Mal: This is why we lost you know, superior numbers.
Zoë: Thanks for the reenactment, sir.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zoë: I know something ain't right.
Wash: Sweetie, we're crooks. If everything were right, we'd be in jail.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: See, this is another sign of your tragic
space dementia, all paranoid and crotchety. Breaks the heart.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Book: That young man's very brave.
Mal: Yeah. He's my hero.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: Kaylee, what the hell's going on in the
engine room? Were there monkeys? Some terrifying space monkeys maybe got
loose?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guy on Planet: 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.
Guy on Planet: You didn't toast? Y'know, I'm thinkin' you're one o'
those Browncoats...
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: Drunks are so cute.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: This job I would pull for free.
Zoë: Can I have your share?
Mal: No
Zoë: If you die, can I have your share?
Mal: Yes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: You know, you ain't quite right.
River: It's a popular theory.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Captain Reynolds: He's not the first psycho to
hire us nor the last. You think that's a commentary on us?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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'...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: You know, they tell ya to never hit a man
with a closed fist but it is, on occasion, hilarious.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zoë: Shepard, isn't the Bible kind of specific about killing?
Book: Very specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzy around the area
of kneecaps.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: Oh, I'm gonna go to the special hell.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[comforting Mal's new wife]
Kaylee: Oh, don't worry honey, he makes everybody cry. He's like a
monster.
Mal Reynolds: I am not a monster.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zoë: Next time we smuggle stock, let's make it something smaller.
Wash: Yeah, we should start dealing in those black market beagles.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: Jayne, your mouth is talking. You might
want to see to that.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: Let me make this abundantly clear. I do
the job, and then I get paid.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: One of you is gonna fall and die and I'm
not cleaning it up.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patience: Didn't expect to be hearing from you any time soon.
Mal Reynolds: Well, we may not have parted on best terms. I realise
certain words were exchanged, also certain bullets.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Agent McGinnis: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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bandit: You're 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: You are not the man I met a year ago.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: One of those will feed a family for a month.
Longer if they don't like their kids too well.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Mal and Wash are being tortured]
Mal: 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: 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: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!
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...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Zoë has made soup for Wash, and sets it on the table for him]
Wash: Mmm. Wife soup. I must have done good.
Zoë: Yes, dear. You done good. But this is a one time thing, so
I suggest you savor it.
Mal: Did you tell her?
Wash: Tell her what?
Mal: [to Zoë] Your husband has demanded that we sleep together.
Zoë: Really.
Wash: 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...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: [who has just begun to enter the dining hall] 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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: How about I keep out of your whoring and
you keep out of my thieving?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simon: I've never shot anyone before.
Book: I was there, son. I'm fairly sure you haven't shot anyone yet.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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'?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: [about River] She's a mite whimsical
in the brainpan.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[after River gets a hold of one of Jayne's guns]
Jayne: I didn't make here 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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: If someone tries to kill you, you just try
and kill 'em right back!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jayne: Hey, do you have any funny whorin' stories?
Inara: Oh, do I ever. Funny and sexy. You have no idea. And you never
will.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: We're deep in space, corner of No and Where.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Badger: The situation is... fluid.
Jayne: The only fluid I see here is the puddle of piss refusing to
pay our wage.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simon: Are you out of your mind?
Mal: Just about.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: You've only got to scare him.
Jayne: Pain is scary.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simon: So, finally a decent wound on this ship and I miss it. I'm sorry.
Mal: Well you were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jayne: Time for some thrilling heroics.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Book: I'd forgotten - you're moonlighting as a criminal mastermind
now.
Simon: Yes; I'm thinking about growing a big black mustache. I'm a
traditionalist.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wash: I've been in a firefight. Well, I was in a fire. Actually, I
was fired from a fry-cook opportunity.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[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."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zoë: We're getting him back.
Jayne: [staring at Mal's severed ear] What are we going to do
- clone him?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: Now all we need are some patients.
Simon: Corpses. For this to work River and I will have to be dead.
Jayne: I'm starting to like this plan.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jayne: Let's move this conversation in a not-Jayne's-fault
direction.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 beverages that make you
blind.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: Ship like this, be with you until the day you die.
Zoë: That's because it's a deathtrap.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jayne: If wishes were horses, we'd all be eatin'
steak.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jayne: What we need is a diversion. I say Zoe gets nekked.
Wash: No.
Jayne: I could get nekked...?
Zoë: No.
Wash: No.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jayne: Mal! Looks like we got us some imminent
violence!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jayne: [to his gun] See Vera? Dress yourself
up, you get taken out somewhere fun.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simon: What happened in here?
Jayne: Needed to find some tape.
Simon: So you had to tear my infirmary apart?
Jayne: Apparently.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sir Warwick Harrow: You didn't have to wound that man.
Mal: No, but it was funny.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jayne: What'd y'all order a dead guy for?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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: But how will we know for sure until we've questioned it?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jayne: She'll turn you in before you can say..."Don't
turn me in, lady."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jayne: [to Simon] Little Kaylee here just wishes you was a gynecologist.
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: [Jayne, himself a tough guy, describing
a mobster's goons] These are stone killers. They ain't cuddly like
me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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: Yeah, 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?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: Which one you figure tracked us?
Zoë: The ugly one, sir.
Mal: Could you be more specific?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zoë: [about Serenity, on first seeing
her] You paid money for this, sir? On purpose?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaylee: Don't you just love this party? Everything's
so fancy, and there's some kind of hot cheese over there.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: [about cattle] You know, they walk just as easy if you
lead 'em.
Jayne: I like smackin' 'em.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaylee: Look, they got boy whores. Isn't that
thoughtful?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wash: But these apples are healthsome and good.
Jayne: Yeah, grenades cost extra.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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] But I did try to get
the frosting as chocolatey as possible.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[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!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wash: [to Mal, about his "wife"] Did she really make fresh bao?
Zoë: You know that sex we were planning to have ever again?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Jayne spits on knife sharpening stone]
Simon: Could you not do that while we're - ever?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: Don't worry... this is all part of our new plan.
Kaylee: Captain, how exactly is this...
Mal: Still working out the details.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
River: My food is problematic.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: You are very much lacking in imagination.
Zoë: I imagine that's so, sir.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Kaylee opens wooden box filled with strawberries]
Kaylee: Ooooh, grandpa!
Book: I never married.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[after slashing Jayne with a knife]
River: He looks better in red.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inara: What was the last cargo we snuck past the alliance in a transport?
Mal: That was...
Inara: What was the cargo?
Mal: They were dolls.
Inara: They were little geisha dolls with big heads that wobbled!
Mal: Hey, people LOVE 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?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: [Mal is in the process of rescuing Simon from being burned
at the stake] Your talent for alienating folks is near miraculous.
Simon: Yes, I'm very proud.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Magistrate Higgins: I brought you here to bed
my son, not throw him a tea party.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal Reynolds: If anyone gets nosy just, you know, shoot them.
Zoë: Shoot them?
Mal Reynolds: Politely.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mal: Petty?
Inara: I didn't mean petty.
Mal: So what did you mean?
Inara: Suoxi?
Mal: That's Chinese for petty.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sir Warrick Harrow: 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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Durran Haymer: [finding out his wife is a
traitor] Well, I appreciate your honesty. Not, y'know, a lot.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
River: "I swallowed a bug."