Screenwriters From The United States

"Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won’t be dissatisfied, you won’t be envious, you won’t be longing for somebody else’s things. On the contrary, you’ll be overwhelmed with what comes back."

"As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed as ignorant as you were at twenty-two, you'd always be twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it."

"There are five people you meet in heaven," the Blue Man suddenly said. "Each of us was in your life for a reason. You may not have known the reason at the time, and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on earth."

"We should just make it a little bit more difficult for people with known violent tendencies to be able to get a gun. And I'm not talking about the cops. No. Not talking about the cops. I'm saying, let's make it a little bit more difficult for mentally unstable people with known violent tendencies to be able to get a gun. And again, I'm not talking about the cops. If you can go on their Facebook page and see that this guy is a virulent racist, right? Make it a little more difficult for virulent racists, who are mentally unstable with known violent tendencies to be able to get-- And again, I'm not talking about the cops."

"I think we can all agree that Blue Lives Murder. Now... Not all of them, not most of them, but a bunch of em, murder. [scoffs] Theyre murdering us. Well, not us. We're white, but...."

"You know who doesn't like that bit? Cops. They don't like it. They don't like it. And I think its important -- I'm being sincere. I think its important that we acknowledge, all of us, that there are plenty of good, decent, ethical, very brave cops, who put their lives on the line every day, and they don't appreciate being painted with this broad brush as being violent predators just because of the actions of a minority of their brothers. They don't like being stereotyped so that when you see blue, you just think "Oh, violent thug." They don't appreciate it."

"So all my friends have kids now... which I think is rude."

"All my friends are always telling me how hard it is to have kids. 'Oh, David, it's so hard.' That's not hard. I'll tell you what hard is. Try talking your girlfriend into her third consecutive abortion. Yeah, that's hard, that takes finesse. You’re just inconvenienced."

"[After having made an abortion joke] I know that can hit close to home for some people....was anyone here aborted?... (mimicking child's voice:) 'I was found in a trash can!' Okay, well, that sorta counts..."

"Not funny, not funny says she, didn't like it!"

"The Bible is the funniest book I have ever read. It's so funny! Right in the first six pages, it's funny!"

"I don't think Osama bin Laden sent those planes to attack us because he hated our freedom. I think he did it because of our support for Israel, our ties with the Saudi family and our military bases in Saudi Arabia. You know why I think that? Because that's what he fucking said! Are we a nation of 6-year-olds? Answer: yes."

"I do believe that on a whole, women are definitely smarter than men…I also believe that dogs are smarter than women. (woman in audience says “Not buying that”) No? That one, you don’t believe it? You believe that I didn’t do a series of tests? You are right to not believe it, because I’m going to go ahead and admit that I do not believe what I just said, it was what’s described as a 'joke.' Um, I’ll be telling a bunch of them here tonight."

"[On the Iraq War] I am against the war, but I do support our white troops. [laughter, long pause] No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'm not a Republican. I'm not a member of the party of inclusion. Wonderful, tolerant, rational human beings they are..."

"In New York, you are constantly faced with this very urgent decision that you have to make, about every twenty minutes...you have to decide, immediately, you have to go "Ohmigod. Do I look at the most beautiful woman in the world or the craziest guy in the world?""

"The South has more of a disproportionate amount of irony on T-shirts than any other region in the country."

"It's hip to be square. Remember that shitty song by that shitty band 20 motherfuckin' years ago?"

"[On being Jewish in the American South] All the parents see you as is a Jew; I'm a Jewish kid. I'm like a fucking alien to them, you know, I'm a freak...so If I slept over a friend's house, I'd always have to deal with these questions in the morning, like, you know, Mom coming in going "David, I'm so sorry to have to ask you this, I'm so sorry, um...I'm fixing to make breakfast for everybody and I certainly wanna include you...and I'm just having some questions I was hoping you could answer...do y'alls people eat oatmeal?" What? Yeah. Is there something in the Torah that says we shouldn't eat oatmeal? "No, it's just that I don't know much about y'alls people, that's all, I just don't know--I know y'all hate Jesus! I know y'all hate Jesus, that much I do know...aand, I know y'alls have seven Jew bankers that control the world's money supply, right? In a bunker somewhere about a mile into the earth's core? Is that right? Yeah? And y'all do dances in the woods, y'all wear cloaks and do secret services and burn potions and whatnots, and y'all have horns--that's all I know about y'alls people!""

"[On the Catholic Church's sex scandals] And y'know, they're God's representatives, so that means... God fucks little boys."

"Here's a little what it was like for me growing up in Atlanta... They had this ill-fated thing called 'Light Up Atlanta'. So, I'm standing in line... I tap the guy in front of me and say, "Uh, excuse me, can you tell me if this is the line for the beer, or the line to get the tickets to get the beer.' [long pause] 'I dunno, faggot.' I don't know, faggot? What? What did I do? Was it because I was sucking his cock at the time?"

"So I was watching this one show where - there's a guy on stage and he pretends he has contact with the dead and spirits talk to him...[Some people in the audience give suggestions, one of which is Crossing Over.] Crossing–...no, no, no, no, no, it was, uh, church. It was church."

"Rickey Henderson, pick up the phone, man, it's me... you."

"[On death & euthanasia] I think its funny how, that if I want to die with peace and dignity that there's someone far away that can prevent it. Someone's like [strong southern accent] 'Hi, I just wanted to call. This is Jeanette Dunwoody from Valdosta, Georgia. I heard that you're trying to kill yourself and I just wanna say that, well, you can't.' 'What?' 'Yeah, its not right, because all life is precious.' 'No, my life isn't precious, I've been reduced to a shit and piss factory. I hurt always. I'm going to die within a year and I'm in pain constantly.' 'Oh, but um...no. Because of the Bible.' 'Well, I don't believe in the Bible.' 'Well, I do, silly!' [Hangs up]"

"So at the CES, there was a guy selling off this porno called Fuck My Dirty Shithole: The Movie. I bet you're thinking exactly what I was thinking … how did they make that book into a movie?"

"If someone gives you a kazoo and toots around the house to MTV, they're not gonna fuck you."

"James Lipton: The most pompous arrogant failure in history."

"I have a few business ideas (that I'm going to advertise in High Times, amongst other places), and one of them is a service in which I offer to eat and describe pork to kosher people."

"[With reference to a 'how to date' book] Because you've been on dates where y'know, you forget to open your eyes and wear pants and speak English."

"Radio DJ's are the same two motherfucking asshole clowns all over the country. I hate radio interviews. 'You didn't know it David, but you're just in time for the Friday Morning Fart Song!' No, sorry, I'm not doing that. Even if it's only fifteen minutes, it's the worst fifteen minutes of your life. I don't care if you've been in a fucking shark attack. If I was in a shark attack, and then they had no anesthetic and they had to heal it up, sew it up, I would be like, 'This sucks,' but then if two DJ's came in and interviewed me I'd fucking shoot myself."

"[On the Dating Handbook] 'With a telescope, some munchies, and a warm blanket, watch for Halley's comet.' Yeah. I like that. There's no time limit. Just sit there and grow old together."

"[After reading an article on Miles for Kids in an inflight journal] What [President of the Airline] is doing is, he's urging everyone to give up their frequent flyer miles for sick kids... But as I was reading this, there were two empty seats next to me. Why can't sick kids sit there? If they're so concerned with sick kids, shouldn't they have like a pen of sick kids next to the gate?"

"We get to see it! January 1st, 2000! We get to see... all those fundamentalist preachers having to do their backpedaling when the Armageddon doesn't occur."

"If you wanna find out 101 things to do with plums, heh, read your in-flight magazine."

"And then Jesus answered him, Jesus said, 'Well, my son...that is when I was helping one of the other FIVE BILLION PEOPLE on the planet, you selfish fuck. C'mon! You were walking back to your Malibu beach colony home and stubbed your toe on some driftwood, it's not a fuckin' emergency, alright? There's other people with real problems.'"

"High Times magazine is a notch intellectually below Highlights for Children. I mean, they're both great to read when you're baked, but come on, ya know..."

"And the Pope is infallible. We're taught that. Pope can't make a mistake. So I don't know why the Catholic church just doesn't take that motherfucker to Vegas. 'All right, put all the Catholic Church's money on 17 black.' [casino sound] '32 red, I'm sorry.' 'No, I don't think you heard, he said 17 black! Thank you! Let's go to Bellagio!' That way they could pay off those debts they owe."

"I don't remember ordering the Christian sandwich..."

"[On freedom/America] I saw this ad for electric scissors [referring to a bit earlier] during an episode of The Simple Life. Which is a show that glorifies these two rich, giggling cunts, who have no respect for anyone. Just vile people; awful human beings. Who get away with anything, because they're rich. I, right then, vowed that I would retain this image everytime I hear George Bush say 'the terrorists hate our freedom.' You know what? I hate our freedom. Little ol' me, an American! I hate it! That's all we've done with it? We're fucking assholes, man. We...are...awful."

"I think Rod would have been one of the first to say he hit the new industry, television, at exactly the right time. The first job he got out of school was as continuity writer at (radio station) WLW in Cincinnati. He worked there for over a year before he could free-lance. At that point, he was really working on television scripts. [I]n 1951 and 1952, the new industry was grabbing up a lot of material and needed it. It was a very propitious time to be graduating from school and getting ready to find a profession."

"So I was watching all the Katrina coverage and I got really angry at... Christians who didn't pray hard enough... It's their fucking fault. First off, they needed to pray against the people that were praying for Katrina to hit, because New Orleans is a den of sin and iniquity; an area where gay people dance! But now they have to pray double, and if they had just put that little effort up front, we could've avoided all of this. I think it's time we take a lesson from history, and return to human sacrifice."

"No one could know Serling, or view or read his work, without recognizing his deep affection for humanity, his sympathetically enthusiastic curiosity about us, and his determination to enlarge our horizons by giving us a better understanding of ourselves. He dreamed of much for us, and demanded much of himself, perhaps more than was possible for either in this time and place. But it is that quality of dreams and demands that makes the ones like Rod Serling rare ...and always irreplaceable."

"I thought it was really odd at how much people freaked out at Katrina. You'd think they'd be worried about something important. 'Oh my God, look! George Bush is just appointing all his friends into office and we're in an unfounded war...' But no- 'Fuck that! That nigger's stealing some potato chips!'"

"I didn't know him that well, not in social circles. He was a friendly sort and, as a writer, very supportive of his writers on the show. But he always shot my scripts word for word. He seemed to be driven, almost harassed by life. He seemed to reach a plateau in his career, and after a time it all came crashing down. That kind of fame is very difficult to adjust to. Luckily, I've never had that kind of pain or pleasure. For Rod, the Twilight Zone was a success, and yet he was sort of victimized by it. His best work was the Playhouse 90 stuff, the social commentary. The Twilight Zone made him a TV personality, and that kind of fame took its toll."

"I knew Rod and socialized with him also. And, of course, I worked with him, too; we had previously collaborated on some westerns and detective stories. He was really a sweetheart. He was a writer himself, which was extremely unusual back then, for someone who started a series to already be a successful writer. He had had lots of experience with production people, so he understood that he needed to surround himself with the best writers he could get, and then let them do their thing. There wasn’t a line in any of the Twilight Zones that I wrote that wasn’t mine."

"I really don't have a problem with gay marriage... because I'm tolerant and rational."

"“One thing that we definitely landed on was Serling’s show is important. He is a master of parable. He’s a master of allegory. And what he did was he spoke to society through stories,” said Peele. “This is one of the most powerful weapons that people have against violence and hatred and all the awful things that this world can bring and certainly all the awful things that we have now. There were some things that Serling was simply 50 years too early to talk about.” However, on the flip side of that serious purpose lies a certain slyness. “One of the things that really opened this up for me was to realize that [Serling] is a humorist. We think of him as a horror science fiction master but he has a perfect-pitch tone of comedy… that we were calling the Serling wink.”"

"I'm dedicating my little story to you; doubtless you will be among the very few who will ever read it. It seems war stories aren't very well received at this point. I'm told they're out-dated, untimely and as might be expected - make some unpleasant reading. And, as you have no doubt already perceived, human beings don't like to remember unpleasant things. They gird themselves with the armor of wishful thinking, protect themselves with a shield of impenetrable optimism, and, with a few exceptions, seem to accomplish their "forgetting" quite admirably. But you, my children, I don't want you to be among those who choose to forget. I want you to read my stories and a lot of others like them. I want you to fill your heads with Remarque and Tolstoy and Ernie Pyle. I want you to know what shrapnel, and "88's" and mortar shells and mustard gas mean. I want you to feel, no matter how vicariously, a semblance of the feeling of a torn limb, a burnt patch of flesh, the crippling, numbing sensation of fear, the hopeless emptiness of fatigue. All these things are complimentary to the province of war and they should be taught and demonstrated in classrooms along with the more heroic aspects of uniforms, and flags, and honor and patriotism. I have no idea what your generation will be like. In mine we were to enjoy "Peace in our time". A very well meaning gentleman waved his umbrella and shouted those very words...less than a year before the whole world went to war. But this gentleman was suffering the worldly disease of insufferable optimism. He and his fellow humans kept polishing the rose colored glasses when actually they should have taken them off. They were sacrificing reason and reality for a brief and temporal peace of mind, the same peace of mind that many of my contemporaries derive by steadfastly refraining from remembering the war that came before."

"It's simply a national acknowledgement that in any kind of priority, the needs of human beings must come first. Poverty is here and now. Hunger is here and now. Racial tension is here and now. Pollution is here and now. These are the things that scream for a response. And if we don't listen to that scream - and if we don't respond to it - we may well wind up sitting amidst our own rubble, looking for the truck that hit us - or the bomb that pulverized us. Get the license number of whatever it was that destroyed the dream. And I think we will find that the vehicle was registered in our own name."

"In his grave, we praise him for his decency - but when he walked amongst us, we responded with no decency of our own. When he suggested that all men should have a place in the sun - we put a special sanctity on the right of ownership and the privilege of prejudice by maintaining that to deny homes to Negroes was a democratic right. Now we acknowledge his compassion - but we exercised no compassion of our own. When he asked us to understand that men take to the streets out of anguish and hopelessness and a vision of that dream dying, we bought guns and speculated about roving agitators and subversive conspiracies and demanded law and order. We felt anger at the effects, but did little to acknowledge the causes. We extol all the virtues of the man - but we chose not to call them virtues before his death. And now, belatedly, we talk of this man's worth - but the judgement comes late in the day as part of a eulogy when it should have been made a matter of record while he existed as a living force. If we are to lend credence to our mourning, there are acknowledgements that must be made now, albeit belatedly. We must act on the altogether proper assumption that Martin Luther King asked for nothing but that which was his due... He asked only for equality, and it is that which we denied him."

"I really can’t claim to being a science-fiction man either. Fantasy was really more my bag. And I’m very much a Johnny-Come-Lately into that. The guys – the really key men – like Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury – they all preceded me by years and years and have a body of literature to show for it. I have nothing but a television show. My only claim is that I put science-fiction and fantasy into a mass media more than any other person."