- Doctor Bashir: I'm gonna tell you a little secret, Jadzia. I was looking forward to tomorrow, to seeing Kira again, casually asking 'How was the nebula? And, oh, by the way, I cured that blight thing those people had'.
- Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax: It's not a crime to believe in yourself, Julian.
- Doctor Bashir: These people believed in me, and look where it got them. Trevean was right. There is no cure. The Dominion made sure of that. And I was so arrogant, I thought I could find one in a week!
- Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax: Maybe it was arrogant to think that. But it's even more arrogant to think there isn't a cure just because *you* couldn't find it.
- Doctor Bashir: Some people don't like to be around the sick; it reminds them of their own mortality.
- Ekoria: Doesn't bother you?
- Doctor Bashir: Sometimes. I prefer to confront mortality, rather than hide from it. When you make someone well, it's like you're... chasing death off, making him wait for another day.
- Patient: Yesterday, when I woke up, I... saw that it had finally happened, I'd quickened. I always thought I'd be afraid, but I wasn't. Because I knew I could come here. Last night, I slept in a bed for the first time in my life. I fell asleep listening to music. This morning, I bathed in hot water, dressed in clean clothes... and now I'm here with my friends and family... Thank you, Trevean, for making this day everything I dreamed it could be.
- [Bashir tells Ekoria about his teddy bear Kukalaka, his first "patient" when he was a child]
- Doctor Bashir: I must have sewn and stitched and repatched every square inch of that bear.
- Ekoria: Why were you so determined to keep him together?
- Doctor Bashir: Well, I wouldn't be much of a doctor if I gave up on a patient, would I?
- [Quark has tampered with the station's and the Defiant's systems to play jingles advertising the "fun" in his bar]
- Major Kira: If all your little advertisements aren't purged from our systems by the time I get back from the Gamma Quadrant, *I* will come to Quark's, and believe me, I will have fun!
- Trevean: More than anything, the Dominion wanted my people to bear the mark of their defiance. So... they brought us the blight. We're all born with it - we all die from it. When the blight quickens, the lesions turn red. Death soon follows. Some in childhood, most before they can have children of their own. Only a few live to be my age.
- Doctor Bashir: I thought this was a hospital, and that you were a healer.
- Trevean: I am. I take away pain.
- Doctor Bashir: First thing I have to do is run a complete bio-spectral analysis on an asymptomatic individual.
- Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax: [to Ekoria] Loosely translated that means he needs a volunteer.
- Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax: Ekoria... where did you get all this food?
- Ekoria: I've been saving it for the hospital - for my death. But something tells me I'm not going to need it anymore.
- [while Dax and Kira are returning to the station, Bashir has decided to stay on the planet]
- Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax: You know what worries me, Julian? It's that without me, you won't have anyone to translate for you.
- [Bashir has developed a vaccine against the blight]
- Doctor Bashir: The vaccine isn't difficult to make. But seeing that everybody gets it will be a huge task.
- Trevean: Oh, not a task. A privilege. Can you show me how to make it?
- Doctor Bashir: I was hoping you'd ask that.
- [last lines]
- Doctor Bashir: People are still dying back there.
- Captain Sisko: Yes. But their children won't.
- Doctor Bashir: That's what I keep telling myself, sir.
- [Sisko leaves]
- Doctor Bashir: [to his computer] Initiate re-shuffling sequence.
- Doctor Bashir: Is it my imagination, or are the stars a little brighter in the Gamma Quadrant?
- Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax: Is it my imagination, or has Julian lost his mind?
- Doctor Bashir: I just want to do what I can to help, I'm not making any promises.
- Trevean: Take care that you don't. Because we have dealt with people who give false hope before. Believe me, their deaths make the blight look like a blessing.
- Ekoria: Maybe you should go home. Maybe my people don't deserve your help.
- Doctor Bashir: Oh, they've just been suffering so long, they've lost hope that things can be better.
- Ekoria: It's more than that. We've come to worship death. - I used to wake up and look at myself in the mirror and be disappointed I hadn't quickened in my sleep. Going to Trevean seemed so much easier than going on living.