Jean-Luc Picard quotes from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Q

You're dead, this is the afterlife...and I'm God.

Jean-Luc Picard

You are not God!

Q

Blasphemy! You're lucky I don't cast you out or smite you or something. The bottom line is, your life ended about five minutes ago... under the inept ministrations of Dr. Beverly Crusher.

Jean-Luc Picard

No. I am not dead. Because I refuse to believe that the afterlife is run by you. The universe is not so badly designed!

Q

Attention on deck, Ensign Picard!

Picard

Q.

Q

That's Captain Q to you, young man!

...Cowards! Like all Starfleet, you talk and talk, but you have no guramba!

Picard

What? We talk and talk, but we have no what!?

I said, you have no guramba. No courage!

Picard

[cold and deadly] That's what I thought you said. [He staggers the Nausicaan with a punch, and the fateful brawl erupts. Corey and Marta are soon dropped, while Picard is stabbed through the heart from behind. He laughs with relief.]

Picard

I can't live out my days as that person! That man is bereft of passion... and imagination! That is not who I am!

Q

Au contraire! He's the person you wanted to be. One who was less arrogant and undisciplined in his youth? One who was less like me? The Jean-Luc Picard you wanted to be -- the one who did not fight the Naussicans -- had quite a different career from the one you remember. That Picard never had a brush with death, never came face-to-face with his own mortality, never realized how fragile life is...or how important each moment can, and should, be. So his life never came into focus. He drifted for much of his career, with no plan or agenda, going from one assignment to the next, never seizing the opportunities that presented themselves. He never led the away team on Milica 3 to save the ambassador, never took charge of the Stargazer's bridge when its captain was killed; and no one ever offered him a command. He learned to play it safe...and he never, ever, got noticed by anyone.

Picard

You're right, Q. You gave me the opportunity to change, and I took it. But I see now that doing so was a mistake.

Q

Are you asking me for something, Jean-Luc?

Picard

Only for a chance to make things as they were before, the way I now realize they must be.

Q

Before, you died it Sickbay. Is that what you want?

Picard

I would rather die as the man I know is truly within me -- with a full life, a real life, behind me -- than have my name on the biography I just listened to.

It would seem that we are not completely dissimilar after all; in our hopes, or in our fears.

Picard

Yes.

Well then. Perhaps, one day…

Picard

One day…

Jean-Luc Picard

Dr. Fesbinder gave an hour long dissertation on the ionization of warp nacelles before he realized that the topic was supposed to be psychology.

Geordi La Forge

Why didn't anybody tell him?

Jean-Luc Picard

There was no opportunity. There was no pause. (droning) He-just-kept-talking-in-one-long-incredibly-unbroken-sentence, moving-from-topic-to-topic-so-that-no-one-had-the-chance-to-interrupt, it-was-really-quite-hypnotic.

Worf

Captain, incoming message from the New Berlin Colony. They have cancelled their distress call. Evidently a Ferengi trading ship entered their system and someone panicked.

Riker

Third time today. Stand down Red Alert. Reduce speed. Return to our patrol route.

Jean-Luc Picard

Mister Worf, acknowledge the signal from New Berlin, transmit another copy of Starfleet's ship-recognition protocols - and tell them to read it this time.

Worf

Aye, sir.

Picard

What type of cake is that?

Data

It is a cellular peptide cake.

Worf

[With mouth full] With mint frosting.

Picard

Well, they seem to have a somewhat exaggerated opinion of me.

Riker

Oh, I don't know, I think the resemblance is rather striking. Wouldn't you agree, Number One?

Picard

Isn't there something else you have to do?

Riker

I'll be on the bridge!

Geordi

[In distance] Captain Picard to the bridge. Captain we've got a problem with the warp core, or the phase inducers, or some other damn thing.

Picard

Geordi!

If you're really his friend you'll get him to take that gray out of his hair.

Data

Jessel...

Looks like a bloody skunk.

Data

She can be frightfull trying at times, but, she does make me laugh.

Geordi

Data, what is it with the hair anyway?

Data

I've found that a touch of gray adds an air of distinction.

Picard

You say this is Earl Grey, I'd swear that it was Darjeeling.

Hmm.

Q

Time may be eternal, Captain, but our patience is not. It's time to put an end to your little "trek" through the stars; make room for other more…worthy species.

Jean-Luc Picard

You're...going to deny us travel through space?

Q

[to crowd] He doesn't understand! [to Picard] You obtuse piece of flotsam, you are to be denied existence. Humanity's fate has been sealed, you will be destroyed.

Q

[Appearing aged, raises an ear trumpet] Eh? What did she say, sonny? I couldn't quite hear her.

Jean-Luc Picard

Q! What is going on? Where is the anomaly?

Q

Where's your mommy? Well, I don't know!

Q

You just don't get it, do you, Jean-Luc? The trial never ends. We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons. And for one brief moment, you did.

Jean-Luc Picard

When I realized the paradox.

Q

Exactly. For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. That is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebulae, but charting the unknowable possibilities of existence.

Jean-Luc Picard

Q, what is it you're trying to tell me?

Q

You'll find out. In any case, I'll be watching. And if you're very lucky I'll drop by to say hello from time to time. See you...out there.

Jean-Luc Picard

I should have done this a long time ago.

Deanna Troi

You were always welcome.

Jean-Luc Picard

So, five-card stud, nothing wild... and the sky's the limit.