- Narrator: [Closing Narration] Very little comment here, save for this small aside: that the ties of flesh are deep and strong, that the capacity to love is a vital, rich and all-consuming function of the human animal, and that you can find nobility and sacrifice and love wherever you may seek it out: down the block, in the heart, or in the Twilight Zone.
- Max Phillips: Wait, you're ten years old again, Pip. How come you're ten years old again?
- Young Pip: That's what I am, Pop. I'm ten years old.
- Narrator: [Opening Narration] Submitted for your approval, one Max Phillips, a slightly-the-worse-for wear maker of book, whose life has been as drab and undistinguished as a bundle of dirty clothes. And, though it's very late in his day, he has an errant wish that the rest of his life might be sent out to a laundry to come back shiny and clean, this to be a gift of love to a son named Pip. Mr. Max Phillips, Homo sapiens, who is soon to discover that man is not as wise as he thinks - said lesson to be learned in the Twilight Zone.
- Max Phillips: Hey, God? Hey, God. I'll make a deal with you. I give you... I give you the sodden carcass of a... of an aging, weak idiot. I give you me. All you have to give back is Pip.
- [crying]
- Max Phillips: Please, God. Don't take my boy. Please... take me. Take me.
- [dies]
- Max Phillips: You have to understand this. You have to try and listen and understand. Those times when I wasn't around, and when I was conning, and being a shill or too drunk... and when I dragged you from one rooming house to another...
- Young Pip: It doesn't make any difference now, pop.
- Max Phillips: It makes a difference, Pip. it does make a difference, because I want you to know that no man... oh, listen to me, son. No man ever, ever loved a boy any more than I love you. It was because... well, because I dreamed instead of did, you know? And I wished and hoped instead of tried. But as God as my witness, Pip, I loved you. See, I wouldn't be able to put it into words because there isn't any language. But... but I love you.
- Max Phillips: My son is dying in a place called Vietnam. There isn't even supposed to be a war going on, but my son is dying.