Q quotes from Star Trek: Picard

Q

Do you like the skies here? In your history, humanity discovered a way to spare the planet they were in the process of murdering. Here they just... keep the corpse on life-support.

Q

You can't do it. And you know it. Oh, sure, you played the game for a while. But nothing was at stake, and the only challenge was fooling everybody into thinking you had the nerve. But now, it's real, and the fear's choking you. Oh, here's the truth: you can't do it. People are gonna die, and now your fear, your doubt, is the loudest voice in your head. [Q snaps his fingers, nothing happens] That's unexpected. And most unfortunate.

Jean-Luc Picard

What is happening here?

Q

An excellent question, Jean-Luc. Mon Capitaine, how I've missed you...

Jean-Luc Picard

No. No, no, no, no, no...

Q

Oh, dear. You're a bit older than I imagined. Let me catch up. [Q snaps his fingers and he becomes older in appearance] There. Now, we're even.

Jean-Luc Picard

Q... Goddamn Q!

Q

Do you recall what I said to you when last we parted ways? "The trial never ends."

Jean-Luc Picard

What the hell are you doing here?

Jean-Luc Picard

What is this?

Q

This? This is home.

Jean-Luc Picard

And where are the crew of the Stargazer?

Q

Oh, how quaint. How provincial. How Yesterday's Enterprise of you. There is no Stargazer.

Jean-Luc Picard

What do you mean? What have you done?

Q

Show them a world of their own making and they ask you what you've done. So human of you.

Jean-Luc Picard

Q, have you had enough of playing games with other people's lives? I am no longer your pawn!

Q

Oh, you undersell yourself, Jean-Luc. You are more than just a piece. You're the very board upon which this game is played.

Jean-Luc Picard

And I am too old for your bullshit!

Q

[angrily] Old, yes! How unfair time is. So many wrinkles. So many disappointments.

Jean-Luc Picard

What do you want, Q? Will you come to the point?

Q

You want me to cut to the chase?

Jean-Luc Picard

Yes!

Q

Well, the chase is cut, Picard! The chase is bleeding! The chase is dying in your arms, and I am but a suture in the wound. [Q backs away from Picard, appearing confused as to what he had just said]

Jean-Luc Picard

Are you...? Q, you are not well.

Jean-Luc Picard

Q, I ask you once more. And for the last time. Where is the Stargazer and her crew?

Q

I intervened. You see, I thought to myself, I thought, "I really must see Jean-Luc." So I simply sought out the nearest explosion.

Jean-Luc Picard

What do you want, Q?!

Q

Oh, I could tell you, but you're far too clever to listen. [sighs] That said, we're never too old to be students of our own behaviors, Jean-Luc.

Jean-Luc Picard

I have had enough of your stupid patronizing.

Q

And I've had enough of your obstinance, your stubbornness, your insistence on changing in all ways but the one that matters. This is not a lesson. It's a penance.

Q

Well, paradise has to have staff. Come on, who's gonna mow the grass? Fertilize the apple tree? And why pay for help when you can have alien slaves?

Jean-Luc Picard

I would never, ever...

Q

"I would never." Such moral convictions are the luxury of the victors. Come. "Through A Mirror, Darkly". And here, the man who holds the glass is darker still. Let me show you!

Q

Now, you're welcome to remain here in the body of a madman, in the world of a madman, to attempt, like Macbeth, to wash the blood from your hands. But I assure you, Jean-Luc... it's un-washable. Or...

Jean-Luc Picard

Or?

Q

Atonement. Maybe even... forgiveness?

Jean-Luc Picard

Forgiveness for what?

Q

I think you know. But don't worry. I won't let you do this alone.

Adam Soong

Do you have the cure? The real cure? Not something that wears off. Because if you do, I am a hostage to you, sir.

Q

We're all hostages to what we love. The only way to truly be free is to love nothing. And how meaningless would that be? I have what she needs.

Q

You? You summoned me?

You must be Q. Took your damn time.

Q

You are that multi-celled, sanctimonious, droning shrew known as Guinan. Right... It's the 21st century. Our paths have yet to cross.

I thought the Summoning didn't work.

Q

"Summoning"? The Summoning is a sacred ritual. Not a chat, by which you bipeds exchange the nauseating minutia of your pathetic lives!

When the Ritual stalled, I sensed something. Emptiness and fear. I thought it was me, but it wasn't! I feel it on you! [Q steps back, and Guinan realises] You're dying!

Q

Another quality I sincerely loathe about your species: empathy.

I knew you could kill each other, but otherwise, aren't you-?

Q

Immortal? So I believed. But now, for the first time as I look across the temporal horizon, the darkness... You think I'm dying! I prefer to believe that I am on the threshold of the unknowable. When I first felt it, I thought to myself: this is good! This is new! Infinite life, after all, has its drawbacks. And so, I prepared myself to be enveloped in the warm glow of meaning. Oh, that... moment has yet to come. Not even a glimmer. Dying stars burn brighter as they spin towards extinction. I, on the other hand, seem to be simply disappearing... into nothing. Why do you think it took me so long to get here?

That's why you walked in here today? Why you're using humans as your game pieces?

Q

[snaps his fingers, nothing happens] You see that? I'm honestly trying to vaporise you at this moment.

This 'thing' you're doing to Picard... it's how you're hoping to find... meaning in your life?

Q

I now have a lifetime. Can a single act redeem a lifetime?

Why bring him to the past?

Q

I did not bring him to the past. He did that on his own. There are many forms of time travel.

But he's trapped here!

Q

[angrily] The trap is immaterial! It's the escape that counts! [Q and Guinan stare at each other] I'll see you when I see you. Unfortunately. [Q goes to leave.] Humans... they're all trapped in the past.

Q

Bravo. Destiny left for the little boy you will be in the future to find.

Q

You considered destroying it, didn't you? Well, let me ask: if that key is not there for the boy to find, does he grow up with his mother? Does the shame instantly lift? But you accepted your fate. You accepted you. You chose the Jean-Luc you are. You absolved yourself. And because you choose him, perhaps now he will be worthy enough for someone else to choose. And maybe this time, he will even give him the chance to be loved. I told you this was about forgiveness, Jean-Luc. Yours.

Jean-Luc Picard

Why?

Q

Well, isn't that the eternal question? Know thyself.

Jean-Luc Picard

There's been so much loss. So much death.

Q

But you fixed all that.

Jean-Luc Picard

Elnor! Tallinn!

Q

Well, maybe not all of it. But Tallinn always dies in every timeline. This is the only one in which she meets Renée.

Jean-Luc Picard

I ask you once again: why?

Q

Finish the sentence.

Jean-Luc Picard

...me? From the very beginning, for over thirty years, why me?

Q

I am moving on. In your parlance, I am dying.

Jean-Luc Picard

Yes, I know.

Q

Alone. I am dying alone. I do not want that for you. Humans, your griefs, your pains fix you to moments in the past long gone. You're like butterflies with your wings pinned. My old friend, forever the boy who, with an errant turn of a skeleton key, broke the universe and his own heart. No more. You are now unshackled from the past. As I leave, I leave you free.

Jean-Luc Picard

But... why does all this matter? Is something going to happen, for which I will be required?

Q

Must it always have galactic import? Universal stakes? Celestial upheaval? Isn't one life enough? You ask me why it matters. It matters to me. [Q gets out of his chair and approaches Jean-Luc] You matter to me. Even Gods have favorites, Jean-Luc, and you've always been one of mine.

Q

Most unexpected. Perhaps now, there will be some... surplus energy? Call it a surprise. A gift. Farewell, Mon Capitaine. It's time for me to go.

Jean-Luc Picard

But not alone. Isn't that the point of all this? [Jean-Luc hugs Q]

Q

See you out there. [Jean-Luc lets Q go, Q snaps his fingers to send them back]

Q

Well, look at you.

Q

A chip off the old block.

Jack Crusher

Q, is that right?

Q

Simple name for a complicated being.

Jack Crusher

My father told me all about you. I thought you were dead.

Q

Oh... and here I was hoping the next generation wouldn't think so linearly. Young mortal, you have much ahead of you.

Jack Crusher

You told my father that humanity's trial was over.

Q

It is, for him. But I'm here today because of you. You see, yours, Jack, has just begun.