DAN LEWIS: I've only been back a month, and I've got to say, I'm glad I'm not on the verge of being exterminated any more. But I do miss her.

IAN CHESTERTON: Sorry. Did you say her?

DOCTOR: Can't I ever have peace? Can't I rest?

BILL: Of course you can.

NARDOLE: It's your choice.

BILL: Only yours.

NARDOLE: We understand.

DOCTOR: No. No, you don't. You're not even really here. You're just memories, held in glass. Do you know how many of you I could fill? I would shatter you. My testimony would shatter all of you. A life this long, do you understand what it is? It's a battlefield, like this one.

(The Doctor gestures to the desolate battlefield behind him)

DOCTOR: And it's empty. Because everyone else has fallen.

DOCTOR: Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand is where I fall.

DOCTOR: Without hope. Without witness. Without reward.

DOCTOR: Things end. That’s all. Everything ends, and it’s always sad. But everything begins again too, and that’s always happy. Be happy. I’ll look after everything else.

DOCTOR: It’s funny, the day you lose someone isn’t the worst. At least you’ve got something to do. It’s all the days they stay dead.

LADY ADELA: I thought I’d buried my past here.

DOCTOR: None of us can do that. The past isn’t a separate part of us, a photograph album we can leave in a drawer and forget about. Every decision we take, every thrill we experience, every disappointment we face – they make up who we are. Lose the past and you lose yourself.

LADY ADELA: That’s precisely what I want: oblivion.

DOCTOR: Forgetting something doesn’t stop it hurting: it makes it worse. Unattended wounds fester. I lost someone very dear to me today, but I won’t forget her. If you love someone, you need to remember everything about them: their face, their voice, the things they used to say. Keep them alive inside you and they’ll never really die. Brave heart, Lady Adela. Brave heart.

DOCTOR: As for making a difference, I don’t think we really influenced anything at all.

DOCTOR: Sometimes, if you stare at a painting for too long and get too close to it, all you can see are the brushstrokes. The harder you stare, the more formless and meaningless it seems to become.

NYSSA: And that’s your analogy for the whole of the universe, is it? A painting you don’t want to look at too closely in case it doesn’t mean anything?

DOCTOR: I don’t know. Sometimes I think of it that way, yes.

EVELYN: Oh no. You are going to sing.

DOCTOR: Well, yes, I am.

DOCTOR: We need to end the story.

EVELYN: Why? Stories don't end in real life. Sally was right. There's no happy ever after. There's happy, and then there's the day after, which might be happy, and then the day after, which might be happy, but keep on going far enough and you'll get to a day which isn't. There's never a final end.

SALLY: Oh, there is.

DOCTOR: No, Sally. That's the wonderful thing about life. You can't rule a neat line under it. But individual stories can end—and then you move on to the next one. It might be a better story or a worse one. It might be a sequel to something you've done before. The important thing is, that they're your stories. And no one can take that away from you.

FROBISHER: And all those people? They were killed, just to punish Eugene? ...That's terrible.

DOCTOR: If it's any consolation, they were never actually real in the first place.

FROBISHER: No, Doc. That's no consolation. They thought they were real, didn't they?

DOCTOR: * (sighing)* Just like the fish in the swimming pool. They felt pain, they felt fear. And more than that, they had hopes and dreams and families. Yes, it is terrible. But that's what comes of travelling in the TARDIS. All the people you meet, all the planets you see... you know they won't last forever, and our next journey could be to a time when they'll all have been long forgotten. Such little lives. And we can feel like gods, set apart from them all.

FROBISHER: And that's supposed to make me feel better, is it?

DOCTOR: No. Not at all.

FROBISHER: For a while back there, Doc, I actually felt I could do some good. I actually felt I could save them all.

DOCTOR: * (heavily)* I know, Frobisher. Believe me. I know. ...Come on. Let's get away from here.