Joseph Sisko quotes from Deep Space Nine

Joseph Sisko

I'm not sleeping. I was checking my eyelids for holes.

Joseph

I've got a dermal regenerator under the...(Joseph notices Sisko staring at the blood, and realises what he's wondering about) Benjamin Lafayette Sisko! What the hell has gotten into your head? You actually thought I was one of them, didn't you?

Joseph

This business has got you so twisted around you can't think straight. You're seeing shape-shifters everywhere. Maybe you ought to think about something for a minute. If I was a smart shape-shifter, a really good one, the first thing I would do would be to grab some poor soul off the street, absorb every ounce of his blood, and let it out on cue whenever someone like you tried to test me. Don't you see? There isn't a test that's been created a smart man can't find his way around. You aren't going to catch shape-shifters using some gadget.

Joseph Sisko

Life is full of choices. You make them and hope for the best. Sometimes you're right. Sometimes you're not.

Joseph Sisko

Are things really as bad as the news services say?

Benjamin Sisko

Maybe worse.

Joseph Sisko

Well, you certainly know how to comfort a frightened old man.

Benjamin Sisko

You didn't raise me to be a liar.

Joseph Sisko

I raised you to be a chef, for all the good it did me.

Joseph Sisko

You know, there's something I just don't understand. You're always telling me that space is big, that it's an endless frontier, filled with infinite wonders.

Benjamin Sisko

It's true.

Joseph Sisko

Well, if that's the case, you would think it would be more than enough room to allow people to leave each other alone.

Benjamin Sisko

[sighs] It just doesn't work that way. It should, but it doesn't.

Tell me, please. Who am I?

Don’t you know?

Tell me.

You are the dreamer… and the dream.

Joseph Sisko

The question is, what are you going to do?

Benjamin Sisko

The only thing I can do. Stay here and finish the job I started. And if I fail...

Joseph

"I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith."

Benjamin

I've never known you to quote from the Bible.

Joseph

I'm full of surprises, aren't I? And so are you. Sounds like that dream you had helped you sort things out.

Benjamin

I suppose it did. But I have begun to wonder: what if it wasn’t a dream? What if this life we’re leading, all of this -- you and me, everything -- what if all of this is the illusion?

Joseph

That’s a scary thought.

Benjamin

I know, I know. But maybe, just maybe, Benny isn’t the dream. We are. Maybe we’re nothing more than figments of his imagination. For all we know, at this very moment, somewhere far beyond all those distant stars, Benny Russell is dreaming of us.

Benjamin Sisko

Are there any other secrets I should know about?

Joseph Sisko

Just my gumbo recipe. But I'm taking that to my grave.