Babylon 5 quotes

561 total quotes


[Delenn and Sheridan "negotiate" an end to the Vorlon-Shadow War]
Delenn: The others have rejected you! How do you have a war when no one will fight for either of you?
Sheridan: We refuse to take sides in this anymore! And we refuse to let you turn us against one another! We know who we are now. We can find our own way between order and chaos!
Delenn: You can kill us one by one, and those who follow us, and those who follow them, on and on, every race, every planet. Until there's no one left to kill. You will have failed as guardians. And you will be alone.
Sheridan: It's over because we've decided it's over. Now get the hell out of our galaxy! Both of you!
[The Vorlons and Shadows hesitate, but Lorien steps in]
Lorien: As I taught you and stepped aside, now you must do the same. Our age is past. This...belongs to the younger races now. They have learned to stand on their own. They have learned...to understand. Time to let them go.
Shadow: Will you...come...with us?
Lorien: I have been here since the beginning. I will not leave you now. I will go with you beyond the Rim, and we will see again all those who went ahead of us, all those who we have missed for so long.
Vorlon: Then...we will not be alone?
Lorien: No. Never alone.
[The Vorlons and Shadows disappear, and their respective fleets leave the system]
Marcus: Did we just win?
Ivanova: Don't jinx it.
[Lorien turns to address Sheridan and Delenn]
Lorien: I waited a long time for someone to find me. Now, like the others, I find I hate to leave. But none of us can stay behind this time. That was why it was necessary to find all the remaining First Ones. This...is yours now. And you have an obligation...to do as we have done. To teach the races that will follow you and, when your time comes, as ours has, to step aside and allow them to grow into their own destiny. If your races survive, if you do not kill yourselves, I look forward to the day when your people join us...beyond the Rim.
[he starts dissolving into a ball of light]
Lorien: We will wait for you...

David Endawi, EarthForce Intelligence: This is quite irregular, Mr. Garibaldi! I was assured that Captain Sheridan or Commander Ivanova would be available!
Michael Garibaldi: They got called away on urgent business.
Endawi: What kind of business?
Garibaldi: I'm not authorized for that kind of information.
Endawi: But...you're the head of Security.
Garibaldi: And what kind of head of Security would I be if I let people like me know things that I'm not supposed to know? [I mean,] I know what I know because I have to know it, and if I don't have to know it, I don't tell me, and I don't let anyone else tell me, either. Now look, we've tried most of the other ambassadors. Why don't you speak to G'Kar? Maybe he knows something about this ship.
Endawi: Under the terms of our recent treaty, I am not authorized to have any official conversation with the Narn without Centauri approval.
Garibaldi: So you'll ask unofficially. And I can give you reasonable assurances that the head of Security will not report you for doing so.
Endawi: [slowly] Because you won't tell yourself about it.
Garibaldi: I try never to get involved in my own life. Too much trouble.
Endawi: [confused] This is a very strange place you have here, Mr. Garibaldi.
Garibaldi: Thank you.

[various answers to Torqueman's final question: "Given the danger, at the end of the day...is it worth it?"]
Michael Garibaldi: Absolutely. Sure, when things get tense out here, we have to be careful. Our search of the Centauri vessels we captured proved that they were bringing in weapons of mass destruction, offloading them outside the station, and sending them on to the front lines. Now that we know that, we can make sure it doesn't happen any more. We learn. It's what humans do.
Londo Mollari: Misunderstandings aside, yes! I definitely think it's worth it. We must simply work harder to make sure we communicate with one another to prevent this sort of tragic situation from ever happening again! A violent attack by Narn forces is an unacceptable response to a peaceful protest by my government. And with the intervention of Earth, perhaps we can keep them from making a similar mistake in the future.
G'Kar: I don't know any more. I used to think so, but now...
Susan Ivanova: Yes.
Delenn: Of course it is. For the simple reason that no one else would ever build a place like this. Humans share one unique quality: They build communities. If the Narns or Centauri or any other race built a station like this, it would be used only by their own people. But everywhere humans go, they create communities out of diverse and sometimes hostile populations. It is a great gift, and a terrible responsibility--one that cannot be abandoned.
Senator Quantrell: Well...I guess we'll just have to see...won't we?
Franklin: All right, Med 2--go, go! Look, if we weren't here right now, half the people in this room would be dead! Now that should be a good enough answer for anyone.
Eduardo Delvientos: Sure! What, are you kidding? I have a retirement pension to make, you know?
John Sheridan: Yes. But not for any of the reasons that you've probably been told. The job of Babylon 5 is not to enforce the peace. It's to create the peace. And this place was built on the assumption that we could work out our problems and build a better future. And that, to me, is the key issue. See, in the last few years, we've stumbled. We stumbled at the death of the President, the war, and on and on. And when you stumble a lot, you...you start looking at your feet. Well, we have to make people...lift their eyes back to the horizon, and see the line of ancestors behind us, saying, "Make my life have meaning." And to our inheritors before us, saying, "Create the world we will live in." I mean, w-we're not just...holding jobs and having dinner. We are in the process of building the future. That's what Babylon 5 is all about.

[Delenn finds Sheridan in the War Room, going over reports]
Delenn: Ivanova sent me to find you. She said you haven't been sleeping, you have hardly been eating; she said that you have been, in her words, "carrying on cranky." I looked up the word "cranky." It said "grouchy." I looked up "grouchy," it said "crotchety." No wonder you have such an eccentric culture: none of your words have their own meaning! You have to look up one word to understand another. It never ends.
John Sheridan: [not paying attention] Something here doesn't make sense.
Delenn: That is what I thought when I came across "crotchety." This cannot be a real word, I said.
Sheridan: The Shadows keep attacking random targets! Very illogical! On the other hand, once engaged, their tactics are very successful! Very logical! It's�it's a contradiction!
Delenn: Unless the random attacks are logical in some way we haven't yet determined.
Sheridan: Exactly.
Delenn: [grinning] So you have been sitting here trying to think illogically about logical possibilities, or logically about illogical possibilities.
Sheridan: Hm? Yes, yes.
Delenn: Well, no wonder you are cranky! [he looks at her in confusion, oblivious to everything she's just said] Grouchy? [still nothing] Never mind. Your face just broke the language barrier.
Sheridan: Ah...I haven't had a good night's sleep since Kosh died. I'm having the kind of nightmares that make your hair stand on end.
Delenn: Well, that would explain the Centauri. You need food...and rest!
Sheridan: [annoyed] Aah.
Delenn: The humans who you've been waiting for have arrived and would like to have dinner with us.
Sheridan: No, no, I don't have time! If they want to come here...
Delenn: So I told them yes!
Sheridan: Delenn!
Delenn: Since Minbari do not lie, except to save another, my reputation is now at stake. If you say no, I will be publicly dishonored.
Sheridan: [realizing he's been beaten] You don't fight fair!
Delenn: True! Dinner is in two standard hours. I will see you there! [heads to the door]
Sheridan: [muttering] Pain in the butt.
Delenn: [over her shoulder] Grouch.

Delenn: There is something I've been wondering. Why Babylon 5? If the prior four stations were lost or destroyed, why build another?
Sinclair: Plain old human stubbornness, I guess. When something we value is destroyed, we rebuild it. If it's destroyed again, we rebuild it again. And again, and again, and...again, until it stays. That, as our poet Tennyson once said, is the goal: "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
Delenn: A poet?
Sinclair: Someone who writes poems. [She gives him a confused look.] A poem. A story in meter or rhyme.
Delenn: [smiling] Ah! "There once was a man from Nantucket."
Sinclair: [chuckles] You've been talking to Garibaldi again, haven't you?
Delenn: Yes. How did you know?
Sinclair: [smiling] Oh, just a wild guess.

[Entertaining Vir and his new wife, Londo is also struggling with a pest infestation.]
Londo Mollari: I swear, they are evolving right before my eyes.
[He turns to Vir and Lyndisty.]
Londo: If you see something this big with eight legs coming your way, let me know. I have to kill it before it develops language skills.

[Centauri Emperor Turhan talks to John Sheridan about life.]
Centauri Emperor Turhan: No regrets then?
Sheridan: A few. But just a few. You?
Emperor Turhan: Oh, enough to fill a lifetime. So much has been lost, so much forgotten. So much pain, so much blood. And for what? I wonder...The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast terrible in-between. But there is still time to seize that one last, fragile moment. To choose something better, to make a difference, as you say. And I intend to do just that.

Bo:' Sure looks pretty (referring to a White Star)
Mack: You think?
Bo: Hell yeah, what do you think?
Mack: Me? I always thought they looked like plucked chickens. Hey, it's not my fault they were designed that way.

Susan Ivanova: This is the White Star fleet. Negative on the surrender. We will not stand down.
Captain Thomson, Earthforce: Who is this? Identify yourself!
Ivanova: Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova. Commander. Daughter of Andrei and Sophie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance, and the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth, sweetheart! I am Death Incarnate, and the last living thing that you are ever going to see. God sent me.

[Delenn is in Sheridan's quartiers to ask permission for her and Lennier to enter the quarantine zone.]
Delenn: All life is transitory. A dream. We all come together in the same place at the end of time. If I don't see you again here, I will see you in a little while, in the place where no shadows fall.
Sheridan: W--Delenn! [She stops and looks back.] When I do see you again...call me John?

G'Kar: Our thoughts form the universe. They always matter.
. . .
[G'Kar observes a picture of Daffy Duck on Garibaldi's wall.]
G'Kar: I was studying this image. Is it one of his household gods?
Zack Allan: [chuckles] That's Daf--Yeah, well, in a way I suppose it is. It's sort of the Egyptian god of frustration.
G'Kar: Most appropriate!

Bester: Ms. Alexander has no business being here. She's a blip! By all rights, I should arrest her and take her back with me.
John Sheridan: Oh, you could do that. And I could nail your head to the table, set fire to it, and feed your charred remains to the Pak'ma'ra. But...it's an imperfect world, and we never get exactly what we want. So get used to it!

Amis: [after waking up in the brig] Oh, God. What did I do this time?
Michael Garibaldi: You don't remember?
Amis: Well, I've found that life is, in general, much easier if I forget most of the things that happen to me.
Garibaldi: You were about to accuse the Centauri ambassador of being in league with the devil...which may not be far from the truth.

Bester: I was expecting the Captain.
Susan Ivanova: He sent me.
Bester: Did he? He has a better sense of humor than I thought. Please, sit.
Ivanova: I'd rather stand.
Bester: I suspect you'd rather walk out that door and wall me up inside! Do a little re-creation of "The Cask of Amontillado". "For the love of God, Montresor!"
Ivanova: If you get near a point, make it!

Bester: Would it interest you to know that I'm married, Mr. Garibaldi? That I have a five-year-old daughter? That on Sundays when I'm back home, we pack a picnic lunch and go out under the dome on Syria Planum and watch the stars come out? Hardly the description of a monster.
Michael Garibaldi: [applauds sarcastically] Smooth! You're getting good at this. Keep working on it, and one of these days I might even be convinced that you're human.