Mal Reynolds quotes from Firefly

Mal

[aside, to Jayne, upon hearing he is married] How drunk was I last night?

Jayne

I 'unno, I passed out.

Mal

Right.

Mal

Zoe, would you get Wash?

[on the intercom] This is Zoe. We need all personnel in the cargo bay.

Mal

"All"? I said Wash!

Zoe

Captain, everyone should have a chance to congratulate you on your day of bliss.

Mal

There's no bliss. I don't know this girl!

Jayne

Then can I know her?

Zoe

Jayne! Don't sully this.

Mal

You are going to be cleaning out latrines with your face if you don't cut that out.

Wash

You brute.

Kaylee

Oh, sweetie, don't feel bad. He makes everybody cry. He's like a monster.

Mal

I'm not a monster!

Book

If you take sexual advantage of her, you're going to burn in a very special level of Hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater.

Mal

Preacher, you got a smutty mind!

Book

Perhaps I spoke out of turn.

Mal

Per-maybe-haps, I'm thinking!

Book

I apologize. I'll make her up a room in passenger dorm.

Mal

Good!

Book

[walking away, pauses and looks back at Mal] The special hell.

Wash

Is there any more where that came from?

Saffron

[to Mal] I didn't think to make enough for your friends... [to Zoe] But everything's laid out if you'd like to cook for your husband.

Wash

[nervously] Z— heh-heh... Isn't she quaint? I'm just not hungry.

Zoe

So… are you enjoying your own nubile little slave girl?

Mal

She wanted to make me dinner. Well, at least she's not cryin'.

Wash

I might. Did she really make fresh bao?

Wash

...Quaint!

Zoe

Remember that sex we were planning to have, ever again?

Mal

I would appreciate it if one person on this boat would not assume I'm an evil, lecherous hump.

Zoe

No one's saying that, sir.

Wash

Yeah, we're pretty much just giving each other significant glances and laughing incessantly.

Jayne

Six men came to kill me one time. The best of 'em carried this. It's a Callahan full-bore auto-lock. Customized trigger. Double cartridge thorough gauge. It is my very favorite gun.

Mal

Da-shiong bao-jah-shr duh la doo-tze... Are you offering me a trade?

Jayne

A trade? Hell, that's theft! This is the best damn gun made by man. It has extreme sentimental value. It's miles more worthy'n what you got.

Mal

What I got? She has a name!

Jayne

So does this! [caresses the gun lovingly] I call it Vera.

Mal

Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly comin' to a middle.

Saffron

But we've been wed. Aren't… we to become one flesh?

Mal

Well, no, uh… we're still two fleshes here, and... I think... that your flesh oughta… sleep somewhere else.

Saffron

I'm sorry. When we talked, I'd hoped, but I—

Mal

Whoa, hey! Flesh. Um... Saffron... i-it... it ain't a question of pleasing me. It's more a question of what's...

Mal

...um... of what's morally right.

Saffron

I do know my Bible, sir. [Recites a fictional bible verse] "On the night of their betrothal, the wife shall open to the man as the furrow to the plow, and he shall work in her, in and again, till she bring him to his fall, and rest him then upon the sweat of her breast."

Mal

Whoa. Good Bible.

Mal

...it's been a while—a long, damn while—since anybody but me took ahold of my plow…

Saffron

If I'm wed, I'm a woman, and I'll take your leave to be bold. I want this. I swell to think of you in me.

Saffron

And I see that you do, too.

Mal

Oh, th-th— that's just, uh...

Saffron

Leave me at the nearest port. Never look upon me again. I'll make my way with the strength that you've taught me. Only let me have my wedding night.

Mal

[resignedly] Oh, I'm gonna go to the special hell.

Mal

You woulda kissed her too.

Zoe

Wash didn't.

Mal

But she was naked! And all... articulate!

Wash

Okay! Everybody not talking about sex, in here. Everybody else, elsewhere.

Wash

Captain, don't you know kissin' girls makes you sleepy?

Mal

Sometimes, I just can't help myself.

Mal

Honey, I'm home.

Mal

Looks like you get that wedding night after all.

Mal

It's the first time, darlin', I think you should be gentle with me.

Saffron

You gonna kill me?

Mal

Can you conjure up a terribly compelling reason for me not to?

Saffron

I didn't kill you.

Mal

You handed me and my crew over to those that would kill us. That buys you nothing.

Saffron

[smiles] I made you dinner.

Mal

Why the act? All the seduction games, the dancin' around folk, there has to be an easier way to steal.

Saffron

You're assuming the point is the paycheck.

Mal

I'm not assuming anything at this point.

Saffron

How'd you find me?

Mal

Only a couple places that shuttle would make it to from where you left… happy to find it intact.

Saffron

You're quite a man, Malcolm Reynolds. [Seductively] I've been waiting a long time for someone good enough to take me down.

Mal

Saffron, you even think about playing me again I will riddle you with holes.

Saffron

Everybody plays each other. That's all anybody ever does. We play parts.

Mal

You've got all kinds o' learnin' and you made me look the fool without even trying, yet here I am, with a gun to your head. That's 'cause I got people with me. People who trust each other, who do for each other, and ain't always lookin' for the advantage.

Saffron

Promise me you're gonna kill me soon.

Mal

(gets off her) Oh, you already know I ain't gonna.

Saffron

(sits up) You know, you did pretty well. Most men, they're on me inside of ten minutes. Not trying to teach me to be strong and the like.

Mal

I got one question for you, just one thing I'd like to know, straight up.

Saffron

Ask me.

Mal

What's your real name?

Mal

You'd only lie to me anyhow.

Mal

You're a very graceful woman, Inara.

Inara

[surprised] I... thank you

Mal

So here's where I'm fuzzy. You got by that girl, came and found me, and somehow you happen to just trip and fall.

Inara

What do you mean?

Mal

Come on, Inara. How's about we don't play. You didn't just trip, did you?

Inara

No.

Mal

Well, isn't that something.

Mal

I knew you let her kiss you.

Mal

Jayne, I told you we were settin' down on the Canton factory settlement on Higgins' Moon?

Jayne

Yep, that ya did.

Mal

Canton don't allow guns in their town.

Jayne

Yes sir, s'why I ain't strappin' one to my hip.

Mal

No, that's why you ain't strappin' one anywhere.

Jayne

Oh, listen Mal, I was in Canton a few years back. Might've made me a few enemies thereabouts.

Simon

[sarcastically] Enemies? You? No, how can it be?

Simon

Canton really... stinks.

Mal

That's what makes it such a good drop point. No one comes through here that doesn't have to.

Wash

I vote we do this job really really fast.

Mal

The management here don't take too kindly to sightseers, [which is] why we're posin' as buyers. There ain't-a one of us looks the part more than the good doctor. I mean, the pretty fits, soft hands, definitely a moneyed individual. All rich and lily-white, pasty all over—

Simon

All right! Fine, I'll go. Just... stop describing me.

Mal

You're the boss, boss.

Jayne

He's the boss now? [sarcastically] This day just keeps gettin' better and better.