Babylon 5 Quotes

Sheridan: [over the PA system] This is the Captain. If I can have your attention! As of this time, 0315 Earth Standard Time, I am placing you under arrest for conspiracy to mutiny and failure to obey the chain of command. The order for Night Watch to take over Babylon 5 security came from the Political Office! The Political Office, despite its connection to the President, is a civilian agency outside the direct chain of command! Orders affecting military personnel must come from within the military hierarchy, starting from the President, through the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to your immediate superior officers. A Senator cannot give you a direct order! A governor cannot give you a direct order! And neither can the Political Office! Make no mistake, this is an illegal order! Now, we've contacted Earthdome and requested confirmation of this order through proper channels. But, since we seem to be having trouble with communications, this may take several days. Until then, you have two choices. You can stay where you are, or you can leave, one at a time. On your way out, you'll turn in your link, identicard, and weapons. You'll be restricted to quarters until the revised orders come in. When that happens, anyone who wants to file a complaint against me can do so. Otherwise…have a pleasant stay. Oh, and one other thing. If I were you, I wouldn't use my weapons on the airlocks. They're a solid beryllium alloy. The ricochet is a killer.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Lady Morella: What we are about to say is for your ears only, Ambassador Mollari. We will not repeat it to others in the Royal Court, and suggest you do the same. If it comes out, we will deny this conversation ever took place.
Londo: Of course.
Morella: You have a chance few others will ever have, Mollari. You still have three opportunities to avoid the fire that waits for you at the end of your journey. You have already wasted two others. You must save the eye that does not see. You must not kill the one who is already dead. And at the last, you must surrender yourself to your greatest fear, knowing that it will destroy you. Now if you have failed all the others, that is your final chance for redemption.
Londo: I…don't understand!
Morella: The future reveals itself only reluctantly, Ambassador. Take the sign for what it is. Look for it when it appears!
Londo: I will. Thank you!
Morella: One more thing. You will be Emperor. That part of your destiny cannot be avoided.
Londo: I see.
Morella: [to Vir] You will also be Emperor.
[Vir starts laughing.]
Morella: Why are you laughing?
Vir: I…I thought you were joking!
Morella: We do not joke in the face of prophecy, Vir.
Londo: Lady Morella, please! We cannot both be Emperor!
Morella: Correct. One of you will become Emperor after the other is dead. That is all we see and all we wish to see.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[A furious Delenn attempts to convene the Grey Council.]
Acolyte: I told you, Delenn, they will not speak to you.
Delenn: Then they will listen to me! [She tries to go around him, but he blocks her path.] I served the Council for sixteen cycles. I was the chosen of Dukhat to replace him! I held him when he died! His blood is on my hands, his spirit in my eyes, his word on my lips! You will step aside in his name and mine, or–in Valen's name—I will tear this ship apart with my bare hands until I find them! Move aside!
[He wisely moves out of the way.]
. . .
[Delenn speaks to the Council.]
Delenn: Three years. For three years, I warned you this day was coming. But you would not listen. "Pride," you said! "Presumption!" And now the Shadows are on the move. The Centauri and the younger worlds are at war, the Narns have fallen... even the humans are fighting one another. The pride was yours! The presumption was yours! For a thousand years, we have been awaiting the fulfillment of prophecy. And when it finally happens, you scorn it—you reject it—because you no longer believe it yourselves!
[She confronts one of the Grey Council directly.]
Delenn: "We stand between the candle and the star, between the darkness and the light." You say the words, but your hearts are empty—your ears closed to the truth! You stand for nothing but your own petty interests!
[She confronts a second Grey Council member.]
Delenn: "The problems of others are not our concern." I do not blame you for standing silent in your shame. You, who knew what was coming, but refused to take up the burden of this war! If the Warrior Caste will not fight, then the rest of us will!
[Now she confronts the leader, the one who carries the staff.]
Delenn: If the Council has lost

TV Show: Babylon 5
[Sheridan talks to his father before the imminent battle.]
David Sheridan: Son…I follow the news. Well, I did until ISN went black! I see what's going on. Your mother doesn't like to think about it. You know how she is. John, I can't imagine the kind of decisions that are going through your mind right now. I'm sure they're not easy. The important ones never are. But when push comes to shove, you've always done the right thing. What was the first lession I ever taught you?
John Sheridan: Never start a fight, but always finish it.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[Sheridan addresses the entire station before the battle.]
Sheridan: May I have your attention, please? In the last few hours, we have learned that warships are coming this way from Earth. Their orders are to seize command of Babylon 5 by force. As commanding officer and military governor of Babylon 5, I cannot allow this to happen. President Clark has violated the Earth Alliance Constitution by dissolving the Senate, declaring martial law, and personally ordering the bombing of civilian targets on the Mars Colony! He is personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent people! Following these attacks, Orion 7 and Proxima 3 have broken away from the Earth Alliance and declared independence! Babylon 5 now joins with them! As of this moment, Babylon 5 is seceding from the Earth Alliance! We will remain an independent state until President Clark is removed from office! At the end of this current crisis, anyone who wishes to leave for Earth is free to do so. Meanwhile, for you own safety, I urge everyone to stay in your quarters until this is over. That is all.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[Major Ryan, aboard the Alexander, tries to get Captain Hiroshi and her crew to evacuate the heavily damaged Churchill.]
Ryan: Hiroshi! Get out of there! Get to the life pods!
Sandra Hiroshi: Too late to get out! Our primary systems are hit! We've got fire on all decks now! There's nothing we can do except…[the link goes dead]
Ryan: Hiroshi?…Hiroshi!
[the Churchill plows into the Clark-loyal Roanoke, consuming both ships in a cloud of fire]

TV Show: Babylon 5
[As the immediate danger is cleared.]
Sheridan: Damage report.
David Corwin: Damage to all sectors. They're still fighting in Brown Sector.
Sheridan: Get some more troops down there. Hull integrity?
Corwin: Not good. EVA teams en route. It's a good thing this stopped when it did. We couldn't take much more. [Jumpgate alarm goes off.] Oh, no!
[Outside, the jumpgate opens and three more Clark-loyal destroyers come through]
Captain Drake, EarthForce: This is Captain Drake to Babylon 5. You are ordered to surrender and prepare to be boarded, by order of President Clark.
[Another alarm goes off in C&C]
Corwin: Captain…jump points forming right on top of us!
Sheridan: [deflated] How many?
Corwin: Four!
[The jump points produce three Minbari cruisers and the White Star, with Delenn in the captain's chair]
Delenn: This is Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection. Withdraw…or be destroyed!
Drake: Negative. We have authority here. Do not force us to engage your ship.
Delenn: Why not? Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Delenn: Prophecy is a poor guide to the future. You only understand it when the event's already upon you.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[A funeral service for the pilots killed in the battle for Babylon 5]
John Sheridan: In breaking away from Earth, we have begun a difficult and uncertain journey, and none of us can see its end. But our cause remains a just one. That truth honors and sanctifies our fallen comrades who have made the ultimate sacrifice so that we might carry on the work that is ahead of us. We are gathered here today to honor their memory and their names.
Susan Ivanova: Hamilton. Rodriguez. Spinelli. Singh. Osterman. Massey. Cooper. Kim. Indari. Nagashima. Lietz. Mankowski. [as she reads the names, a line of torpedoes files out of the docking ring, watched over by a squadron of Starfuries]
Sheridan: From the stars we came. To the stars we return, from now until the end of time. We therefore commit these bodies to the deep.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[Londo is disturbed by front-line reports of Centauri conflicts.]
Londo Mollari: Now, I have been studying these reports from the front lines. You'll note the plural form—lines. Is there anyone along our border with whom we are not currently at war?
Lord Antono Refa: We need room to expand.
Londo: Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts.
. . .
[Londo insists that Refa discontinue his association with Morden's "associates".]
Refa: You walked away from the greatest power I have ever seen! And now you expect me to do the same? They are the key to my eventual rise to the throne! Why would I abandon them?
Londo: Because I have asked you. Because your loyalty to our people should be greater than your ambition. And because I have poisoned your drink.
[Lord Refa looks in astonishment at Londo]:
Londo: Yes…and it is very interesting poison. It comes in two parts. Both are harmless on their own. But when combined…quite lethal. The first settles into the bloodstream, and the intestinal walls. It stays there for years. Silent…dormant…waiting. When the other half of the poison enters your system the two meet, have a little party in your cardiovascular system…and suddenly, you are quite dead.
Refa: Why? Why did you do this?
Londo: To guarantee your cooperation! And because sooner or later, you would do it to me! As we are returning to the old ways, Refa, and poison was always the instrument of choice in the old Republic, being something of a sentimentalist, I got here first.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[the command staff changes the access codes for the station's computer system]
Sheridan: This is Captain John J. Sheridan. Serial number XO7Y39-Alpha. Security code: obsidian.
Ivanova: This is Commander Susan Ivanova. Serial number Z48M27-Epsilon. Security code: griffin.
Michael Garibaldi: This is Chief Warrant Officer Michael Garibaldi. Serial number V17L98. Security code: peekaboo.
. . .
Ivanova: Peekaboo?
Garibaldi: Would you have guessed it?

TV Show: Babylon 5
Thug: We don't talk to security. Why should we talk to you?
Marcus Cole: Because if you don't, then in five minutes, I will be the only person at this table still standing.
[the thug starts laughing]
Marcus: Five minutes after that, I'll be the only person in this room still standing.
. . .
[after Marcus clears out the bar]
Marcus: Bugger! Now I have to wait for someone to wake up!
[he is approached from behind by Lennier, who almost gets hit]
Lennier: I would advise against it. [looks at the wreckage] I see they trained you well back home.
Marcus: Well, they said I was carrying around a lot of repressed anger.
Lennier: And?
Marcus: I'm not repressed anymore!

TV Show: Babylon 5
[Marcus squeezes information out of a reluctant lurker.]
Marcus: You see? It's like I've always said: "You can get more with a kind word and a two-by-four than you can with just a kind word." paraphrased from Al Capone, "You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone."


TV Show: Babylon 5
[Sheridan pounds on the Nightwatch member who knifed Delenn.]
Sheridan: No more! No more of you! No more Nightwatch, no more hostages, no more lies! Not on my station! Not on my watch! No more!
[one last big punch]
Sheridan: No more!

TV Show: Babylon 5
[Sheridan is inviting Delenn to dinner in his quarters]
John Sheridan: You know, every time that I have seen you lately, we've been in the middle of a crisis! A revolution! I mean, this is the first time in months that it's been this quiet! It won't last. It never does. But as long as it's here…I'd like to see you tonight.
Delenn: Are you not seeing me now? I would assume that you see me every time we meet. Unless I have become translucent, or insubstantial, and no one has thought to inform me until now.
Sheridan: Then let me say I'd like to see you in a different light. Candlelight, for instance. Over dinner?
Delenn: Tonight?
Sheridan: Tomorrow we may be involved in another crisis, another battle! This may be the last chance we'll get for a while. You know, back home we have a saying. "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die!"
Delenn: Humans can be a very depressing people.
Sheridan: Only if we get turned down for dinner.
Delenn: Well, we cannot have that, now can we?

TV Show: Babylon 5
[Entertaining Vir and his new wife, Londo is also struggling with a pest infestation.]
Londo Mollari: I swear, they are evolving right before my eyes.
[He turns to Vir and Lyndisty.]
Londo: If you see something this big with eight legs coming your way, let me know. I have to kill it before it develops language skills.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[after he and Lyndisty kiss for the first time]
Vir Cotto: If kisses could kill, that one would have flattened several small towns!

TV Show: Babylon 5
[Marcus and Franklin talk about the poor lives of Lurkers.]
Stephen Franklin: A lot of folks around here seem to think that lurkers deserve what they get. They figure it's better to let them die and…
Marcus Cole: "…and thus deplete the surplus population." Dickens! You know, um…I used to think that it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[After fighting the thieves with Arthur]
G'Kar: By G'Quan, I can't recall the last time I was in a fight like that! No moral ambiguity, no hopeless battle against ancient and overwhelming forces! They were the bad guys, as you say, and we were the good guys. And they made a very satisfying thump when they hit the floor.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[Garibaldi and a security officer are breaking in to a post office storage room.]
Michael Garibaldi: What are you so nervous about? We went up against the entire Earth Alliance and two carrier groups.
Security Officer: Yeah, but this is the post office. This could get us in real trouble.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[Marcus and Dr. Franklin have just seen "Arthur" off.]
Marcus: Where my people come from, his story has great power. I'll miss him.
Franklin: Even if he wasn't Arthur?
Marcus: [as Kosh appears] Now, now! Next thing you'll be saying is he's not Merlin! [Franklin laughs.] Merlin was a great teacher, you know!
Franklin: I'm not hearing this.
Marcus: They say he aged backwards. That was how he was able to foretell the future–by remembering it! Which means he came from the future! Maybe he had Arthur form the Round Table by remembering us! We're forming one of our own, after all. Which makes you Percival. I'm Galahad, him being sinless and all. Sheridan is Arthur. Ivanova, perhaps Gawain. I think we both know who Mordred is. So the question is…who is Morgana le Fay?

TV Show: Babylon 5
John Sheridan: Mr. Bester, we no longer have any ties to Earth or to the Psi Corps. So we don't have to put up with you or your games. Now, I am sitting on four brand-new unidirectional pulse cannons. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't blow you out of the sky!
Alfred Bester: Because you're curious? Kill me, and you'll never know what brought me all the way out here! I think if you weigh that against the brief satisfaction of "blowing me out of the sky", you'll do the right thing!
[There is a long pause.]
Bester: Captain?
Sheridan: I'm thinking it over!
Bester: [not exactly reassured] Ah!…Good!

TV Show: Babylon 5
[Bester works on Lyta's feelings of being ignored by the B5 staff.]
Bester: I mean, being a freedom fighter, a…a force for good, it's…it's a wonderful thing. You get to make your own hours, looks good on a resume, but the pay…sucks.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[his dying words as the Starfire Wheel consumes him]
Neroon: I was born Warrior Caste! But I see now, the calling of my heart is RELIGIOUS! The war is over! Listen to her! Listen!

TV Show: Babylon 5
Bester: I was expecting the Captain.
Susan Ivanova: He sent me.
Bester: Did he? He has a better sense of humor than I thought. Please, sit.
Ivanova: I'd rather stand.
Bester: I suspect you'd rather walk out that door and wall me up inside! Do a little re-creation of "The Cask of Amontillado". "For the love of God, Montresor!"
Ivanova: If you get near a point, make it!

TV Show: Babylon 5
Sheridan: So, how did you find out about all this?
Bester: I'm a telepath. Work it out.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[Bester is admiring the White Star's bridge]
Sheridan: Try not to drool on the controls.
Bester: You said something, Captain?
Sheridan: Mm. Not a word. Just burped.
. . .
Sheridan: Mr. Bester.
Bester: Captain Sheridan.
Sheridan: Get the hell out of my chair.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[Morden accosts Vir as he runs errands for Londo.]
Morden: Anything I can do to help?
Vir Cotto: Um…Short of dying? No, can't think of a thing.

TV Show: Babylon 5
John Sheridan: For three years now you've been pulling everyone's strings, getting us to do all the work, and you haven't done a damn thing but stand there and look cryptic! Well, it's about time you start pulling your own weight around here. […] I hear you've got a saying: "Understanding is a three-edged sword"? Well, we've got a saying, too: "Put your money where your mouth is"!
Kosh: Impudent.
Sheridan: Yeah? Well, maybe that's the only way to get through to you. You said you wanted to teach me to fight legends. Well, you're a legend too, and I am not going away until you agree!
Kosh: Incorrect. Leave. Now.
Sheridan: No.
Kosh: Disobedient!
Sheridan: Up yours!
[he gets thrown against the wall by an energy blast from Kosh]
Sheridan: So, the real Kosh shows his colors at last, huh? You angry now? Angry enough to kill me? Because that's the only way I'm leaving. Unless your people get off their encounter-suited butts and do something, I've got nothing to lose! God, my own government wants to kill me, and if we lose this war, I'm just as dead! Our only chance is to get the other races on board for this fight and right now you're the key to doing that.
Kosh: It is not yet time.
Sheridan: And who decides that time? You? You put me in this position. You asked me to fight this damn war! Well, it's about time you let me fight it my way! How many people have already died fighting this war of yours, huh? How many more will die before you come down off that mountain and get involved? Ships, colonies, whole worlds are being destroyed out there, and you do nothing! How many more? How many more, Kosh? How many more dead before you're satisfied? Huh?
Kosh: I will do as you ask. But there is a price to pay. I will not be there to help you when you go to Z'ha'du

TV Show: Babylon 5
Rathenn: I have the strangest feeling I will never see him again.
Vorlon: He is the closed circle. He is returning to the beginning.
Rathenn: The beginning of what?
[The Vorlon turns and moves away.]

TV Show: Babylon 5