- Vedek Bareil: So... what did you think?
- Major Kira: Of your speech?
- Vedek Bareil: M-hm...
- Major Kira: I liked everything about it - except the content.
- [Jadzia and Odo are discussing Odo's effect on women]
- Odo: Women don't react to me in that manner.
- Lieutenant Jadzia Dax: Are you saying that you've never had a female friend?
- Odo: I consider Major Kira a friend.
- Lieutenant Jadzia Dax: That's not what I meant. I'm talking about... an intimate friendship.
- Odo: That's a very personal question.
- Lieutenant Jadzia Dax: I'm sorry, but after seven lifetimes, the impersonal questions aren't much fun anymore.
- Jake Sisko: It's kinda fun working with Chief O'Brien. But it would be better if I knew what I was doing.
- Major Kira: Quark, get this into that little twisted brain of yours! If you thought you were gonna get away with anything while Odo's gone, think again! I'm watching you.
- Quark: Major. You make it sound like you don't like me.
- Major Kira: Don't like you? You collaborated with the Cardassians, you cheat your customers, and you're a danger to the station. I don't just not like you. I despise you!
- [walks off]
- Quark: [embarrassed] Sorry I mentioned it.
- Taya: If I were a changeling, I'd change shapes all the time. Everyone'd want to be my friend.
- Odo: [scoffs] I wish it were that easy.
- Taya: Why wouldn't it be?
- Odo: When I was younger, people were always asking me to change shape for them. They pretended to be my friends. But all they wanted was to see me become a chair or... animal. None of them ever really cared about me.
- Major Kira: You follow springball?
- Vedek Bareil: Religiously, er, if you'll pardon the expression. I even used to play a little.
- Major Kira: Me too. I had Chief O'Brien design a springball holosuite program.
- Vedek Bareil: Really? Let's go!
- Rurigan: I was happy living on Yadera Prime - that is, until the Dominion took over, and changed our whole way of life. And I realized one morning that I didn't really belong there anymore. So I came here, and I used a holo-generator to recreate all the things that I'd lost. I've lived here in my village for nearly thirty years. I've watched the people marry, have children, grow old. And sometimes I even forgot that they were holograms. But it's over. It's over; and I would appreciate it if you'd take me back to Yadera Prime.
- Odo: But... what about the villagers, what about your granddaughter?
- Rurigan: She's not real.
- Odo: Technically I suppose you're right. Maybe, by our definition, Taya is not real; her memories are stored in a computer, her body is made up of omicron particles. But who is to say that our definition of life is the only valid one?
- Odo: I saw the way you held her hand when she was sad. I saw the way you tried to comfort her when she was frightened.
- Rurigan: I-I didn't want her to get hurt.
- Odo: If she's not real, what does it matter?
- Rurigan: It matters. It matters to me.
- Odo: Why should it matter to you if a hologram cries?
- Rurigan: Because I love her.
- Odo: Don't you see? She's real to you; and she's real to me too, they're all real. And you can't turn your back on them now.
- Taya: ...Then the Great Minra said to the evil changeling, "Maybe you can turn into a mountain, or a Ghergher Beast, or a tornado. Those are big things, and big things are easy. I bet you can't turn into something small - like a loaf of greenbread." And the changeling said, "Yes I can", and he did. And do you know what happened?
- Odo: The Great Minra gobbled him up.
- Taya: How'd you know that?
- Odo: The changeling in your story wasn't very smart.
- Taya: [shrewdly] Could you turn into a loaf of greenbread?
- Odo: I suppose I could.
- Taya: Show me.
- Odo: And let you gobble me up? I don't think so!
- Jake Sisko: Dad... I don't want to join Starfleet.
- Commander Sisko: Since when?
- Jake Sisko: S-snce forever. Starfleet is too much like you. I need to find what's me.
- Commander Sisko: It's your life, Jake. You have to choose your own way. There is only one thing I want from you: find something you love. Then do it the best you can.
- Jake Sisko: I'll try.
- Commander Sisko: Good. Then you make the old man proud.
- Colyus: [after Dax has restored the holographic village with all its inhabitants] We just have to get used to the fact that we're holograms.
- Rurigan: We're alive and we have our families back, that's the only thing that counts.
- Colyus: I wonder who created all this.
- Odo: Whoever it was did a fine job.
- Colyus: They did, didn't they?
- Major Kira: By the way, Prylar Rhit tells me that you encouraged him to invite Bareil onto the station.
- Quark: That a crime?
- Major Kira: Not at all. I just wanted to thank you. I found him very...
- [her look becomes piercing]
- Major Kira: ...diverting!
- [walks off and joins Bareil on the Promenade]
- Quark: [under his breath] Not diverting enough.
- Odo: [to Taya] I do not know where your mother is. But I will promise you this - I will do whatever I can to find your mother and bring her back to you.
- Odo: [Odo and Dax are being interrogated by Colyus. An exasperated Odo, who is trying to convince Colyus that they are telling the truth, decides to have himself beamed back onto he shuttlecraft to prove his innocence] Shuttlecraft, One to beam up.
- [Odo energizes and disappears. Colyus is startled]
- Lieutenant Jadzia Dax: [to Colyus; with a calm smile] Don't worry, he'll be back.
- [After several minutes, Odo reappears. Colyus is now convinced]
- Lieutenant Dax: The point is that sometimes we don't see true love even when it's staring us right in the face.