The Twilight Zone (TV Series)

A Stop at Willoughby (1960)

James Daly: Gart Williams

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Quotes 

• Misrell : We have now been here thirty-four minutes, Mr. Williams.

  Gart Williams : This is a communication from Jake Ross.

  Misrell : Would you be so kind as to share its contents with us?

  Gart Williams : I can give you the sense of it very quickly, Mr. Misrell. This is Jake Ross's resignation. He's moving over to another agency.

  Misrell : And...?

  Gart Williams : And he's taking the automobile account with him.

  Misrell : That account represented a gross billing of something in the neighborhood of three million dollars a year! And how many times have you promised it to me?

  Gart Williams : This is as much a shock to me as it is to you, Mr. Misrell.

  Misrell : Don't sit down! And don't con me, Williams. It was your pet project. Your pet project! Then it was your idea to give it to that little college greenie. Now, get with it, Williams! Get with it, boy! So what's left, Williams? Not only has your pet project backfired, but it's sprouted wings and left the premises. I'll tell you what's left to us in my view. A deep and abiding concern about your judgment in men. This is a push business, Williams. A push push push business. Push and drive! But personally, you don't delegate responsibilities to little boys. You should know it better than anyone else. A push push push business, Williams. It's push push push, all the way, all the time! It's push push push, all the way, all the time, right on down the line!

  Gart Williams : Fat boy, why don't you shut your mouth!

• Janie Williams : And just where would you be if it weren't for my appetite?

  Gart Williams : I know where I'd like to be.

  Janie Williams : Where's that?

  Gart Williams : A place called Willoughby, a little town I manufactured in a dream.

  Janie Williams : Tell me about your dream, Gart.

  Gart Williams : It was an odd dream. Very odd dream. Willoughby. It was summer, very warm. Kids were barefooted. One of them had a fishing pole. It all looked like a Currier and Ives painting. Bandstand, bicycles, wagons. I've never seen such serenity. It was the way people must have lived a hundred years ago. Crazy dream.

• Gart Williams : I'm tired, Janie. I'm tired, and I'm sick.

  Janie Williams : Well, then you're in the right ward. We specialize in people that are sick, and tired, too, Gart. I'm sick, and I'm tired, of a husband who lives in a kind of permanent self-pity. A husband with a heart bleeding sensitivity that he unfurls like a flag, whenever he decides the competition is a little too rough for him.

  Gart Williams : Some people aren't built for competition, Janie, or big pretentious houses they can't afford, or rich communities they don't feel comfortable in, or country clubs they wear around their neck like a badge of status.

  Janie Williams : And you would prefer...?

  Gart Williams : I would prefer, though never asked before, a job, any job, any job at all where I could be myself! Where I wouldn't have to climb on a stage and go through a masquerade every morning at nine o'clock, and mouth all the dialogue and play the executive, and make believe I'm the bright young man on the way up, because I'm not that person, Janie! You've tried to make me that person, but that isn't me, that's isn't me at all! I'm... I'm a not very young, soon to be old, very uncompetitive, rather dull, quite uninspired, average type guy. With a wife who has an appetite.