John de Lancie credited as playing...
Q
- Capt. Picard: Return that moon to its orbit.
- Q: I have no powers! Q the ordinary.
- Capt. Picard: Q the liar! Q the misanthrope!
- Q: Q the miserable, Q the desperate! What must I do to convince you people?
- Lieutenant Worf: Die.
- Q: Oh, very clever, Worf. Eat any good books lately?
- Q: What are you looking at?
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: I was considering the possibility that you are telling the truth, that you really are human.
- Q: It's the ghastly truth, Mister Data. I can now stub my toe with the best of them.
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: An irony. It means that you have achieved in disgrace what I have always aspired to be.
- Q: I've been entirely preoccupied by a most frightening experience of my own. A couple of hours ago, I realized that my body was no longer functioning properly. I felt weak, I could no longer stand. The life was oozing out of me, I lost consciousness.
- Capt. Picard: You fell asleep.
- [Q has made appear two scantily clad women to fawn on Riker]
- Commander William T. Riker: I don't need your fantasy women.
- Q: Oh, you're so stolid! You weren't like that before the beard.
- Q: [analyzing the cause for the Bre'el IV moon's trajectory] This is obviously the result of a large celestial object passing through at near right angles to the plane of the star system. Probably a black hole.
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: Can you recommend a way to counter the effect?
- Q: Simple. Change the gravitational constant of the universe.
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: Captain, the aliens have disappeared. And so has the shuttle.
- Commander William T. Riker: Scan the sector.
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: I have, sir.
- Capt. Picard: Well... I suppose that is the end of Q.
- [with a flash, Q appears on the bridge with a trumpet, accompanied by a mariachi band]
- Q: AU CONTRAIRE, MON CAPITAINE! HE'S BACK!
- [the band starts playing, accompanied by Q with gusto]
- Q: There are creatures in the universe who would consider you the ultimate achievement, android. No feelings, no emotions, no pain. And yet you covet those qualities of humanity. Believe me, you're missing nothing. But if it means anything to you... you're a better human than I.
- Q: Until next time. Ah, but... before I go, there's a debt I wish to repay, to my professor of the humanities. Data, I've decided to give you something very, very special.
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: If your intention is to make me human, Q...
- Q: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I would never curse you by making you human. Think of it... as a going-away present.
- [he disappears. Data suddenly starts laughing out of control]
- Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Data... Data, why are you laughing?
- [Data calms down, somewhat bemused]
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: I do not know. But it was a wonderful... feeling.
- Q: I'm no longer a member of the Continuum. My superiors have decided to punish me!
- Capt. Picard: And punish us as well, it would seem.
- Q2: There's still this matter of the selfless act. Now, you and I both know that the Calamarain would have eventually destroyed the Enterprise to get to you. And that's really why you left, right?
- Q: It was a teeny bit selfless, wasn't it?
- Q2: [exasperated] GRRR, yeah, and there is my problem! See, I can't go back to the Continuum and tell them that you committed a selfless act just before the end. If I do, there's gonna be questions, there's gonna be explanations for centuries!
- Lieutenant Worf: Be quiet! Or disappear back where you came from.
- Q: I can't disappear - any more than you could win a beauty contest.
- Capt. Picard: Shuttle occupant, identify yourself.
- Q: [appears onscreen] Don't try to talk me out of it, Jean-Luc.
- Capt. Picard: Q, return to the ship immediately.
- Q: I just can't get used to following orders.
- Lieutenant Worf: Captain, the plasma cloud is moving toward the shuttle.
- Q: It's easier this way. They won't bother you after I'm gone.
- Commander William T. Riker: Engineering, prepare to extend shields.
- Q: Please. Don't fall back on your tired cliché of charging to the rescue just in the nick of time. I don't want to be rescued. My life as a human being has been a dismal failure. Perhaps my death will have a little dignity.
- Capt. Picard: Q, there is no dignity in this suicide.
- Q: [thinks] Yes, I suppose you're right. Death of a coward, then. So be it. But as a human, I would have died of boredom.
- Q: You're right, of course. I'm extraordinarily selfish. But it has served me so well in the past.
- Capt. Picard: It will not serve you here.
- Q: Don't be so hard on me, Jean-Luc. You've been a mortal all your life, you know all about dying. I've never given it a second thought... or a first one, for that matter. I could have been killed. If it hadn't been for Data and that one brief delay he created, I would have been gone. No more me. And no one would have missed me, would they?
- [sighs]
- Q: Data may have sacrificed himself for me. Why?
- Capt. Picard: That is his special nature. He learned the lessons of humanity well.
- Q: When I ask myself if I would have done the same for him, and I am forced to answer, "No," I feel... I feel ashamed.
- Capt. Picard: Q, I am not your father confessor. You will receive no absolution from me. You have brought nothing but pain and suffering to this crew. And I am still not entirely convinced that all this isn't your latest attempt at a puerile joke.
- Q: It is a joke. A joke on me, the joke of the universe. The king who would be man. As I learn more and more what it is to be human, I am more and more convinced that I would never make a good one. I don't have what it takes. Without my powers, I'm frightened of everything. I'm a coward, and I'm miserable. And I can't go on this way.
- Q: I'm forgiven! My brothers and sisters of the Continuum have taken me back. I'm immortal again! Omnipotent again!
- Commander William T. Riker: Swell.
- Q: It was a mistake. I never should have picked human. I knew it the moment I said it. To think of a future in this shell... forced to cover myself with a fabric because of some outdated human morality, to say nothing of being too hot or too cold. Growing feeble with age, losing my hair, catching a disease, being ticklish, sneezing, having an itch, a pimple, bad breath...
- [looks at Worf]
- Q: Having to *bathe!*
- Lieutenant Worf: Too bad!
- [Q tries unsuccessfully to convince Worf that he has truly become an ordinary human]
- Lieutenant Worf: You have fooled us too often, Q.
- Q: Oh, perspicacity incarnate. Please don't feel compelled now to tell me the story of "The Boy Who Cried 'Worf'".
- Capt. Picard: Fine. You want to be treated as human?
- Q: Absolutely.
- Capt. Picard: All right. Mr. Worf - throw him in the brig!
- Lieutenant Worf: Delighted, Captain.
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: I have observed that the selection of food is often influenced by the mood of the person ordering.
- Q: I'm in a dreadful mood. Get me something appropriate.
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: When Counselor Troi is unhappy, she usually eats something chocolate.
- Q: Chocolate?
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: Mm. A chocolate sundae for example. Although I do not speak from personal experience, I have seen it have a profound psychological impact.
- Q: [to waitress] I'll have ten chocolate sundaes.
- Waitress: Ten?
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: I have never seen anyone eat ten chocolate sundaes.
- Q: I'm in a really bad mood. And since I've never eaten before, I should be... very hungry.