Rod Serling Emmies, for example, most of that's bullshit. Oscars are even worse. We have a strange, terrible affliction in this town. Everybody walks around bent-backed from slapping each other on the backs so much. It looks like arthritis but it isn't. It's hunger for recognition. And it's sort of like, well, I'll scratch you this time if you'll scratch me next time. That kind of thing. Rod Serling afflictionbullshitlooks Some people possess talent, others are possessed by it. When that happens, a talent becomes a curse. Rod Serling talentwritingpeople 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 embraceselfishwriting If you're really a good writer and deserve that honored position, then by God, you'll write, and you'll be read, and you'll be produced somehow. It just works that way. If you're just a simple ordinary day-to-day craftsman, no different than most, then the likelihood is that you probably won't make it in writing. Rod Serling ordinary-dayssimplewriting This is, if not a lifetime process, it's awfully close to it. The writer broadens, becomes deeper, becomes more observant, becomes more tempered, becomes much wiser over a period 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 say, '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. Rod Serling lightwritingnight Hollywood's a great place to live... if you're a grapefruit. Rod Serling grapefruitplaces-to-livehollywood The ultimate obscenity is not caring, not doing something about what you feel, not feeling! Just drawing back and drawing in; becoming narcissistic. Rod Serling drawingcaringfeelings It may be said with a degree of assurance that not everything that meets the eye is as it appears. Rod Serling degreeseyemay In eleven or twelve years of writing, Mike, I can lay claim to at least this: I have never written beneath myself. I have never written anything that I didn't want my name attached to. I have probed deeper in some scripts and I've been more successful in some than others. But all of them that have been on, you know, I'll take my lick. They're mine and that's the way I wanted them. Rod Serling successfulwritingyears Bias and prejudice make me angry...more than anything. Rod Serling bias-and-prejudiceprejudicemake-me-angry Essentially, the scripts are not that different. Let's say, in literary terms, it's the difference between writing horizontally and writing vertically. In live television, you wrote much more vertically. You had to probe people because you didn't have money or sets or any of the physical dimensions that film will allow you. So you generally probed people a little bit more. Film writing is much more horizontal. You can insert anything you want: meadows, battlefields, the Taj Mahal, a cast of thousands. But essentially, writing a story is writing a story. Rod Serling differenceswritingpeople Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science Fiction is the improbable made possible. Rod Serling creativewritingfiction If in any quest for magic, in any search for sorcery, witchery, legerdemain, first check the human spirit. Rod Serling sorceryquestsmagic 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 zingsuccessfulwriting 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 illusionbeast 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 writingpeoplethinking In terms of screenwriting adaptations it's trying to cut out stuff that's extraneous, without doing damage to the original piece, because you owe a debt of some respect to the original author. That's why it was bought. Rod Serling piecescuttingtrying But it makes you wonder, doesn't it? Just how normal are we? Just who are the people we nod our hellos to as we pass on the street? A rather good question to ask - particularly in The Twilight Zone. Rod Serling good-questionstwilightpeople a basic “must” for every writer: A simple solitude-physical & mental. Rod Serling solitudesimple You're looking at a species of flimsy little two-legged animals with extremely small heads whose name is Man...Very tiny undeveloped brain; comes from primitive planet named Earth. Calls himself 'Samuel Conrad'. And he will remain here in his cage with the running water and the electricity and the central heat- as long as he lives. Samuel Conrad has found the Twilight Zone. Rod Serling twilightrunninganimal
