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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

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Rod Serling
Age: 50 †
Born: 1924
Born: December 25
Died: 1975
Died: June 28
Film Producer
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Syracuse
New York
Rodman Edward Serling
Write
Writing
Every
Compulsion
Massive
Guess
Asked
Writer

More quotes by Rod Serling

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It has forever been thus: So long as men write what they think, then all of the other freedoms - all of them - may remain intact. And it is then that writing becomes a weapon of truth, an article of faith, an act of courage.
Rod Serling
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If you have the temerity to try to dramatize a theme that involves any particular social controversy currently extant. . . then you're in deep trouble.
Rod Serling
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I write much better in the nonconfines of the early morning than I do the clutter of the day.
Rod Serling
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Apparently on the screen I look tall, ageless, and damned close to omniscient-delivering jeopardy-laden warnings through gritted teeth. But when people see me on the street, they say 'by God, this kid is 5 foot 5, he's got a broken nose, and looks about as foreboding as a bank teller on a lunch break.'
Rod Serling
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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.
Rod Serling
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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
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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
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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
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You can be a hunchback and a dwarf and what-all. If you write beautifully, you can write beautifully.
Rod Serling
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You unlock the door with the key of imagination.
Rod Serling
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I don't believe in reincarnation. That's a cop-out, I know. I don't really want to be reincarnated.
Rod Serling
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The most important thing about the first sale is for the very first time in your life something written has value and proven value because somebody has given you money for the words that you've written, and that's terribly important, it's a tremendous boon to the ego, to your sense of self-reliance, to your feeling about your own talent.
Rod Serling
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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
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I'm a Western-cultured man who subscribes to the ancient saw that men do not cry, I don't cry either. I'll go to a movie, for example, and not infrequently something triggers the urge to weep, but I don't allow myself.
Rod Serling
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All the Dachaus must remain standing.
Rod Serling
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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
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Seeing does not always believe.
Rod Serling
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I'm afraid that if I started to ponder who I am and what I am, I might not like what I find.
Rod Serling
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How can you put out a meaningful drama when every fifteen minutes proceedings are interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits with toilet paper? No dramatic art form should be dictated and controlled by men whose training and instincts are cut of an entirely different cloth. The fact remains that these gentlemen sell consumer goods, not an art form.
Rod Serling
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It's part of the business of really not caring about topping myself because I really don't care what's going to happen. I think just surviving is a major thing. I'd like to write something that my peers, my colleagues, my fellow writers would find a source of respect.
Rod Serling