Remembrance [1.1]

Data: Why are you stalling, Captain?

Jean-Luc Picard: I don't want the game to end.

Laris: Bad dreams?

Jean-Luc Picard: The dreams are lovely. It's the waking up that I'm beginning to resent.

Interviewer: What was it that you lost faith in, Admiral? You've never spoken about your departure from Starfleet. Didn't you, in fact, resign your commission in protest? Tell us, Admiral. Why did you really quit Starfleet?

Jean-Luc Picard: Because it was no longer Starfleet.

Interviewer: I'm sorry?

Jean-Luc Picard: Because it was no longer Starfleet! We withdrew. The galaxy was mourning, burying its dead, and Starfleet had slunk from its duties. The decision to call off the rescue and to abandon those people we had sworn to save was not just dishonorable. It was downright criminal! And I was not prepared to stand by and be a spectator. And you, my dear, you have no idea what Dunkirk is, right? You're a stranger to history. You're a stranger to war. You just wave your hand and it all goes away. Well, it's not so easy for those who died. And it was not so easy for those who were left behind. We're done here.

Dahj Asha: Have you ever... been a stranger to yourself?

Jean-Luc Picard: Many, many times.

Jean-Luc Picard: I haven't been living. I've been waiting to die.

Maps and Legends [1.2]

Jean-Luc Picard: The daughter of the man whose death I have been mourning for two decades comes to me for help and assistance. And then she is assassinated in front of my eyes by a Romulan death squad who will then go and try and find and destroy her twin sister. And you want me to sit here worrying what to do about the spittlebugs on the pinots?

Laris: I want you not to die. No one but the Tal Shiar could ever protect you against the Tal Shiar.

Zhaban: She's not wrong. You can't go without us.

Laris: Idiot! He cannot go at all. He's only safe here.

Soji Asha: Is that strange? To find beauty in imperfection?

Jean-Luc Picard: I never really cared for science fiction. I guess I just didn't get it.

Kirsten Clancy: The sheer fucking hubris. You think you can just waltz back in here and be entrusted with taking men and women into space?

Kirsten Clancy: The Romulans were our enemies, and we tried to help them for as long as we could, but even before the synthetics attacked Mars, fourteen species within the Federation said 'Cut the Romulans loose, or we'll pull out.' It was a choice between allowing the Federation to implode, or letting the Romulans go.

Jean-Luc Picard: The Federation does not get to decide if a species lives or dies.

Kirsten Clancy: Yes we do. We absolutely do. Thousands of other species depend upon us for unity, for cohesion. We didn't have enough ships left. We had to make choices, but the great Captain Picard didn't like his orders.

Jean-Luc Picard: I was standing up for the Federation for what it represents! For what it should STILL represent!

Kirsten Clancy: How dare you lecture me!

Zhaban: You need a crew. Riker. Worf. La Forge.

Jean-Luc Picard: No. I thought about it. And they would do it in a heartbeat, and that's precisely why I cannot ask them. They would put themselves at risk out of loyalty to me, and I do not want to have to go through that again.

Raffi Musiker: There isn't anything you could say that I'd want to hear.

Jean-Luc Picard: Secret Romulan assassins are operating on Earth.

[Musiker looks at the bottle of wine Picard is carrying.]

Raffi Musiker: Is that the '86? Goddammit.

The End is the Beginning [1.3]

Raffi Musiker: There has to be something. Some last, desperate, wild solution, J.L.? That's what you do!

Jean-Luc Picard: My resignation was the last, desperate, wild solution. I never believed that they would accept it.

Ramdha: Which sister are you? The one who dies or the one who lives?

EMH: So are we excited? Intimidated? Maybe a teensy bit starstruck? Jean-Luc Picard! Chief contact with the Q Continuum. Arbiter of succession for the Klingon Empire. Savior of Earth from Borg invasion. Captain of the Enterprises D and E. The man even worked alongside the great Spock.

Cristóbal Rios: You are an emergency hologram. We no longer have a navigational emergency. Why are you still here?

EMH: Well, someone is experiencing an acute moodiness overload. Picard is a good man, Captain Rios. He's on the side of the angels.

Absolute Candor [1.4]

Agnes Jurati: What's your book about?

Cristóbal Rios: The existential pain of living with the consciousness of death, and how it defines us as human beings.

Agnes Jurati: Well, that's not a conversation killer at all.

Zani: Because you could not save everyone, you chose to save no one.

Raffi Musiker: Man can't even take a guilt trip without using a starship.

Elnor: Please, my friend, choose to live… I regret your choice.

Stardust City Rag [1.5]

Raffi Musiker: Try to stay away from the lizard. Beta Anari can smell when you're not telling the truth.

Agnes Jurati: Seriously?

Raffi Musiker: Also, what you had for dinner. And the last person you had sex with.

Cristóbal Rios: If they're not the same thing.

Agnes Jurati: Cause that's not disturbing.

Agnes Jurati: It's okay. It will be okay. You can do this. You have to do this.

[The ship's EMH activates automatically, startling Dr Jurati.]

EMH: What is the nature of your psychiatric emergency? Your pulse and blood pressure are significantly elevated.

Agnes Jurati: Because you scared the hell out of me!

Jean-Luc Picard: What the hell is going on here?

Seven of Nine: I was not entirely candid with you.

Jean-Luc Picard: [Sarcastically] Really?

Elnor: Are we still pretending?

Jean-Luc Picard: No, Elnor. I think everyone has finally stopped.

Jean-Luc Picard: [M]urder is not justice. There is no solace in revenge. You have had your humanity restored to you. Don't squander it now.

Seven of Nine: After they brought you back from your time in the Collective...do you honestly feel that you regained your humanity?

Jean-Luc Picard: Yes.

Seven of Nine: All of it?

Jean-Luc Picard: No. But we're both working on it, aren't we?

Seven of Nine: Every damned day of my life.

The Impossible Box [1.6]

Agnes Jurati: Maybe [the Borg have] changed.

Jean-Luc Picard: Changed? The Borg? They coolly assimilate entire civilizations, entire systems, in a matter of hours. They don't change! They metastasize.

Soji Asha: Romulans love secrets. You think everyone is hiding something.

Narek: Everyone is hiding something. Whether they know it or not.

Raffi Musiker: I don't want to end up on the wrong side of a disruptor cannon, Emmy. I'm still planning on drinking myself to death.

Hugh: I take it she's in serious danger.

Jean-Luc Picard: What? Why would you ask that?

Hugh: A hunch. Something about her. Something about you coming this far to this place. And something about the dashing, young Romulan spy who showed up two weeks ago pretending not to be asking questions about her.

Elnor: Please, my friends. Choose to live.

Nepenthe [1.7]

William Riker: That time you were flying off to Romulus, to plan the Great Supernova Rescue. Do you remember what I said?

Jean-Luc Picard: 'So you want to be ass-deep in Romulans for the rest of your life?'

William Riker: I believe I also reminded you of Newton's Fourth Law of Thermodynamics.

Jean-Luc Picard: No good deed goes unpunished.

Kestra Troi-Riker: Can you play the violin?

Soji Asha: No.

Kestra Troi-Riker: Do you like Sherlock Holmes?

Soji Asha: I guess so.

Kestra Troi-Riker: Can you run super fast, jump really high, and bend steel with your hands?

Soji Asha: Turns out, yes, I can.

Kestra Troi-Riker: Weird!

Soji Asha: Tell me about it.

Kestra Troi-Riker: [ Data ] could do all these amazing things but all he ever really wanted to do was have dreams and tell jokes and learn how to ballroom dance.

Raffi Musiker: And now, you come along for a ride with Auntie Raffi. She's going to hook you up with whatever you need.

Agnes Jurati: Is it cake?

Raffi Musiker: You bet it's cake.

William Riker: Classic Picard arrogance. You get to make the decisions about who gets to take the chances and who doesn't, and who's in the loop and who's out of the loop, and, naturally, it always ends up with you. And that's fine on the bridge of your starship, captain, but now you're dealing with a teenager, more or less. That can be an extremely humbling experience. Frankly, not sure you're up to it.

Jean-Luc Picard: Perhaps I'm not.

William Riker: There you go. Baby steps.

Jean-Luc Picard: Baby steps.

Broken Pieces [1.8]

Narissa: The Collective picked the wrong Tal Shiar ship to assimilate that day. They ought to have picked mine. I'd have made a much better Borg than you.

Kirsten Clancy: That's a hell of a report.

Jean-Luc Picard: And you thought I was a desperate old man. Quixotic, paranoid, possibly senile…

Kirsten Clancy: Let's just leave it at quixotic.

Jean-Luc Picard: And now the windmills have turned out to be giants.

Kirsten Clancy: Admiral Picard, with all due respect, and at long last, shut the fuck up

Et En Arcadia Argo, Part 1 [1.9]

Raffi Musiker: Nice work, honey. You got us here really damn fast. And I am never going to do that ever again.

Jean-Luc Picard: There's a difference between killing an attacking enemy and watching a wounded one die

Raffi Musiker: Oh man.

Cristóbal Rios: How many?

Raffi Musiker: Uh, 218 warbirds.

Cristóbal Rios: Ah. 218. That's not so bad.

Raffi Musiker: True. You really only have to worry about the first 109.

Seven of Nine: Keep saving the galaxy, Picard.

Jean-Luc Picard: That's all on you now.

Et En Arcadia Argo, Part 2 [1.10]

William Riker: Acting Captain Will Riker, in command of the U.S.S. Zheng He.

Oh: And...?

William Riker: And it is my duty to inform you that the United Federation of Planets has designated planet Ghulion IV in the Vayt sector under the protection of Starfleet, according to the terms of the Treaty of Algeron.

Oh: Too late. Our claim to this world takes precedence. Move aside.

Riker: Afraid not.

Picard: [recorded message] I have a priority request to open diplomatic negotiations and protection for the inhabitants of Ghulion IV.

Riker: General, or Commodore, or whatever you're calling yourself, right now, I'm on the bridge of the toughest, fastest, most powerful ship Starfleet has ever put into service, and I've got a fleet of them at my back. We've got our phasers locked on your warp cores. And nothing would make me happier than you giving me an excuse to kick your treacherous Tal Shiar ass. But instead, I'm going to ask you one time -- to stand down.