Big Damn Heroes

(For Rob...and Joi!)

Memorable Quotes from
"Firefly" (2002/I)

Mal: How's business?
Inara: None of yours.
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Wash: Who's flying this thing? Oh right, that would be me.
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Wash: Oh, my God. What can it be? We're all doomed! Who's flying this thing? Oh, right, that would be me. Back to work.
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Mal: Shouldn't you be out teaching religion to the fuzzy wuzzies or some such?
Book: I think I've got heathens 'aplenty right here.
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Mal: The Alliance said they were gonna waltz through Serenity Valley. And we choked 'em with those words. We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty.
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Jayne: [into radio] Testing. Captain, can you hear me?
Mal: I'm standing right here.
Jayne: [into radio] You're coming in good and loud, too.
Mal: 'Cause I'm standing right here.
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Jayne: You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with until you understand who's in ruttin' command here. Now we're finishing this deal, and then maybe maybe we'll come back for those morons who got themselves caught.
[Starts breathing heavily]
Jayne: You can't change that by getting all...
[His voice slows]
Jayne: ... bendy.
Wash: [not understanding the bendy thing] All what?
Jayne: [obviously drugged] You've got the light... from the console... keep you, lift you up. They shine like...
[tries to catch the light in his hands]
Jayne: ... little angels...
[Jayne collapses with a thud. The crew just stares]
Wash: Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?
Simon: I told him to sit down.
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[opening narration; first lines spoken in series]
Book: After the Earth was used up, we found a new solar system and hundreds of new Earths were terraformed and colonized. The central planets formed the Alliance and decided all the planets had to join under their rule. There was some disagreement on that point. After the War, many of the Independents who had fought and lost drifted to the edges of the system, far from Alliance control. Out here, people struggled to get by with the most basic technologies; a ship would bring you work, a gun would help you keep it. A captain's goal was simple: find a crew, find a job, keep flying.
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Mal: This is why we lost you know, superior numbers.
Zoë: Thanks for the reenactment, sir.
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Mal: See, this is another sign of your tragic space dementia, all paranoid and crotchety. Breaks the heart.
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Book: That young man's very brave.
Mal: Yeah. He's my hero.
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Inara: What did I tell you about barging into my shuttle?
Mal: That it was manly and impulsive?
Inara: Yes, precisely, only the exact phrase I used was "don't".
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Mal: Kaylee, what the hell's going on in the engine room? Were there monkeys? Some terrifying space monkeys maybe got loose?
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Niska: Oh, you do not like I kill this man?
Mal: No, I'm sure he was a... very bad person.
Niska: My wife's nephew. At dinner I am getting earful. There is no way around that.
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Captain Reynolds: He's not the first psycho to hire us nor the last. You think that's a commentary on us?
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Simon: Are you Alliance?
Jubal Early: Am I a lion?
Simon: What?
Jubal Early: I don't think of myself as a lion. You might as well though, I have a mighty roar.
Simon: I said "Alliance"
Jubal Early: Oh, I thought...
Simon: No, I was...
Jubal Early: That's weird.
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[the series' final line]
Jubal Early: Well, here I am.
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Jubal Early: All right, that's all the hide-and-seek I got time for. I know you're on this ship, little girl, so here's how this goes. You show yourself, we finish this exchange, or your brother's brains will be flying every which-a-way. You understand, I'm kind of on the clock here. It's frustrating.
River: You're wrong, Early.
Jubal Early: I'm not wrong, dumpling, I will shoot your brother dead if you don't -
River: Wrong about River. River's not on the ship. They didn't want her here, but she couldn't make herself to leave. So she melted. Melted away. They didn't know she could do that, but she did.
Jubal Early: I'm not sure I take your meaning there.
River: I'm not on the ship. I'm in the ship. I am the ship.
Simon: River -
River: River's gone.
Jubal Early: Then who exactly are we talking to?
River: You're talking to "Serenity." And Early, "Serenity" is very unhappy.
[River's voice is gone]
Jubal Early: Where'd she go?
Simon: I can't keep track of her when she's not incorporeally possessing a spaceship. Don't look at me.
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River: [as her brother tends to a woman in labor] What else do you think is in there?
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Lawrence Dobson: Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in?
Jayne: Gee, I never been in trouble with the Law before...
Lawrence Dobson: Not like this you haven't. You think this is just a smuggling rap? The package that boy is carrying...
Jayne: It's a girl. Cute, too, but I don't think she's all there. 'Course, not all of her has to be...
Lawrence Dobson: That girl is a precious commodity. They'll come after her. Long after you bury me they'll be coming.
Jayne: I ain't gonna kill you, Dobson - what's your first name?
Lawrence Dobson: Laurence.
Jayne: [smiles] Laurence... No, I'm just gonna cut on ya' til you tell me how much they know.
Lawrence Dobson: [panicked] They know everything. Every name, every record - they know how many... nose hairs you've got.
Jayne: [stops] Oh, see - they don't know a damn thing. It's all over your face and I ain't even... I was gonna get me a ear, too. Aren't you an officer of the law? Well don't they teach you how to withstand interrogation? Can't even tell a damn lie.
Lawrence Dobson: Okay. I can see you're not an idiot
Jayne: Wish I could say the same, Laurence, but this is disappointing as hell.
Lawrence Dobson: Let me speak a language you will understand. Money. This girl is worth a lot of money. I mean a lot. You kill me, there's nothing. But you help me out, you'll have enough to buy your own ship. A better one than this piece of crap.
Jayne: [quietly] Does helping you out mean turning on the Captain?
Lawrence Dobson: Yes, it does.
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[Mal searches Saffron for weapons. Saffron smiles like she's enjoying it]
Saffron: You missed a spot.
Mal: [shoves Saffron away] Can't miss a spot you've never been.
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Mal: Let me show you the rest of her, and try to see past what she is and onto what she can be.
Zoë: What's that, sir?
Mal: Freedom is what.
Zoë: I meant, what's *that*?
Mal: Oh, just step around that. I think something must have been living in here.
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River: She understands, but she doesn't comprehend.
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Jubal Early: You ever been raped?
[Kaylee looks at him in shock]
Kaylee: The captain is right down that hallway he can hear you -
Jubal Early: The captain's locked in his quarters. They all are. There's nobody can help you. Say it.
[she begins to cry]
Kaylee: There's - there's nobody can help me.
Jubal Early: I'm gonna tie you up now. And you know what I'm gonna do then?
[shakes her head]
Jubal Early: I'm gonna give you a present. Get rid of a problem you've got. And I won't touch you in any wrong fashion, nor hurt you at all - unless you make some kind of ruckus. You throw a monkey wrench into my dealings in any way - your body is forfeit. Ain't nothing but a body to me. And I can find all unseemly manner of use for it.
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Simon: I don't think my last act in this verse is gonna be betraying my sister.
Jubal Early: You're gonna help me. 'Cause every second you're with me is a chance to turn the tables on me, get the better of me. Maybe you'll find your moment. Maybe I'll slip. Or, you refuse to help me, I shoot your brain out, and I go upstairs and spend some time violating the little mechanic I got trussed up in the engine room. I take no pleasure in the thought, but she will die, weeping, if you cross me.
Simon: You're out of your mind.
Jubal Early: That's between me and my mind. Let's start with these rooms.
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Jubal Early: Man is stronger than woman by far, yet only woman can create a child. Does that seem right to you?
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Simon: Well, my sister's a ship. We had a complicated childhood.
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Guy on Planet: [drunk] Hey, you gonna toast Unification day with me? Six years today, the Alliance sent the Browcoats runnin', pissin' their pants... You know, your coat is kinda a brownish color.
Mal: It was on sale.
[drinks]
Guy on Planet: You didn't toast? Y'know, I'm thinkin' you're one o' them In'apendants...
Mal: And I'm thinking you weren't burdened with an overabundance of schoolin', so why don't we just ignore each other 'til we go away.
Guy on Planet: ...the Independants were a bunch o' cowardly inbred pisspots, should'a been killed off o' every world spinnin'.
Mal: [puts down drink] Say that to my face.
Guy on Planet: [threateningly] I said you're a coward and a pisspot. Now what're you gonna do about it?
Mal: [smiles suddenly] Nothing. I just wanted you to face me so she could get behind you.
[Guy on Planet turns, and Zoë hits him in the face with the butt of her gun]
Mal: Drunks are so cute.
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Mal: Hell, this job I would pull for free.
Zoë: Then can I have your share?
Mal: No.
Zoë: If you die, can I have your share?
Mal: Yes.
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Jayne: Time for some thrilling heroics.
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Mal: Can't get paid if you're dead.
Jayne: Can't get paid if you crawl away like a bitty little bug neither. I got a share of this job. Ten percent of nothin' is, let me do the math here... nothin' and a nothin', carry the nothin'...
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Mal: Let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job, and then I get paid.
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Patience: [points a shotgun at Mal] Mal, don't you take another step!
Mal: [shoots the horse Patience is hiding behind, which traps her, then points his gun right between her eyes] Now I did a job, and I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character, so let me make this abundantly clear.
Mal: [takes the money from Patience] I do the job,... and then I get paid. Go run your little world.
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Book: A government is a body of people usually notably ungoverned.
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Zoë: If they board us, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh and sew our skin to their clothes. And if we're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order.
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Mal: You know, they tell ya to never hit a man with a closed fist but it is, on occasion, hilarious.
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Kaylee: We tried to get him into the infirmary, he's just... heavy.
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[Jayne is trying to trade his favorite gun for Mal's new wife]
Mal: She's a human being. She has a name.
Jayne: So is this. I call her Vera.
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Book: If you take sexual advantage of that girl, you're going to burn in a very special level of Hell, a level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater.
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[comforting Mal's new wife]
Kaylee: Oh, don't worry honey, he makes everybody cry. He's like a monster.
Mal Reynolds: [desperately] I am not a monster.
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[another first season opening credits narration]
Mal: Here's how it is: Earth got used up, so we terraformed a whole new galaxy of Earths, some rich and flush with new technologies, some not so much. Central Planets, them was formed the Alliance, waged war to bring everyone under their rule; a few idiots tried to fight it, among them myself. I'm Malcolm Reynolds, captain of the Serenity. Got a good crew: fighters, pilot, mechanic. We even picked up a preacher, and a bona fide companion. There's a doctor, too, rescued his genius sister from some Alliance camp, so they're keeping a low profile. You got a job, we can do it, don't much care what it is.
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Zoë: Next time we smuggle stock, let's make it something smaller.
Wash: Yeah, we should start dealing in those black market beagles.
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River: Little soul, big world. Eat, sleep, and eat. Many souls.
Mal: Cattle on the ship three weeks, she don't go near 'em. Suddenly we're on Jianying, and she's got a driving need to commune with the beasts?
River: They weren't cows inside. They were waiting to be, but they forgot. Now they see sky, and they remember what they are.
Mal: Is it bad that what she said makes perfect sense to me?
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Inara: Does it seem every supply store on every border planet has the same five rag dolls and the same wood carvings of... what is this, a duck?
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[flipping through Simon's journal]
Jayne: "Dear diary: Today I was pompous and my sister was crazy. Today we were kidnapped by hill folk, never to be seen again. It was the best day ever."
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Zoë: Captain'll come up with a plan.
Kaylee: Well, that's good... right?
Zoë: Possibly you're not recalling some of his previous plans.
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Mal: Well look at this. 'Pears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?
Zoë: Big damn heroes, sir.
Mal: Ain't we just.
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Mal: Looks like we got here just in time! Now what does that make us?
Zoë: Big damn heroes, sir!
Mal: Ain't we just?
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Wash: Behold... this land. And we shall call it
[pause]
Wash: "this land."
Wash: Maybe we should call it, "your grave!"
Wash: Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!
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Mal: There's over 70 earths in this verse, and the meek have inherited not a one.
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Kaylee: How was your checkup?
Inara: The same as last year. What's going on here?
Kaylee: Well, let's see. We killed Simon and River, stole a bunch of medicine, and now the Captain and Zoë are off springin' the others who got snatched by the feds. Oh, here they are now.
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Wash: Could you please tell my wife the fun she's missing out on?
Inara: Ariel's a nice place, actually. There are some beautiful museums, not to mention some of the finest restaurants in the Core.
Wash: But... not boring, like she made it sound.
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Wash: So... two days in a hospital. That's awful. Don't you just hate doctors?
Simon: Hey.
Wash: I mean, present company excluded.
Jayne: Let's not be excluding people. That'd be rude.
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[after slashing Jayne with a knife]
River: He looks better in red.
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[at a scrap yard]
Kaylee: Figures - first time in the Core, and what do I get to do? Dig through trash. Why couldn't he send me shopping at the Tri-plex, or... Ooh! Synchronizers!
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Agent McGinnis: Sit down.
Simon: What's going to happen to us?
Agent McGinnis: I said, sit down.
Simon: Agent McGinnis... I'm certain you're working under a supervisor who's keeping close tabs on this case. I'm certain of that because important people don't do fieldwork. I'm also quite certain your supervisor wants me and my sister alive. Now, I'm not going to move from this spot until one of two things happens: You answer my very simple question, or you shoot me.
Agent McGinnis: [coldly] We are transferring you to a holding area until you can be retrieved.
Simon: Retrieved? By whom?
Agent McGinnis: People who want you alive. People not me.
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Mal: The next time you decide to stab me in the back, have the guts to do it to my face.
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Zoë: Shepard, isn't the Bible kind of specific about killing?
Book: Very specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzy around the area of kneecaps.
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[repeated throughout the episode "War Stories"]
Jayne: I'll be in my bunk.
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River: No power in the 'verse can stop me.
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[Zoë has made soup for Wash, and sets it on the table for him]
Wash: Mmm. Wife soup. I must have done good.
Zoë: [kisses the top of his head] Yes, dear. You done good. But this is a one time thing, so I suggest you savor it.
Mal: [Mal enters dining area] Did you tell her?
Wash: [looks up warily] Tell her what?
Mal: [to Zoë] Your husband has demanded that we sleep together.
Zoë: Really.
Wash: [looking a bit panicky] What? Mal, come on...
Mal: He seems to think it would get all this burning sexual tension out in the open. You know, make it a fair fight for your womanly affections...
Wash: No! That was just the torture talking...
[looking up at Zoë pleading]
Wash: Remember? The torture?
Mal: [walks to Zoë, takes one of her hands and places it on his hip, then with his other hand, moves some hair off her shoulder, sporting a deadpan expression] Private, it's a difficult mission - but you and I have to get it on.
Zoë: [looks at Wash who is struggling to get to his feet, then looks back at Mal and puts her free hand on his shoulder. Also with a deadpan expression] I understand. We have no choice. Take me, sir. Take me hard.
Jayne: [Jayne who has just begun to enter the dining hall, hearing this looks up with a very uncomfortable look on his face] Now somethin' about that is just downright unsettlin'.
Wash: [as Mal and Zoë get closer to kiss - looking like two teenagers on their first date, Wash steps in grabs Zoë's arm and pulls her to the door of the dining hall] We'll be in our bunk.
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Bandit: [robbing a couple on a floating wagon] You gonna give us what's due us and every damn thing else on that boat. And I think maybe you gonna give me a little one-on-one time with the missus.
Jayne: Oh, I think you might wanna reconsider that last part. See, I married me a powerful ugly creature.
Mal: [in disguise in a dress and large bonnet] How can you say that? How can you shame me in front of new people?
Jayne: If I could make you prettier, I would.
Mal: [gasps] You are not the man I met a year ago.
[Mal and Jayne pull their guns on the unsuspecting bandits]
Mal: Now think real hard. You've been birddoggin' this township a while now. They wouldn't mind a corpse of you. Now you can luxuriate in a nice jail cell, but if your hand touches metal I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
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Inara: So, explain to me again why Zoe wasn't in the dress?
Mal: Tactics, woman. Needed her in the back. Besides, those soft cotton dresses feel kinda nice. There's a whole airflow.
Inara: And you'd know that because...?
Mal: You can't open the book of my life and jump in the middle. Like woman, I'm a mystery.
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Mal: [Mal and Wash are being tortured] You know me and Zoe got a history - and I figure you gotta be asking yourself some fairly fundamental questions about the nature of that history...
Wash: [laughing weakly to himself as if he's not buying it] You never slept with my wife.
Mal: You know that for a fact, do you? You ever ask her?
[they get electrocuted again, Mal keeps after Wash]
Mal: We were together good long time before you come around, Wash. And she is a damn fine lookin' woman.
Wash: [weakly] Never happened... know how I know?
Mal: How. Tell me, Wash.
Wash: The whole "captain" thing isn't Zoe's trouble. It's the guy-she-never-slept-with thing. Hell, Mal - I wish you had slept with her! Then at least she'd be over it!
Mal: You *want* me to sleep with her? That make you feel better?
Wash: It might!
Mal: Imagine it'd do wonders for her, too.
Wash: Screw you!
Mal: Get in line!
[they get zapped again. Mel sees that Wash is fading]
Mal: Okay. Gonna do it, then. Wash? Wash! First thing, we get back - I'm taking your wife into my bed. Gonna get me a piece'a that...
[Wash's eyes snap open, and they both get zapped again]
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Mal: Do you ever... wash a client's feet?
Inara: [sarcastically] It's my specialty.
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Simon: I've never shot anyone before.
Book: I was there, son. I'm fairly sure you haven't shot anyone yet.
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Zoë: I think this is something that the captain needs to do for himself...
Mal: No! No, it ain't!
Zoë: Oh...
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Mal: Ah, the pitter-patter of little feet in combat boots... SHUT UP.
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Wash: Yeah, but psychic? That sounds like science fiction.
Zoë: You live on a spaceship, dear.
Wash: So?
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Jayne: So, like, never?
Book: Well, no.
Jayne: Not ever, never?
Book: Some orders allow shepherds to marry, but I follow a narrower path.
Jayne: But you still got the urge. They don't... cut it off or nothin'?
Book: No, I'm more or less intact. I just direct my energy elsewhere.
Jayne: You mean like masturbatin'?
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Wash: Little River just gets more colorful by the moment. What'll she do next?
Zoë: Either blow us all up or rub soup in her hair. It's a toss-up.
Wash: I hope she does the soup thing. It's always a hoot, and we don't all die from it.
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Jayne: Let's move this conversation in a not-Jayne's-fault direction.
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[after River gets a hold of one of Jayne's guns]
Jayne: I didn't make her crazy. Hell, I didn't even want on the ship.
Mal: Is that the direction you want this conversation to go in?
Jayne: Just don't want to take a lashing for something I ain't the cause of.
Zoë: Where's River at now?
Mal: In her room, which I'm thinking we bolt from the outside from now on.
Wash: That's a little extreme, isn't it?
Jayne: Anyone remember her coming at me with a butcher's knife?
Wash: Wacky fun.
Jayne: You wanna go, little man?
Wash: Only if it's someplace with candlelight.
Zoë: Sir, I know she's unpredictable, but I don't think she'd harm anyone.
Jayne: Butcher's knife!
Zoë: Anyone we can't spare.
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Simon: Captain, why did you come back for us?
Mal: You're on my crew.
Simon: Yeah, but you don't even like me. Why'd you come back?
Mal: You're on my crew. Why we still talking about this?
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Jayne: What are you taking this so personal for? It ain't like I ratted you out to the feds!
Mal: Oh, but you did, Jayne. You turn on any of my crew, you turn on me! But since that's a concept you can't seem to wrap your head around then you've got no place here! You did it to me, Jayne, and that's a fact.
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Monty Reynolds: Damn you, Bridget. Damn you to Hades. You broke my heart in a million pieces. You made me love you and then you... I shaved my beard off for you, devil woman!
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Atherton Wing: Get ready to starve. I'm going to see to it you never work again.
Inara: Actually, that's not how it works. You've just earned yourself a black mark in the client registry. No companion will every contract with you again.
Sir Warwick Harrow: That means you'll have to rely on your winning personality to get women. God help you.
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Zoë: Sir, I know she's unpredictable, but I don't think she'd harm anyone.
Jayne: Butcher's knife.
Zoë: Anyone we can't spare.
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Jayne: And if wishes were horses, we'd all be eatin' steak.
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Book: People like a man of God.
Mal: No, they don't. Men of God make people feel guilty and judged.
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Badger: The situation is... fluid.
Jayne: The only fluid I see here is the puddle of piss refusing to pay our wage.
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Mal: Wheel never stops turning, Badger.
Badger: That only matters to the people on the rim.
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Mal: Jayne, your mouth is talking. You might want to see to that.
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Simon: Are you out of your mind?
Mal: Just about.
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Mal: Remember, you've only got to scare him.
Jayne: ... Pain is scary.
Mal: Just do it right.
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Simon: So, finally a decent wound on this ship and I miss it.
[pause]
Simon: I'm sorry.
Mal: Well you were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.
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Simon: Are you Alliance?
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Simon: You're out of your mind.
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Mal: You know, you ain't quite right.
River: It's a popular theory.
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Book: I'd forgotten, you're moonlighting as a criminal mastermind now. Got your next heist all lined up?
Simon: No... but I'm thinking about growing a big black mustache. I'm a traditionalist.
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Wash: Hey, I've been in a firefight before.
[off Mal's look]
Wash: Well, I was in a fire.
[beat]
Wash: Actually, I was fired... from a fry-cook opportunity. I can handle myself.
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Zoë: We're getting him back.
Jayne: [staring at Mal's severed ear] What are we going to do, clone him?
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Mal: Now all we need are a couple of patients.
Simon: Corpses, actually. For this to work River and I will have to be dead.
Jayne: I'm starting to like this plan.
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Jayne: [drinking tea] This ain't bad.
Badger: There's a trick to it. Wood alcohol.
Mal: So now we're favored guests, treated to the finest in beverages that make you blind.
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Inara: I am grateful, you know, for the ill-conceived and high-handed attempt to defend my honor although I didn't want you to.
Mal: Gracious as that is...
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Mal: Ship like this, be with you until the day you die.
Zoë: That's because it's a deathtrap.
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Mal: Looks can be deceiving.
Jayne: Not as deceiving as a low down, dirty... deceiver.
Mal: Well said. Wasn't that well said, Zoe?
Zoë: It had a kinda poetry to it.
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Jayne: Now, Inara, she's gotta have some funny whorin' stories.
Inara: Oh, do I ever. Funny and sexy. You have no idea. And you never will.
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Kaylee: Don't you just love this party? Everything's so fancy, and there's some kind of hot cheese over there.
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Sir Warrick Harrow: I know Badger and I think he's a psychotic lowlife.
Mal: And I think calling him that is an insult to the psychotic lowlife community.
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Jayne: What we need is a diversion. I say Zoe gets nekked.
Wash: No.
Jayne: ... I could get nekked.
Zoë: No.
Wash: No!
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Jayne: Are you saying River's a witch?
Wash: Yes, Jayne, she's a witch. She's had congress with the Beast.
Jayne: She's in Congress?
Wash: How did your brain even learn human speech? I just get so curious!
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Inara: It sounds like something this crew can handle. I can't guarantee they'll handle it particularly well.
Nandi: If they've got guns and brains at all...
Inara: They've got guns.
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Jayne: Don't see much point getting involved in other people's troubles without an up-front price negotiation.
Zoë: As I said, no-one's forcing you to go. This job is purely speculative.
Jayne: Good. Don't know these people, don't much care to.
Mal: They're whores.
Jayne: I'm in.
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Simon: What happened in here?
Jayne: Needed to find some tape.
Simon: So you had to tear my infirmary apart?
Jayne: Apparently.
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Simon: You're in a dangerous line of work, Jayne. Odds are you'll be under my knife again. Often. So I want you to understand one thing very clearly: No matter what you do or say or plot, no matter how you come down on us, I will never, ever harm you. You're on this table, you're safe... because I'm your medic. No matter how little we may like or trust each other, we're on the same crew. Got the same troubles, same enemies - and more than enough of both. We could circle each other and growl, sleep with one eye open, but that thought wearies me. Now I don't care what you've done, and I don't know what you're planning on doing, but I'm trusting you. I think you should do the same. Because I don't see this working any other way.
[exits]
River: Also, I can kill you with my brain.
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River: [as her brother tends to a woman in labor] What do you think is in there?
________________________________________
[after the mudder leaps in front of the shotgun blast that was meant for Jayne]
Jayne: Don't make no sense. -beat- wh-Why the hell'd that mudder go an do that for, Mal? Jumpin' in front a' that shotgun blast. Hell weren't a one of them understood what happened out there - hell, they're probably stickin' that statue right back up.
Mal: Most like.
Jayne: I don't know why that eats at me so...
Mal: It's my estimation that every man ever got a'statue made of him was one kind of sommbitch or another. Ain't about you, Jayne. 'Bout what they need.
Jayne: Don't make no sense.
________________________________________
[Jayne spits on knife sharpening stone]
Simon: Could you not do that while we're - ever?
[Jayne spits on stone again]
________________________________________
opening song: Take my love, take my land / Take me where I cannot stand / I don't care, I'm still free / You can't take the sky from me / Take me out to the black / Tell 'em I ain't comin' back / Burn the land and boil the sea / You can't take the sky from me / There's no place I can be / Since I found serenity / But you can't take the sky from me
________________________________________
Jayne: Mal! Looks like we got us some imminent violence!
________________________________________
Sir Warwick Harrow: You didn't have to wound that man.
Mal: Yeah, I know, it was just funny.
________________________________________
Zoë: If I'm gonna wear a dress, I want something with some slink.
Wash: You want a slinky dress? I can buy you a slinky dress. Captain, can I have money for a slinky dress?
Jayne: I'll chip in.
Zoë: I can hurt you.
________________________________________
Mal: Okay, help me find our man. He's supposed to be older, kind of stocky. Wears a red sash crossways.
Kaylee: Why does he do that?
Mal: Maybe he won the Miss Persephone pageant. Just help me look!
Kaylee: Is that him?
Mal: That's the buffet table.
Kaylee: Well, how can we be sure... unless we question it?
[smiles widely]
________________________________________
Mal: You could've gotten off with the shepherd for some meditation at the Bathgate Abbey. Could'a been meditating on the wonders o' your rock garden by now.
Jayne: Beats just sittin'.
Wash: It *is* just sitting.
________________________________________
[standing over his wounded opponent, refusing to kill him]
Mal: You know, they say mercy is the mark of a great man.
[stabs the man]
Mal: Guess I'm just a good man.
[stabs him again]
Mal: Well, I'm all right.
________________________________________
Jayne: [to Simon] Little Kaylee here just wishes you was a gynecologist.
[Jayne laughs]
Mal: Jayne, you will keep a civil tongue in that mouth, or I will sew it shut. Is there an understanding between us?
Jayne: You don't pay me to talk pretty. Just because Kaylee gets lubed up over some big-city dandy...
Mal: Walk away from this table. Right now.
[Jayne loads his plate with food and leaves]
Simon: What do you pay him for?
Mal: What?
Simon: I was just wondering what his job is - on the ship.
Mal: Public relations.
________________________________________
[Simon prepares some bad rice]
River: I don't want it.
Simon: River, you have to eat. It's good. It tastes like...
[Simon samples rice and grimaces]
Simon: It's good.
Jayne: It smells like crotch.
________________________________________
Jayne: Well, as a rule, I say girlfolk ain't to be trusted.
River: Jayne is a girl's name.
Jayne: Well, Jayne ain't a girl! If she starts in on that girl's name thing, I'll show her good and all I got man parts.
Simon: I'm trying to think of a way for you to be cruder. I just... It's not coming.
________________________________________
Mal: Yep. That went well.
Inara: You call this going well?
Mal: We got the loot didn't we?
Inara: Yes, but...
Mal: Then I call it a win. What's the problem?
Inara: Should I start with the part where you're stranded in the middle of nowhere or the part where you have no clothes?
________________________________________
Simon: [after Kaylee is shot] Kaylee, can you move your feet?
Kaylee: Are you asking me to dance?
________________________________________
Jayne: Far as I see it, you people been given the shortest end of the stick ever been offered a human soul in this crap-heel 'verse. But you took that end, and you - well, you took it. And that's - Well, I guess that's somethin'.
________________________________________
Mal: Which one you figure tracked us?
Zoë: The ugly one, sir.
Mal: Could you be more specific?
________________________________________
[on merchandise they've just stolen]
Wash: I'd say worth a little risk.
Jayne: Yeah, that was some pretty risky sittin' ya did there.
Wash: That's right, of course. Because they wouldn't arrest me if we got boarded. I'm just the pilot. I could always say that I was flying the ship by accident.
________________________________________
Commander Harken: For some the war'll never be over. I notice your ship's called Serenity. You were stationed on Hera at the end of the war. Battle of Serenity Valley took place there, if I recall.
Captain Reynolds: You know, I believe you might be right.
Commander Harken: Independents suffered a pretty crushing defeat there. Some say after Serenity, the Browncoats were through. That the war really ended in that valley.
Captain Reynolds: Hmmm.
Commander Harken: Seems odd you'd name your ship after a battle you were on the wrong side of.
Captain Reynolds: May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.
________________________________________
Jayne: Whoo! My John Thomas is about to pop off and fly around the room, there's so much tasty in here.
Wash: Would be you'd get your most poetical about your pecker.
________________________________________
Kaylee: Everyone's got somebody. Wash, tell me I'm pretty.
Wash: Were I unwed, I would take you in a manly fashion.
Kaylee: 'Cause I'm pretty?
Wash: 'Cause you're pretty.
________________________________________
Mal: Oh, I'm gonna go to the special hell.
________________________________________
Mal: [about Saffron] You would have kissed her too.
Zoë: Wash didn't.
Mal: But she was naked and all... articulate!
Wash: Okay! Everybody not talking about sex, in here. Everybody else, elsewhere.
________________________________________
Jayne: Mm. They call it mudder's milk. All the protein, vitamins and carbs of your grandma's best turkey dinner, plus fifteen percent alcohol.
Wash: It's horrific.
Simon: Worked for the Egyptians.
________________________________________
Wash: We gotta go to the crappy town where I'm a hero.
________________________________________
Mal: One of you is gonna fall and die and I'm not cleaning it up.
________________________________________
Mal: [about cattle] You know, they walk just as easy if you lead 'em.
Jayne: I like smackin' 'em.
________________________________________
Book: What are we up to, sweetheart?
River: Fixing your Bible.
Book: I, um... what?
River: Bible's broken. Contradictions, false logics. Doesn't make sense.
________________________________________
Jayne: Hey, you know, we'd have been back first, except there's somethin' wrong with Inara's shuttle. She done somethin' to it, Mal. It smells funny.
Inara: I told you, that's incense.
Jayne: So you say.
________________________________________
Mal: [Mal shudders as he is shocked back to life] Mhh!
Niska: [sing-songie] Mr. Reynolds...
Mal: [moans] ...
Niska: You died, Mr. Reynolds.
Mal: ... Seemed like the thing to do...
Niska: When you die, I can't hurt you any more. And I want two days at least, minimum.
________________________________________
Lieutenant Womack: [to Jayne] That hat makes you look like an idiot.
________________________________________
Wash: But these apples are healthsome and good.
Jayne: Yeah, grenades cost extra.
________________________________________
Jayne: [about his mother's homemade hat] How's it sit? Pretty cunning, don't you think?
________________________________________
Jayne: Well, I don't like the idea of someone hearing what I'm thinking.
Inara: No one likes the idea of hearing what you're thinking.
________________________________________
Simon: Come on out, River. The nice man wants to kidnap you.
________________________________________
Simon: I'm trying to put this as delicately as I can. How do I know you won't kill me in my sleep?
Captain Reynolds: You don't know me, son, so let me explain this to you once. If I ever kill you you'll be awake. You'll be facing me. And you'll be armed.
________________________________________
Jayne: [over radio] Oh, now, girl, that is just plain dirty.
Mal: [into radio] Jayne, you are aware your radio's transmittin'? 'Cause I don't feel particularly girlish or dirty at the moment.
________________________________________
Zoë: [about Serenity, on first seeing her] You paid money for this, sir? On purpose?
________________________________________
River: [after Simon looks at her to see if they found out his birthday from her] "Day" is a vestigial mode of time measurement based on solar cycles. It's not applicable... I didn't get you anything.
________________________________________
River: The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds, given adequate vacuuming systems.
Mal: See, morbid and creepifying, I got no problem with. Long as she does it quiet-like.
________________________________________
[Inara is teaching Mal how to fence; Mal just missed and got smacked on the behind]
Inara: How did I avoid that?
Mal: By being fast like a freak?
________________________________________
Inara: You have a strange sense of nobility Captain. You'll lay a man out for implying I'm a whore but you keep calling me one to my face.
Mal: I might not show respect for your job, but he didn't respect *you*. That's the difference. Inara, he doesn't even see you.
Inara: Well, I guess death will solve the issue to everyone's satisfaction.
________________________________________
Murphy: What a vision you are in your fine dress. It must have taken a dozen slaves a dozen days to get you into that getup. 'Course your daddy tells me it takes the space of a schoolboy's wink to get you out of it again.
________________________________________
Kaylee: [to the ship] That's my girl. That's my good girl.
________________________________________
Kaylee: You are a nice man, Captain. You're always looking after us... you just gotta have faith in people.
________________________________________
Kaylee: You're gonna come with us.
Book: 'Scuse me?
Kaylee: You like ships. You don't seem to be looking at the destination, what you care about is the ships. And mine's the nicest.
Book: She don't look like much.
Kaylee: Oh, she'll fool you.
________________________________________
Kaylee: How come you don't care where you're going?
Book: 'Cause how you get there is the worthier part.
________________________________________
Mal: We take it to Whitefall, maybe talk to Patience.
Zoë: Sir, we don't want to deal with Patience again.
Mal: Why not?
Zoë: She shot you.
Mal: Well, yeah, she did a bit.
________________________________________
Kaylee: Jayne, open the port jet control.
[nods towards it]
Kaylee: Cut the hydraulics.
Jayne: [looks around] Where the hell is it?
Kaylee: [points] Look! Look! Look where I'm pointing!
________________________________________
Zoë: [to Mal] Sir, I'd like you to take the helm please.
[looks at Wash]
Zoë: I need this man to tear all my clothes off.
Wash: Work, work, work...
________________________________________
Saffron: Five days... we'll be together?
Mal: We'll be together on the ship... but not in any...
Saffron: That's fine.
________________________________________
Wash: [to Mal, about his "wife"] Did she really make fresh bao?
Zoë: You know that sex we were planning to have ever again?
________________________________________
Zoë: If she can fly this thing why'd she take the shuttle?
Wash: Maybe she likes shuttles.
[off everyone's looks]
Wash: Some people juggle geese!
________________________________________
Kaylee: It was your makeout session that got us into this, sir.
Mal: I was poisoned!
Inara: You were drugged.
Jayne: That's why I never kiss 'em on the mouth.
________________________________________
Inara: [about Saffron] She tried to seduce me too.
Mal: Really? Did she - with - did you...?
Inara: You don't play a player, Mal.
________________________________________
Jayne: [to his gun] See Vera? Dress yourself up, you get taken out somewhere fun.
________________________________________
Monty Reynolds: [to Mal] I want you to meet my Bridget.
["Bridget" walks out... and she is Saffron. She and Mal instantly pull guns on each other]
Monty Reynolds: So... you guys have met?
________________________________________
Saffron: How'd you find me?
Mal: Only a couple places that shuttle would make it to from where you left... happy to find it intact.
Saffron: You're quite a man, Malcolm Reynolds.
[seductively]
Saffron: I've been waiting a long time for someone good enough to take me down.
Mal: Saffron, you even think about playing me again I will riddle you with holes.
Saffron: Everybody plays each other. That's all anybody ever does. We play parts.
________________________________________
Mal: Don't worry... this is all part of our new plan!
[silence]
Kaylee: Captain, how exactly is this...
Mal: Still working out the details.
________________________________________
Mal: You are very much lacking in imagination.
Zoë: I imagine that's so, sir.
________________________________________
Inara: What was the last cargo we snuck past the alliance in a transport?
Mal: That was...
Inara: What was the cargo?
Mal: [pauses] They were dolls.
Inara: They were little geisha dolls with big heads that wobbled!
Mal: Hey, people *loved* those!
________________________________________
Durran Haymer: How long have you been with him?
Mal: Uff... We are not together.
Saffron: He's my husband.
Mal: Well, who in the damn galaxy ain't?
________________________________________
[Sheriff Bourne has caught Mal returning stolen medicine to a plague-stricken town]
Sheriff Bourne: You were truthful back in town. These are tough times. If a man can get a job, he might not look too close at what that job is. But a man learns all the details of a situation like ours, well, then he as a choice.
Mal: I don't believe he does.
________________________________________
Zoë: [about Saffron and her plan] But Inara ain't wrong. She can't be trusted.
Mal: I ain't asking you to trust her. I'll be with her on the inside the whole time.
Saffron: See there? All you gotta do to be a rich woman hon', is get over it.
[smiles]
Zoë: [smiles back] Okay.
[punches Saffron in the face]
Zoë: I'm in.
________________________________________
Durran Haymer: [finding out his wife is a traitor] Well, I appreciate your honesty. Not, y'know, a lot.
________________________________________
Simon: And your eyes...
Kaylee: Yeah, eyes, yeah.
________________________________________
Kaylee: Look, they got boy whores.
[cheerful]
Kaylee: Isn't that thoughtful?
________________________________________
[Kaylee opens wooden box filled with strawberries]
Kaylee: Ooooh, grandpa!
Book: I never married.
________________________________________
Mal: This is my first mate, Zoe. I'll introduce you to the rest later. They're good folk.
Jayne: Can I start getting sexed already?
Mal: Well, that one's kind of horrific.
________________________________________
River: My food is problematic.
________________________________________
Mal: [Mal is in the process of rescuing Simon from being burned at the stake] Gotta say, Doctor, your talent for alienating folks is near miraculous.
Simon: Yes, I'm very proud.
________________________________________
Jayne: What'd y'all order a dead guy for?
________________________________________
Mal: We're not gonna die. We can't die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so... very... pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die.
________________________________________
Jayne: [Jayne, himself a tough guy, describing a mobster's goons] These are stone killers, little man. They ain't cuddly like me.
________________________________________
Mal: [standing naked in the desert, watching his stolen shuttle fly by] Aaaww, you dirty, dirty whore!
Mal: [watches shuttle in the distance] That's right! You better run!
________________________________________
Mal: One of those will feed a family for a month. Longer if they don't like their kids too well.
________________________________________
Saffron: I do know my bible, sir. On the night of their betrothal, the wife shall open to the man as the furrow to the plow, and he shall work in her, in and again till she bring him to his fall, and rest him then upon the sweat of her breast.
Mal: Whoa. Good bible.
________________________________________
Mal Reynolds: If anyone gets nosy just, you know, shoot 'em.
Zoë: Shoot 'em?
Mal Reynolds: Politely.
________________________________________
Mal: How about I keep out of your whoring -
Inara: Well, that didn't take long -
Mal: And you keep out of my thieving?
________________________________________
Mal: Petty?
Inara: I didn't mean petty.
Mal: So what did you mean?
Inara: Suoxi?
Mal: That's Chinese for petty.
________________________________________
Jayne: She'll turn you in before you can say..."Don't turn me in, lady."
________________________________________
Patron: [River is about to be burned at the stake] This is a holy cleansing. You cannot think to thwart God's will.
Captain Reynolds: Y'all see the man hanging out of the spaceship with the really big gun? I'm not saying you weren't easy to find, but it was kind of out of our way and he didn't want to come in the first place. Man's looking to kill some folk, so really it's his will y'all should be worried about thwarting.
Captain Reynolds: [about River] Cut her down.
Patron: She's a witch!
Captain Reynolds: Yeah, but she's our witch.
[cocks shotgun and aims at Town Patron]
Captain Reynolds: So cut her the hell down.
________________________________________
Patience: Didn't expect to be hearing from you any time soon.
Mal Reynolds: Well, we may not have parted on best terms. I realize certain words were exchanged, also certain bullets.
________________________________________
Mal: [about River] She's a mite whimsical in the brainpan.
________________________________________
Zoë: Stop it, Jayne, you're scaring the women.
________________________________________
Mal: If someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill 'em right back!
________________________________________
Kaylee: [about Simon's birthday cake] I wasn't able to get hold of no flour, so it's mostly protein. In fact, it's pretty much what we just ate for dinner.
[everyone laughs]
Kaylee: But I did try to get the frosting as chocolatey as possible.
________________________________________
Mal: In case that happens it means he's the fellow who killed me and I don't like the fellow who kills me, not in general.
________________________________________
Inara: Are you in pain?
Mal: Absolutely, I got stabbed you know, right here.
[lifts shirt to show a bloodstained bandage on side of abdomen]
Inara: I saw.
Mal: I don't care much for fancy parties. Too rough.
Inara: It wasn't entirely a disaster.
Mal: [lifts his shirt again] I got stabbed. Right here.
________________________________________
Mal: It's good to have cargo. Makes us a target for every other scavenger out here of course, but sometimes that's fun too.
________________________________________
Mal: If I want a lot of medical jargon I'll talk to a doctor.
Simon: You are talking to a doctor.
________________________________________
Mal: We're deep in space, corner of No and Where.
________________________________________
Mal: Now, you can luxuriate in a nice jail cell, but if your hand touches metal, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet, I *will* end you.
________________________________________
Simon: So, what are we doing?
Kaylee: [looks up] Oh, crime.
Simon: Crime? Good! Okay! Crime.
Kaylee: It's a train heist. See we fly over the train car, the captain and Zoë sneak in, we lower Jayne onto the car, and they bugle up the booty, and then we haul them all back up. Easy as lyin'.
Simon: So you have done this before?
Kaylee: [laughs] Oh, hell no.
[serious]
Kaylee: But I think it's gonna work.
________________________________________
Zoë: I know something ain't right.
Wash: Sweetie, we're crooks. If everything were right, we'd be in jail.
________________________________________
Mal: [after being told that use of a sword will be provided for a duel] Use of a s-what?
________________________________________
Magistrate Higgins: I brought you here to bed my son, not throw him a tea party.
________________________________________
[Simon sees a statue of Jayne and realizes the town they are in idolizes him as a hero]
Simon: This must be what going mad feels like.
[later, after listening to a song about Jayne being a hero]
Simon: No, this must be what going mad feels like.
________________________________________
[River is hiding after seeing Shepherd Book without his hair tied back]
River: If the snow on the roof is too heavy, you see, the ceiling will cave in. His brains are in terrible danger.
Book: River, please, why don't you come on out?
River: No! Can't. Too much hair.
________________________________________
[calling his new wife]
Mal: Hello? Woman-person?
________________________________________
Mal: [about Mal's new wife] I would appreciate it if one person on this boat would not assume that I'm an evil lecherous hump.
Zoë: Nobody's saying that, sir.
Wash: Yeah, we're pretty much just giving each other significant looks and laughing incessantly.
________________________________________
Tracey: If you can't run, you crawl, and if you can't do that...
Zoë: You find someone to carry you.
________________________________________
River: Keep walkin', preacher man.
________________________________________
River: I took these out of your symbol and they became paper, and I wanted to put them back
________________________________________
Mal: They don't like it when you shoot at them. I worked that one out myself.
________________________________________
Jayne: Saint Jayne. It's got a ring to it.
Book: I'm just trying to remember how many miracles you've performed.
Jayne: I once hit a guy in the neck from 500 yards with a bent scope. Don't that count upstairs?
Book: Oh, it'll be taken into consideration.
Jayne: You made that sound kind of ominous.
________________________________________
[Jayne takes out Crow with leg shot]
Mal: Nice shot!
Jayne: [sitting on the floor, drugged] I was aiming for his head.
________________________________________
Inara: Mal, you don't have to die alone.
Mal: Everybody dies alone.
________________________________________
Mal: Okay, um, I'm lost. Uh, I'm angry and I'm armed...
________________________________________
[walking in on Saffron pointing a gun at Mal, who is standing there holding Durran's historical laser pistol artifact]
Durran Haymer: Now I'm intruding.
Saffron: Durran, this isn't what it looks like.
Mal: Unless it looks like we're stealing your priceless Lassiter, 'cause, that's what we're doin'. Don't ask me 'bout the gun, though, 'cause that's new.
Durran Haymer: Well, I appreciate your honesty. Not, you know, a lot, but...
________________________________________
Mal: I'd estimate his chances were one in a very large number.
________________________________________
Badger: He won't deal with me direct. He's taken an irrational dislike.
Jayne: What happened, he see your face?
________________________________________
Badger: 'course, you couldn't buy an invite with a diamond the size of a testicle, but I got my hands on a couple.
[Mal and Jayne struggle not to laugh]
Badger: Of invites!
________________________________________
Gabriel Tam: Are you trying to destroy this family?
Simon: I didn't realize it would be so easy.
________________________________________
Wash: [Wash being seduced by Safron] I wish I was somebody else right now, somebody not... married, not madly in love with a beautiful woman who can kill me with her pinky.


serenity (the movie)

Mal: "What was that?"
Wash: "Did you see that?"
Mal: "Was that the primary buffer panel?"
Wash: "Did seem to resem-"
Mal: "Did the primary buffer panel just fall off my gorram ship for no apparent reason?!"

Wash: "Yeah well, if she doesn't give us some extra flow from the engine room to offset the burn through, this landing is gonna get pretty interesting."
Mal: "Define interesting."
Wash: "Oh god oh god we're all gonna die?"
Mal: "This is the captain. We have a...little problem with our engine sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode."

Mal: "Yeah well, just get us on the ground."
Wash: "That part will happen pretty definitely."

Jayne: "We're gonna explode? I don't wanna explode."
Mal: "Jayne, how many weapons you plannin' on takin'? You only got the two arms."
Jayne: "Well I just excitable as to choice, like to have my options open."
Mal: "I don't plan on any shooting taking place during this job."
Jayne: "Yeah well, what you plan and what takes place ain't ever exactly been similar."

Zoe: "Those grenades?"
Jayne: "Yeah, Cap'n don't want 'em."
Zoe: "Jayne, we're robbing the place, we're not occupying 'em."

Mal: (ship shakes violently) "Kaylee, what in the spincter o' hell you playing at?"

Mal: "Fear's nothin' to be ashamed of, doctor."
Simon: "This isn't fear. This is anger."
Mal: "Well. Kinda hard to tell one from t'other, face like yours."
Simon: "Well I imagine if it were fear, my eyes would be wider."
Mal: "Hmm. I'll keep a look out for that next time."

Mal: "I look out for me and mine. That don't include you 'less I conjure it does. Now you stuck a thorn in the Alliance's paw -- that tickles me a bit. But it also means I gotta step twice as fast to avoid 'em, and that means turnin' down plenty of jobs. Even honest ones. Put this crew together with the promise of work, which the Alliance makes harder every year. Come a day there won't be room for naughty men like us to slip about at all. This job goes south, there well not be another. So here's us, on the raggedy edge."

Mal: "Hey little one. Understand your part in all this?"
River: "Do you?"
Mal: "This is what I do, darlin'. This is what I do."

Mal: "Quit fiddlin'. Have the boat run smooth when we get back."
Kaylee: "Have faith, Cap'n."
Mal: "Not today."

Simon: "Now River, stay behind the others. If there's fighting, you drop to the floor and run away." (stage whispers) "It's okay to leave them to die."

Mal: "Doctor, I'm taking your sister under my protection here. If anything happens to her, anything at all, I swear to you, I will get very choked up. Honestly, there could be tears."

Jayne: "Shiny. Let's be bad guys."

Mal: "Y'all want to be lookin' very intently at your own bellybuttons. See a head start to rise, violence is going to ensue. Probably guessed we mean to be thievin' here but what we're after's not yours, so...let not have no undue fuss."

Zoe: (sliding gun barrel alongside security guard's face) "You know what the definition of a hero is? Someone who gets other people killed. You can look it up later."

Zoe: (on mostly empty safe) "At last. We can retire and give up this life of crime."

Mal: (to unseen guard in vault below) "Listen up! We're comin' down to empty that vault."
Guard: "You have to give me your authorization password." (Jayne points gun down the the stairwell and fires several rounds) "Okay."

Mal: (negotiating with guard where to shoot him) "The leg is good. It'll bleed plenty and we avoid any necessary organs."
Guard: "I was thinking more of a graze?"
Mal: "Well you don't want to look like you just gave up."

Mal: (on Reaver ship coming up behind) "Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!"

Jayne: "You shoot me if they take me!" (sees Mal's gun pointed at his leg) "Well don't shoot me first!"

Simon: "River!"
River: "I swallowed a bug."

Kaylee: (pushes aside severely injured Jayne, to Simon) "Are you okay?!"
Mal: (offended) "Is he okay?"

Simon: "Oh 'one simple job, she'll be fine'!"
Mal: "She is fine! 'Cept for still bein' crazy she's the picture of health!"

Mal: "Mule won't run with five. I shoulda dumped the girl, or you, or Jayne? Well, Jayne..."

Zoe: "Sir, I don't disagree on any particular point. It's just...in a time of war, we would've never left a man stranded."
Mal: "Maybe that's why we lost."

Jayne: "I'll kill a man in a fair fight. Or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight. Or if he bothers me. Or if there's a woman. Or if I'm gettin' paid. Mostly when I'm gettin' paid."

Jayne: "Eating people alive? Where's that get fun?"

Kaylee: (clearly upset) "Don't talk to the barkers, talk to the captains. Look the captain in the eye, know who you're dealin' with."
Simon: "I wish there was-" (Mal brushes past, glares)
Kaylee: "Shouldna be so clean. It's a dead giveaway you don't belong, you always gotta be tidy. Don't pay anybody in advance. And don't ride in anything with a Capasan-38 engine, they fall right outta the sky."

Mal: "Kaylee, this is a place of business. We can talk about Simon-"
Kaylee: "When he's four worlds away? Or the Alliance gets ahold of him and River?"
Mal: "That ain't my worry. I gotta finish this job, get us another one. Can't do that carryin' those two."
Kaylee: "How can you be so cold?"
Zoe: "Cap'n didn't make them fugitives."
Kaylee: "But he coulda made 'em family. 'stead of keepin' Simon from seein' I was there. And I carried such a torch! And we coulda...goin' on a year now and I ain't had nothin' twixt my nethers weren't run on batteries!"
Mal: (horrified) "Oh God! I can't know that!"
Jayne: "I could stand to hear more."

Mal: "Fanti. Mingo."
Mingo: "He's Mingo"
Mal: "He's Fanti, you're Mingo."
Mingo: "How is it you always know?"
Mal: "Fanti's prettier."

Wash: "Start with the part where Jayne gets knocked out by a ninety-pound girl, 'cause I don't think that's ever gettin' old."

Simon: "It's a phrase, that makes her fall asleep. If I speak the words 'eta chora-"
Jayne: (jumps out of his chair) "Don't say it!"
Zoe: "It only works on her, Jayne."
Jayne: "Well now I know that."

Jayne: "No, not now that she's a...a killer woman, we oughtta be bringin' her tea and dumplings!"

Mal: "It's of interest to me, how much you seem to know about that world."
Book: "Wasn't born a Shepherd, Mal."
Mal: "You'll have to tell me about that sometime."
Book: "No. I don't."

Wash: "Inara...nice to see her again."
Zoe: (beat) "So...trap?"
Mal: "Trap."
Zoe: "We goin' in?"
Mal: "Ain't but a few hours out."
Wash: (confused) "Yeah, but...remember the part where it's a trap?"
Mal: "If that's the case then Inara's already caught in it. She wouldn't set us up willin'. Might be we get a shot at seein' who's turnin' these wheels. We go in."
Kaylee: "But how can you be sure Inara don't just wanna see you? Sometimes people have feelings. I'm referring here to people."
Mal: "Y'all were watchin', I take it?"
Kaylee: (everyone looks guilty) "Yes."
Mal: "Did you see us fight?"
Kaylee: "No."
Mal: "Trap."

Mal: "Zoe, ship is yours. Remember: if anything happens to me, if you don't hear from me within the hour, you take the ship -- and you come and you rescue me."
Zoe: "What? Risk my ship?"

Mal: (kneeling at altar, in disguise) "Dear Buddha: please bring me a pony, and a plastic rocket-"
Inara: "Mal, what are you doing here?!"
Mal: "Well, you invited me."
Inara: "I never thought for a second you'd be stupid enough to come!"
Mal: "Well that makes you kind of a tease, doesn't it?"

Operative: "I have to say, Captain: I'm impressed that you would come for her yourself. And that you would make it this far...in that outfit."

Operative: "I think you're beginning to understand how dangerous River Tam is."
Mal: "She is a mite unpredictable. Mood swings, of a sort."
Operative: "It's worse than you know."
Mal: "It usually is."

Operative: "That girl will rain destruction down on you and your ship. She is an albatross, Captain."
Mal: "Way I remember it, albatross was a ship's good luck, 'til some idiot killed it." (to Inara) "Yes, I've read a poem, try not to faint."

Operative: "I have a warship in deep orbit, Captain. We locked onto Serenity's pulse beacon the moment you hit atmo. I can speak a word and send a missile to that exact location inside of three minutes."
Mal: "You do that," (pulls out Serenity's pulse beacon) "you'd best make peace with your dear and fluffy Lord."

Mal: "I never credited the Alliance with an overabundance of brains, and if you're the best they've got-"
Operative: "Captain Reynolds, I should tell you, so that you don't waste your time: you can't make me angry."
Inara: "Please. Spend an hour with him."

Inara: "We have every reason to be afraid."
Jayne: "Why because this guy beat up Mal? That ain't so hard."

Inara: "Think maybe it poses some kind of threat to the Alliance?"
Wash: "Do we care? A-Are we caring about that?"

Jayne: "Oh yeah, hidin' up the Shepherd's skirts, that's a manful scheme."
Mal: "You wanna run this ship?!"
Jayne: "Yes!"
Mal: "Well y-...you can't!"

Simon: "We'll get off. River and I will get off at Haven-"
Kaylee: "Nobody's saying that."
Wash: "Nobody besides Jayne is saying that."

Mal: "Shouldn't've been you. Alliance shoulda hit us. Shoulda hit me."
Book: "That crossed my mind."

Book: "I killed the ship that...killed us. It's not very Christian of me."
Mal: "You did what's right."
Book: "Coming from you that means...almost nothing."

Jayne: "She is starting to damage my calm."

Mal: "So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave."

Jayne: "Shepherd Book used to tell me, 'Can't do somethin' smart, do somethin' right'."

Zoe: "It's a fair bet the Alliance knows about Mr. Universe. They're gonna see this comin'."
Mal: "No. They're not gonna see this comin'."

Operative: "Target the Reavers...target the Reavers...target everyone...somebody FIRE!"

Wash: "I'm a leaf on the wind...watch how I soar."
Mal: (watching battle around them in grim satisfaction) "Chickens come home to roost."
Wash: (flying debris glances off ship's hull, rattling everyone) "It's okay...I-I'm a leaf on the wind."

Jayne: "Cap'n's right. Can't be thinkin' on revenge if we're gonna get through this."
Zoe: "Do you really think any of us are gonna get through this?"
Jayne: (looks around, anxious) "Well I might."

Mr. Universe (via his buffybot): "Mal. Guy killed me, Mal. He killed me with a sword. How weird is that?"

Simon: "My one regret in all of this, is never being with you."
Kaylee: "With me? You mean to say...sex?"
Simon: "I mean to say."
Kaylee: "Hell with this...I'm gonna live!"

Mal: (pulling himself up after being shot) "Shot me in the back! Haven't made you angry, have I?"

Operative: "Do you really believe that?"
Mal: "I do."
Operative: "You willing to die for that belief?"
Mal: "I am." (pulls out his gun and shoots at the Operative repeatedly) "Course, that ain't exactly Plan A."

Zoe: "How much ammo do we have?"
Jayne: "Three full mags. And my swingin' cod."

Operative: "Do you know what your sin is?"
Mal: "Aw hell. I'm a fan of all seven."

Operative: "You've done remarkable things. But you're fighting a war you've already lost."
Mal: "Yeah well, I'm known for that."

Mal: "Ain't all buttons and charts, little albatross. Know what the first rule of flying is? Well I s'pose you do, since you already know what I'm 'bout to say."
River: "I do. But I like to hear you say it."
Mal: "Love. Can know all the math in the 'verse but take a boat in the air that you don't love? She'll shake you off just as sure as a turn in the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughtta fall down...tell you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens...makes her a home."


Eric