Guinan quotes from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Guinan

My people encountered them a century ago. They destroyed our cities, scattered my people throughout the galaxy. They're called the Borg. Protect yourself, Captain, or they'll destroy you.

Guinan

Q set a series of events into motion, bringing contact with the Borg much sooner than it should have come. Now, perhaps when you're ready, it might be possible to establish a relationship with them. But for now, for right now, you're just raw material to them. Since they're aware of your existence...

Guinan

You can bet on it.

Guinan

Geordi, tell me about Tasha.

Guinan

You know, sooner or later, everyone comes in here. They stand by those windows, they look out and they stare. They're looking for that little star they call home. Doesn't matter how far away it it is. Everybody looks anyway.

Guinan

Now she's probably done the most horrific thing one thing can do to another: not live up to your expectations. So I’d take a good, long, hard look at her, La Forge. See her for sho she is. Not what you want her to be.

Guinan

Well consider that, in the history of many worlds, there have always been disposable creatures. They do the dirty work. They do the work that no one else wants to do, because it's too difficult or too hazardous. And an army of Datas, all disposable... "Here's their leader, you don't have to think about their welfare, you don't think about how they feel." Whole generations of disposable people.

Jean-Luc Picard

You're talking about slavery.

Guinan

Oh, I think that's a little harsh.

Jean-Luc Picard

I don't think that's a little harsh, I think that's the truth. But that's a truth that we have obscured behind comfortable, easy euphemism. 'Property.' But that's not the issue at all, is it?

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.

Wesley Crusher

It's just a science project.

Guinan

You know, a doctor friend once said the same thing to me. Frankenstein was his name.

Guinan

Wes, do you think you're gonna get a good grade?

Wesley Crusher

[sighs] I always get an A. [leaves Ten-Forward]

Guinan

So did Dr. Frankenstein.

Guinan

I hear they drummed you out of the Continuum.

Q

I like to think of it as a significant career change.

Q

One of the boys with an IQ of 2005.

Data

The Captain and many of the crew are not yet convinced he is truly human.

Guinan

Really?

Q

AAAAAHHHH!!!

Guinan

All right, try this.

Worf

What is it?

Guinan

Just try it.

Guinan

You see? It's an Earth drink. Prune juice.

Worf

[awestruck] A warrior's drink.

Jean-Luc Picard

How can I ask them to sacrifice themselves based solely on your intuition?

Guinan

I don't know. But I do know that this is a mistake. Every fiber in my being says this is a mistake. I can't explain it to myself, so I can't explain it to you. I only know that I'm right.

Jean-Luc Picard

Who is to say that this history is any less proper than the other?

Guinan

I suppose I am.

Jean-Luc Picard

Not good enough, damn it, not good enough! I will not ask them to die!

Guinan

40 billion people have already died. This war is not supposed to be happening. You've got to send those people back to correct this.

Jean-Luc Picard

And what is to guarantee that if they go back, they will succeed? Every instinct is telling me this is wrong, it is dangerous, it is futile!

Guinan

We've known each other a long time. You have never known me to impose myself on anyone, or take a stance based on trivial or whimsical perceptions. This timeline must not be allowed to continue. Now, I've told you what you must do. You have only your trust in me to help you decide to do it.

Guinan

Can I get you something, Tasha?

Tasha Yar

Guinan, I have to know something. What happens to me in the other time line?

Guinan

I don't have alternate biographies of the crew. As I said to the captain, it's just a feeling.

Tasha Yar

But there's something more when you look at me, isn't there? I can see it in your eyes, Guinan. We've known each other too long.

Guinan

We weren't meant to know each other at all! At least...that's what I sense when I look at you. Tasha, you're not supposed to be here.

Tasha Yar

Where am I supposed to be?

Guinan

Dead.

Tasha Yar

Do you know how?

Guinan

No. But I do know it was an empty death. A death without purpose.

Guinan

You see?

What are they doing?

Guinan

It's called flirting.

They seem to be communicating telepathically.

(alarmed) He is biting that female!

Picard

It's something of a tradition, Guinan - Captain touring the ship before a battle.

Guinan

Hmm. Before a hopeless battle, if I remember the tradition correctly.

Picard

Not necessarily. Nelson toured the HMS Victory before Trafalgar.

Guinan

Yes, but Nelson never returned from Trafalgar, did he?

Picard

No, but the battle was won.