Jayne: Testing. Testing. Captain, can you hear me?
Mal: I’m standing right here.
Jayne: You’re coming through good and loud.
Mal: ‘Cause I’m standing right here.
Jayne: Yeah, well… but the transmitter’s…
Firefly – Episode 1 – “Serenity”
Patience: We can deal. I’ll upload coordinates for a rendezvous point outside of town.
Mal: See you in the world. (Mal ends the transmission, followed by a long pause.) I believe that woman’s planning to shoot me again.
Jayne: She meant to pay you, she’d’a haggled you down some.
Wash: Just a little effort to hide it would’ve been —
Zoe: Sir, we don’t have to deal with her.
Mal: Yes, we do.
Jayne: Here’s a little concept I been workin’ on. Why don’t we shoot her first?
Wash: It is her turn.
Firefly – Episode 1 – “Serenity”
Mal: Now I got to know how close the Alliance is, exactly how much you told them before Wash scrambled your call. So, I’ve given Jayne here the job of finding out.
Jayne: He was non-specific as to how.
Mal: (to Jayne) Now you only gotta scare him.
Jayne: Pain is scary…
Firefly – Episode 1 – “Serenity
Simon: I am very smart. I went to the best medacad in Osiris, top three percent of my class, finished my internship in eight months. “Gifted” is the term. So when I tell you that my little sister makes me look like an idiot child, I want you to understand my full meaning. River was more than gifted. She… she was a gift. Everything she did, music, math, theoretical physics — even dance — there was nothing that didn’t come as naturally to her as breathing does to us. She could be a real… brat about it, too. I mean, she used to — There was a school… a government-sponsored academy, we had never even heard of it but it had the most exciting program, the most challenging. We could have sent her anywhere, we had the money, but she wanted to go. She wanted to learn. She was fourteen. I… I got a few letters at first, and then I didn’t hear for months. Finally I got a letter that made no sense. She talked about things that never happened, jokes that we never… it was a code. It just said… “They’re hurting us. Get me out.”
Zoe: How’d you do it?
Simon: Money. And luck. For two years, I couldn’t get near her. Then I was contacted by some men, some underground movement. They said that she was in danger, that the government was… playing with her brain. If I funded them they could sneak her out in cryo, get her to Persephone, and from there I could take her… wherever.
Inara: Will she be all right?
Simon: I don’t know if she’ll be all right. I don’t know what they did to her, orwhy. I just have to keep her safe.
Firefly – Episode 1 – “Serenity”
Inara: So. Would you like to lecture me on the wickedness of my ways?
Book: I brought you some supper, but if you’d prefer a lecture, I’ve a few very catchy ones prepped. Sin and hellfire… one has lepers.
Firefly – Episode 1 – “Serenity”
Mal: You send word to Patience?
Wash: Ain’t heard back yet. Didn’t she shoot you one time?
Mal: Everybody’s makin’ a fuss.
Firefly – Episode 1 – “Serenity”
Zoe: Now we have a boat full of citizens right on top of our stolen cargo. That’s a fun mix.
Mal: Ain’t no way in the ‘Verse they could find that compartment, even if they were lookin’ for it.
Zoe: Why not?
Mal: ………… ‘Cause……..
Zoe: Oh, yeah, this is gonna go great.
Mal: If anyone gets nosy just, you know, shoot ’em.
Zoe:Shoot ’em?
Mal: Politely.
Firefly – Episode 1 – “Serenity”
Mal: It’s been a long time since Patience shot me, and that was due to a perfectly legitimate conflict of interest. I got no grudge.
Firefly – Episode 1 – “Serenity”
Jayne: I don’t understand why we didn’t leave that sumbitch in a pool of his own blood.
Mal: We’d be dead. 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 — lemmie do the math here — nothin’, and then nothin’, carry the nothin’…
Firefly – Episode 1 – “Serenity”
Kaylee: You’re gonna come with us.
Book: Excuse me?
Kaylee: You like ships; you don’t seem to be lookin’ at the destinations. What you care about is ships, and mine’s the nicest.
Book: She don’t look like much.
Kaylee: Oh, she’ll fool ya. You ever sail in a Firefly?
Book: Long before you were crawlin’. Not an aught-three though, didn’t have the extenders, tended to shake.
Kaylee: So, uh, how come you don’t care where you’re going?
Book: ‘Cause how you get there’s the worthier part.
Kaylee: Are you a missionary?
Book: I guess. I’m a Shepherd from the Southdown Abbey. Book, I’m called Book. Been out of the world for a spell, like to walk it a while. Maybe bring the Word to them as need it told.
Kaylee: Well I’m Kaykee, and this here’s Serenity. She’s the smoothest ride from here to Boros for anyone can pay… Can you… pay, or…
Book: Well, I got a little cash, and, uh… (opens box for Kaylee)
Kaylee: Oh, grandpa!
Book: I never married.
Firefly – Episode 1 – “Serenity”
The Love Pirate 