Doctor Who (1996 film)

(27 May 1996)

The Doctor: It was on the planet Skaro that my old enemy, the Master, was finally put on trial. They say he listened calmly as his list of evil crimes was read and sentence passed. Then he made his last, and I thought somewhat curious, request. He demanded that I, the Doctor, a rival Time Lord, should take his remains back to our home planet — Gallifrey. It was a request they should never have granted.

[The Eighth Doctor's first words after regenerating.]

The Doctor: Who am I? Who am I? Who... Am... I?!

The Doctor: [Explaining regeneration to a bemused Grace]: Don't you see? I have thirteen lives.

Grace: Please! Okay, you're trying to tell me that you've come back from the dead.

The Doctor: Yes.

Grace: No, sorry. The dead stay dead. You can't turn back time.

The Doctor: Yes, you can.

Grace: I'm not a child. Don't talk to me like I'm a child. Only children believe that crap. I am a doctor.

The Doctor: But it was a childish dream that made you a doctor. You dreamt you could hold back death. Isn't that true? [Beat] Don't be sad, Grace. You'll do great things.

Grace: Maybe you're the result of some weird genetic experiment.

The Doctor: I don't think so.

Grace: But you have no recollection of family?

The Doctor: No... No-no-no-no-wait-wait-wait-wait... I remember I'm-I-I... I'm with my father, we're lying back in the grass, it's a warm Gallifreyan night--

Grace: Gallifreyan?

The Doctor: Gallifrey! Yes! This must be where I live. Now, where is that?

Grace: I've never heard of it! What do you remember?

The Doctor: A meteor storm. The sky above us was dancing with lights! Purple, green, brilliant yellow... Yes!

Grace: What?!

The Doctor: These shoes! [Stomps the ground happily.] They fit perfectly!

The Doctor: I love humans. Always seeing patterns in things that aren't there.

The Doctor: You want dominion over the living, yet all you do is kill!

The Master: Life is wasted on the living!

The Night of the Doctor (2013)

Broadcast 14 November 2013, written by Steven Moffat

The Doctor: Will it hurt?

Ohila: Yes.

The Doctor: Good. Charley, C'rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, Molly: Friends, companions I've known, I salute you. And Cass, I apologise. Physician, heal thyself...

Storm Warning (2001)

The Doctor: Breathe in deep, lieutenant. You too, Charley. You feel that pounding in your heart? That tightness in the pit of your stomach? The blood rushing to your head, do you know what that is? That's adventure. The thrill and the fear and the joy of stepping into the unknown. That's why we're all here, and that's why we're alive.

The Chimes of Midnight (2002)

The Doctor: Oh you’re right. It is very dark. Oh how exciting. I do love the dark, don’t you?

Charley: Well… within reason, but I think you can have too much of a good thing.

The Doctor: Oh it all just enhances the mystery, the sheer anticipation of not yet having a clue where we are.

Charley: You really haven’t got a clue?

The Doctor: The console isn’t telling me anything at all, just a blank read-out.

Charley: Well that sounds ominous.

The Doctor: No, not at all. I’ve been too methodical recently, I think. Setting coordinates and things, actually deciding where we want to go. I’ve been getting far too safe and predictable these last few incarnations. Do you know I once traveled for centuries without ever knowing where I’d materialize next?

Charley: Yes, I can believe that.

Scherzo (2003)

The Doctor [Opening narration.]: Once upon a time, in a land not too dissimilar to ours, there lived a king. And he was a good king; in an age when good was something of an unfashionable rarity. He was very very wise, and very very powerful. But he was also very very old. And he realized that for all his great wisdom, and his great power, he would soon have to leave his kingdom once and for all and make the journey to the outside world of infinite darkness. And so on the eve of his departure, when his physicians had finished all their head shaking, and his wives had wrung as many tears from their eyes as they could, he called his son and heir to his side. “Everything you see is yours to command,” he said. “But be advised. The better slaves are those who still believe they taste some freedom. Play the tyrant, but you must inspire love as well as fear.” Yet the son cared not for his words. And when the corpse had been dispatched with much pomp and fireworks to the darker realms outside, the new king resolved to stretch the limits of his authority. He gathered all the people before him and told them that their every thought must match his thought. No will should exist save his will. And people being people, they agreed. Those that didn’t, vanished in the night and their families soon learned to pretend that they had never existed. But still the king was not content. So he instructed all the animals in his kingdom that they must now obey his commands. Horses should bark, dogs should mew, fish should fly from tree to tree, exactly as he desired. And animals being animals, they agreed. Some of the pigs had to be culled, but no one minded because they tasted so lip smackingly good. And the cats had to go because no one could tell a cat anything. But soon the people and the animals lived in perfect harmony. Their lives precise expressions of the whims of their lord.

The Doctor [Opening narration.]: Every living creature obeyed their king; doing everything that he wanted, down to the smallest detail. Sometimes even before he knew he wanted it. But still the king was not content. Living creatures only made up the smallest number of his subjects. So he gave out further orders. He instructed that the waves should crash upon the shore only when he gave the word. He instructed that the wind should not blow, but suck. Time should not run forwards but backwards, or sideways. It took years to persuade them. Soldiers slashed at the waves until their swords were soaked with wave blood, wind and time were locked in the deepest dungeons until, starving, they gave in. The king ruled the elements. But still, he was not content. There was one subject that still balked at his power: music. How the king hated music. Refusing to be constrained, refusing to be disciplined. A small burst of recitative flowering into a fugue without permission. Or a cantata breaking out overnight into a fully fledged oratorio. “Will no man rid me of these turbulent tunes!?” he cried. And the militia, now trained to obey his merest impulse, took him at his word. They seized the music. Every last crochet and minim, each breve and innocent little semibreve and threw them out of the kingdom. They threw them into the outside world of infinite darkness. And music was banished forever. At last, the king had his own universe. It was his, and no one else’s. He was happy, and no one dared point out to him that he had exiled his only means by which he could express it.

The Scapegoat (2009)

Lucie: Do you… I mean, do you still think about Orbis? Your life back there?

The Doctor: Well… Why do you ask?

Lucie: Sometimes I look at you and you look, well, sad.

The Doctor: Lucie, there's a lot of darkness out there. Some of it where Orbis used to be. But you know something? We wouldn't notice any of it if it weren't for all those little pinpricks of light. Planets and stars. And that's where I go whenever I feel sad. The next bit of light in the darkness. Keep on moving. Never look back. Well, hardly ever.

The Resurrection of Mars (2010)

[In which the Doctor reflects on his previous life.]

The Doctor: I was once a man with a masterplan. I’d seek out injustices, topple governments, all in the name of the greater good. I’d started doing the maths, you see…. This is how evil starts, with the belief that the ends justify the means. But once you start down that road, there’s no turning back. What if you can save a million lives, but you have to let ten people die, or a hundred, or a hundred thousand. Where do you stop?

Lucie: But you did. You did stop.

The Doctor: I did. But by then I’d ended up traveling alone. Because I couldn’t trust myself with anyone’s life. Not after…

The Four Doctors (2010)

The Doctor: [TARDIS materialises, and the Doctor exits] Ya... uh... This is the patrachy collection...

Eighth Doctor: [Enters the TARDIS] Right now, where was I... Oh, what are you doing here.

Sixth Doctor: Some sort of residual resonation from the temporal instabilities, I should say.

Fifth Doctor: Yes, hmmm. I imagine the the phasing will correct itself and we'll all be returned to the correct points in our timeline... Any minute now.

Seventh Doctor: Well, I hope you're right! It'll be a bit embarrassing if we're all left here, travelling around together.

Eighth Doctor: Ah.. yes. I must admit, I hadn't intended on this.

Sixth Doctor: What have you done with the TARDIS interior design by the way!

Eighth Doctor: I hope you are not about to lecture me about taste, Doctor?

Sixth Doctor: I'm not sure what you mean.

To the Death (2011)

The Doctor [After watching Lucie die]: You're lucky Susan; lucky I left you behind. I've seen so many people die, I've got used to it. I just move on...

Susan Campbell:I don't believe that.

The Doctor: But today feels like a different day. One lost life too many. Today I just... I'll just say enough. I'm sorry you had to die too.

Susan Campbell: Hold me, Grandfather

The Doctor: Here, I've got you. I remember when you were so young;

Susan Campbell: And you were so old.

The Conscript (2017)

Gallifreyan Recruit: Are you... him?

The Doctor: I'm certainly a him. For the moment, anyway.

The Doctor: I've stayed away because I don't know where to begin. I don't know the answer to a Time War!

Commandant Harlan: What? You've stopped trying to find one?

The Doctor: No, but I'm sure it's not to keep sending millions to die! To escalate an arms race where both sides have unfettered access to all time and space. I've seen worlds destroyed, civilizations choked in their cradles, whole races fleeing in terror. I've seen centuries of art, of science, wiped out in an instant. I just saw a beautiful rainforest burn along with every creature in it. I didn't even know the planet's name. If you're prepared to accept that much collateral damage to the rest of the universe, then what exactly are you fighting for?! I'll protect those with no choice in the matter, no voice.

Commandant Harlan: Noble sentiments, but that's all they are. You avoid the issue while the rest of us have to make a stand. We are the ones in the right. Gallifrey must prevail. At any cost.

The Doctor: That is what terrifies me. That certainty. You start believing only in absolutes. Well, isn't that exactly who you're fighting?