POLLY: You’re condemning us all to die. Have you no heart?

CYBERMAN: No. That is one of the weaknesses that we have removed.

DOCTOR: My dear Mister Chinn, if I could leave, I would, if only to get away from people like you.

BRIGADIER: Doctor—

DOCTOR: And your petty obsessions! England for the English? Good heavens, man!

CHINN: I have a duty to my country!

DOCTOR: Not to the world?

“Who was it said Earthmen never invite their ancestors round for dinner?”

LIGHT: Earth. Why mention that wretched planet to me?

ACE: If you don’t like it, then bog off!

LIGHT: I once spent centuries faithfully cataloguing all the species there. Every organism from the smallest bacteria to the largest ichthyosaur. But no sooner had I finished than it all started changing.

DOCTOR: That’s life.

“You’re no gentleman. Scratch the Victorian veneer, and something nasty’ll come crawling out.”

ACE: When I lived in Perivale—me and my best mate—we dossed around together. We'd out-dare each other on things. Skiving off. Stupid things. Then they burnt out Manesha’s flat. White kids firebombed it. I didn't care anymore.

DOCTOR: I think you cared a lot, Ace.

ACE: Don't you have things you hate?

DOCTOR: I can't stand burnt toast. I loathe bus stations. Terrible places. Full of lost luggage and lost souls.

ACE: I told you I never wanted to come back here again.

DOCTOR: And then, there's unrequited love, and tyranny, and cruelty.

ACE: Too right.

DOCTOR: We all have a universe of our own terrors to face.

ACE: I face mine on my own terms.

GWENDOLINE: Sir, I think Mr. Matthews is confused.

DOCTOR: Never mind. I'll have him completely bewildered by the time I'm finished.

’Are you sure,’ asked his companion, ‘that this is the nineteen-eighties?’

The Doctor looked around. ‘Which nineteen-eighties did you have in mind?’

“Sometimes I think that I am a Doctor of no brain at all.”

The air was musty, as if something malevolent had crawled in there a million years ago and given birth to shadows and silence and dust.

And then, perhaps for the first time in centuries, a faint echo ran through the corridor; a sound like distant drums, or perhaps a thunderstorm far away across a black sea. The air in the corridor swung apart like a grimy curtain to reveal a large blue box with a flashing light on top. Momentarily the thunder crashed overhead, as if something infinitely heavy had come to rest.

“The Doctor led us up, into the fire that was not the fire of salvation but the sort that burns, with smoke and hurt and tortured bodies and death. He walked arm in arm with Turing, and they talked, probably about miracles and the mysteries of the universe, but I couldn’t hear them any more. And anyway, it was probably all in code.”

“And the bells ring out for the death of Venice!”

“There is a balance to magic.”

“I’ll get some peace! I’ll find myself some opulent ballroom, and watch the chandeliers grow extravagant beards of lichen and weed, and the monstrous fish take up residence in the sepulchre boudoirs of ancient princesses.”

“It was all about love in the end, wasn’t it?”

“Can’t you people see? Won’t you ever learn? There’s no such thing as prophecy or fate! There are true events, things that happen, and things that have to happen, and none of us can escape those. None of us can, and that’s bad enough. I know that. But we don’t have to invent myths to make it all worse! We don’t have to create terrible destinies, we come to them sure enough!”

“Let’s travel in style! Let’s raise a glass as we steam down the canal! And before the world ends, it turns completely upside down.”

Anji walked alone through the city of tigers. It was a fast walk, a bad walk, shouldering and dodging crowd. Sunlight splashing off concrete and glass, bright faces and clothes.

And on every corner, from every doorway, in every window, the music. Coming down from bedrooms, spilling out of cars and cafés, thumping and shrilling, twinkling and twanging. Opera and bossa nova, zydeco and disco, one tune crashing into another as Anji pushed and pulled her way down the street.

“I think God's favourite colour must be orange.”

“Anji closed her eyes for a moment. He was a fake. He looked and sounded like a man, a human male with white skin, a long, strong-jawed face and large, pale eyes. But if you touched his skin, if you held his wrist, he was the wrong temperature, he had the wrong pulse. He didn’t even have a name. She called the alien ‘Doctor’ because she didn’t know what else to call it.”

ELIZA: We don’t have to go back to our own times, though. We could go back to the age of the dinosaurs or something.

JUSTINE: Why would we want to do that?

ELIZA: I don’t know. It’d just be interesting. You know. We could start our own Faction Paradox mission there. In the middle of the Jurassic or wherever.

JUSTINE: A mission?

ELIZA: Yeah, why not?

JUSTINE: For prehistoric reptiles?

ELIZA: We’re agents of Paradox, for gods’ sake. For all we know we could be the ones who go back in time and start the human race. We could be the original Adam and Eve! Eve and Eve! Whatever!

JUSTINE: If that were true I think we’d have been informed.

ELIZA: I’d just quite like to ride on a dinosaur.

DOCTOR: Well! Tell me about your world, Klein. I mean, tell me about 1965.

KLEIN: You must have seen it for yourself.

DOCTOR: I’ve seen people learning how to be free, learning new experiences, new forms of self-expression, banding together to combat inequality and injustice! I can’t imagine that your world is very similar.

KLEIN: Are you trying to imply that my time shouldn’t come to exist? That Germany should never have won this war? You are wrong.

DOCTOR: Am I?

KLEIN: You want to change history!

DOCTOR: Not change it! Put it back on the right track!

KLEIN: According to whom?

DOCTOR: According to what I’ve seen.

KLEIN: And what about the world I’ve seen? The world of the future, Doctor. An efficient, peaceful, prosperous world. A golden age.

DOCTOR: BUILT ON HOW MANY CORPSES? Oh, I’m sure your trains run on time, Klein. But was it worth the bloodshed? Was it worth the slaughter of millions?

KLEIN: Yes.

DOCTOR: NO! It’s never worth it, Klein. There is no excuse for genocide!

DOCTOR: It’s a gigantic body composed almost entirely of superheated gas.

BANTO: Rather like you, then.

DOCTOR: If I have to endure another insult—

BANTO: Oh, here we go, another voyage round the English language…

DOCTOR: Can’t take the pace, eh? That’s teach you to impersonate someone less awe-inspiring next time.

BANTO: Awe inspiring? In that coat? Have you looked in the mirror recently? Come to think of it, I shouldn’t think you do much else!

DOCTOR: I intend to rise above your barbs. But before I do, I’d like to say this coat can only be appreciated by someone with a sharpened aesthetic sense! Not a dunderhead like you!

BANTO: Sharpened aesthetic sense? Sharpened by what? A dose of mind-altering drugs?!

DOCTOR: I warn you! A verbal duel with me, as you should remember, if you used the smallest fraction of your cerebral cortex, can only end in ignominy for you!

BANTO: Igno-what? Talking to you is like arguing with a thesaurus!

“There are other sentient words out there, not all of them as belligerent as Ish. I’ve met a few myself. The Adjective of Noun! The Insouciant Maladictaballoons! And then there was the mysterious simile known only… as.”

“Angels are never what they seem.”

BUCKINGHAM: You would dare to take on one of the finest swordsmen in England?

DOCTOR: Hasn't anybody told you? We're in France!

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.

“It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it?”

“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.

“Confusing, isn’t it? When you don’t know who the bad guys are.”

“The audio medium. It can be so deceptive…”

“Stop thinking and start drinking!”

“Love. Huh! Wrote a treatise on the chromosomal origins of love once, when I was a small boy. Proved categorically which gene began it, which enzymes carried it, which electrochemical receptors translated it… Took all the fun out of it. Got a rubbish grade, too. My tutor told me I’d missed the point.”

CHARLEY: Come on. Take my hand.

DOCTOR: But we can see now. We don’t need to hold on to each other.

CHARLEY: I know. Take my hand anyway.

“This is the voice of Light City. Welcome to your new work day. Today is High Productivity Day. Your state loves you. Happiness through acceptance.”

“I love the State. I venerate the Regime. I love the State. I venerate the Regime. I love the State. I venerate the Regime. Why are you doing this to me?”

“There, there. It’s alright. It’s alright. It’s for your own good. The state loves you. It loves you. Take a breath. That’s right. A deep breath. There. Now say goodbye to everything you ever knew.”

DOCTOR: OK. Hold on to your hat.

HEX: I haven't got one.

DOCTOR: Then hold on to mine.

DOCTOR: Breakfast smells appetising, Mrs Wibbsey! How do you feel about running away with me, and seeing all the marvels of the universe?

MRS WIBBSEY: Go and boil your head.

DOCTOR: (in delight) Wonderful woman.

DOCTOR: I ploughed down corridors and scarpered through a bewildering variety of rooms and spaces, many of them crammed perplexingly with items of furniture. Stately antiques from all periods of history, not just Earth, but of other planets, including Gallifrey. There were treasures from a thousand worlds, and portraits stern and smiling, fond ... and unfamiliar. In my rabid-like stupor I began to wonder who all these people were. Was I supposed to know them? Faces, and faces upon faces. Was I supposed to remember all of these? Holograms flickered and danced alongside the oil paintings, the multidimensional statues, the limpid water-colour sketches.

(Door opens - classical music playing.)

DOCTOR: There were rooms filled with chamber music...

(Door opens - laughing crowd.)

DOCTOR: Rooms filled with laughter....

(Door opens - rushing water.)

DOCTOR: Rooms filled with the thunderous applause of waterfalls...

“As you may or may not know, Mike, the TARDIS is huge. Its corridors loop round and about and twist perpetually into a vast cat's cradle. A labyrinth.”

“I'm an almost perpetual traveller. I wander through the vast star-fields of the universe. I cross the bridges between dimensions. I traipse the towpaths of Time.”

“I’m going to kill everything! Everything that crawls, grows, wiggles and swims in all of reality. Bang! The whole lot! Finished! Kaput! Finito-complete-o! Gone! How’s that for a plan?”

“I am not a what, Mr Stone. I'm a who.”

GWEN: What's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? Not just on Earth.

JACK: I'm not doing this. I'm not giving final speeches.

GWEN: Just tell me. Anywhere in the Universe.

JACK: …I saw a firebird once. A tiny little thing, even smaller than a hummingbird. Literally made of fire. It only lives for a minute. It blazes different colours and sings. It gets so bright you have to close your eyes. And when you open them, it's gone. But the image stays behind your eyelids for longer than it was alive.

DOCTOR: Is that all you can say? All the deaths that have resulted from your actions. Do they mean nothing to you?

GODRIN: You must understand, Doctor. I am the sole survivor of a dead race. You can forgive me for being a little… cautious of strangers.

DOCTOR: Forgive you? You expect me to forgive you? You should be grateful, Godrin, that I don’t share your low opinion of the value of life, because if I did… I can assure you, you wouldn’t still be standing here breathing now.

“I am not a madam. I am Leela of the Sevateem.”

“Leela only ever speaks the truth.”

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: Do you know Puff the Magic Dragon?

BERNICE: We went out a few times. He was very immature.

DOCTOR: Do you know the bit where Jackie Paper leaves him? Leaves him all alone?

BERNICE: I really don’t want to hear this.

DOCTOR: The dragon can’t be brave without the little boy. He doesn’t have anything to be brave for. He might as well go, might as well drift off into myth, and just be something in old stories.

BERNICE: But what would happen then? There are other monsters, other terrible things out there beside the Hoothi.

DOCTOR: Many of them. Yes.

BERNICE: Well, they must be fought. Because—and this is important. You can’t just be alone. That’s a childish thing to be. You can’t just isolate yourself from everything, no matter what terrible things have happened. You have to help other people.

DOCTOR: That’s what Jackie Paper would have said.

BERNICE: Oh. Oh, I see.

DOCTOR: What do you think?

DOCTOR: A road to nowhere. Long ago in an English autumn.

BERNICE: Oh, but it isn’t to nowhere.

“My name is Liz Shaw, and I’ve come to stop the end of the world.”

“Hey, do you mind if I tell you a story? One you might not have heard. All the elements in your body were forged many, many millions of years ago, in the heart of a far away star that exploded and died. That explosion scattered those elements across the desolations of deep space. After so, so many millions of years, these elements came together to form new stars and new planets. And on and on it went. The elements came together and burst apart, forming shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings. Until eventually, they came together to make you. You are unique in the universe. There is only one Merry Gejelh. And there will never be another.”

“She is quicksilver. I prefer steel.”

LILY: Doctor... Pity… me!

DOCTOR: Fear me.

LILY: What?

DOCTOR: Tell this to your gods. When they punish you. When they stretch you on the neutron rack. I’m still here.

LILY: But you? You’re one little man!

DOCTOR: I am not a man! Not a human being! I am a complex space-time event! I am Lord President of Gallifrey. The Traveller from Beyond Time. I am the Sandman. The Oncoming Storm. I am the Ka Faraq Gatri. Destroyer of Worlds. And sometimes… Only sometimes… I am your worst nightmare. I am the Doctor. And I take care of my friends.

MASTER: In the wrong hands it could prove a very powerful tool. And I, Doctor Chenka, am very much the wrong hands.

LIV: And there was I thinking you were very much a powerful tool.

“Stories, hidden inside stories! Ooh, I love all that. Makes me feel right at home.”

“Executions are just as barbaric as murder. Having the correct paperwork signed in triplicate doesn’t make it any more palatable.”

“You know, I used to tell people I walked in Eternity. And the thing about Eternity is, well—it does go on.”

NAOMI: Can that tiger understand you?

DOCTOR: She’s doing her best.

HARRY: And you just met this wild animal… on the street?

DOCTOR: Don’t be ridiculous, Harry! We met in the pub.

MASTER: Time. It takes its toll on all of us in the end.

HARRY: Even a Time Lord?

MASTER: Especially a Time Lord. We live too long.

HARRY: Are you much older than the Doctor?

MASTER: No. We are the same age. That horrifies you?

HARRY: No! Well, no, it’s just… he seems so young in comparison.

MASTER: Time has been kinder to him.

DOCTOR: You always were a terrible judge of character. Look at me!

BERNICE: Happily.

DOCTOR: Have you had a good life?

BERNICE: All things considered.

DOCTOR: Quite. And you’ve just saved the universe again.

BERNICE: I have, haven’t I? Something to tell the cats when I get home.

DOCTOR: Cats, eh? Plural?

BERNICE: Plural.

DOCTOR: How many? Not too many?

BERNICE: No such thing. Oh, you’re going to love them. Come on.

DOCTOR: Back home?

BERNICE: And beyond.