The Twilight Zone (TV Series)

The Night of the Meek (1960)

Art Carney: Henry Corwin

Photos 

Quotes 

• Henry Corwin : [drunkenly as all the children and moms look on]  As to my drinking, this is indefensible and you have my abject apologies. I find of late that I have very little choice in the matter of expressing emotions.

  Mr. Dundee : Please, lower your voice...

  Henry Corwin : I can either drink, or I can weep, and drinking is so much more subtle. But as for my insubordination, I was not rude to that woman. Someone should remind her that Christmas is more than barging up and down department store aisles and pushing people out of the way. Someone has to tell her that Christmas is another thing finer than that. Richer, finer, truer, and it should come with patience and love, charity, compassion. That's what I would have told her if you'd given me the chance. I don't know how to tell you, Mr. Dundee. I don't know at all. All I know is that I'm an aging, purposeless, relic of another time, and I live in a dirty rooming house on a street filled with hungry kids and shabby people, where the only thing that comes down the chimney on Christmas Eve is more poverty. Do you know another reason why I drink, Mr. Dundee? So that when I walk down the tenements, I can really think it's the North Pole, and the children are elves, and that I'm really Santa Claus bringing a bag of wondrous gifts for all of them. I just wish, Mr. Dundee, on one Christmas, only one, that I could see some of the hopeless ones and the dreamless ones. Just on one Christmas, I'd like to see the meek inherit the Earth. And that's why I drink, Mr. Dundee, and that's why I weep.

• [working as the department store Santa] 

  Henry Corwin : What's your name, little boy?

  Kid with Santa : Percival Smithers.

  Henry Corwin : What do you want for Christmas, Percival?

  Kid with Santa : A new first name.

• Henry Corwin : [sitting at the bar in his Santa costume]  Why do you suppose there isn't really a Santa Clause?