Q quotes from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Q

You don't have to eat, you know. It's a nasty human habit you could do without.

Q

(Shakes Picard's hand) Welcome to the Afterlife Jean-Luc...You're dead!

Q

...Please, spare me your egotistical musings on your pivotal role in history. Nothing you do here will cause the Federation to collapse, or galaxies to explode. To be blunt...You're important, but you're not that important.

Q

You cheated, Picard? I'm impressed!

Q

You mortals are so obtuse! Why do you persist in believing that life and death are such static and rigid concepts? Why I can take your life and give it back to you again with the snap of a finger!

Q

[Dressed as a delivery boy] Flowers! Is there a John Luck Pickird here?

Q

Oh, you'd like me to connect the dots for you, lead you from A to B to C, so that your puny mind could comprehend. How boring.

Q

Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you…you had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end…

Q

It is an unknown, Captain. Isn't that enough?

Jean-Luc Picard

If you'd earned that uniform you're wearing you'd know that the unknown is what brings us out here.

Q

"Life is but a walking shadow. A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Jean-Luc Picard

Interesting, Q.

Q

Oh, thank you very much, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Perhaps maybe a little Hamlet?

Picard

Oh, I know Hamlet. And what he might say with irony I say with conviction. "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason. How infinite in faculty. In form, in moving, how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel. In apprehension, how like a god."

Q

Surely you don't see your species like that, do you?

Jean-Luc Picard

I see us one day becoming that, Q. Is it that which concerns you?

Travel time to the nearest starbase?

Data

[OC] At maximum warp, in two years, seven months, three days, eighteen hours we would reach Starbase 185.

Why?

Q

Why? Why, to give you a taste of your future, a preview of things to come. Con permiso, Capitan. The hall is rented, the orchestra engaged. It's now time to see if you can dance.

Jean-Luc Picard

Guinan, your people have been in this part of the galaxy.

What can you tell us?

Guinan

Only that if I were you, I'd start back now.

Q

The Borg is the ultimate user. They're unlike any threat your Federation has ever faced. They're not interested in political conquest, wealth or power as you know it. They're simply interested in your ship. Its technology. They've identified it as something they can consume.

You brought us here, you exposed us to it, and you cost us the lives of our ship-mates!

Q

Oh, please...

Jean-Luc Picard

(to Riker) Number One. (to Q) Eighteen of our people have died. Please, tell us that this is one of your illusions.

Q

Oh, no. This is as real as your so-called life gets. [disappears]

Q

That was a difficult admission. Another man would have been humiliated to say those words. Another man would have rather died than ask for help.

Jean-Luc Picard

I understand what you've done here, Q, but I think the lesson could have been learned without the loss of eighteen members of my crew.

Q

If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here! It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross...but it's not for the timid.

Picard

Q!

Q

[playfully mocking his embarrassment] Red alert!

Q

And since I was given only a fraction of a second to mull, I chose this, and asked them to bring me here.

Deanna Troi

Why?

Q

Because in all the universe, you are the closest thing I have to a friend, Jean-Luc.