- Chief O'Brien: It wasn't until I got to the Cardassian Front I found out I had talents I never knew I had... It was a matter of figuring out how to get a field transporter operational in ten minutes, or wind up being a Cardassian prisoner of war. Now, I didn't know a transporter from a turbolift in those days; but somehow, in 9min 53sec, I got that thing to work.
- [Kira and Dax are trying to get control over an unmanned runabout at warp speed. Kira's first solution however doesn't find Dax's approval]
- Major Kira: You got a better idea?
- Lieutenant Jadzia Dax: I'm the Science Officer. It's my job to have a better idea.
- Cassandra: What are women's fashions like back home now?
- Chief O'Brien: Well, Keiko, my wife, she's been replicating longer dresses lately.
- Cassandra: Oh, no. That means I'll have to alter everything I own.
- Commander Sisko: [reading] "The common conceit that the human species has evolved over the last several centuries is ludicrous. What gains we have made have come at the cost of our own core identities. Man has lost touch with his true power."
- Chief O'Brien: Sounds like it took a crash landing for her to find her paradise.
- Chief O'Brien: Around my house, I'm known as the 'black thumb'... The only way I could get anything to grow was to marry a botanist.
- [Sisko reads in Alixus' journal about her views about mankind]
- Commander Sisko: ...She says we have become fat and lazy and dull.
- Chief O'Brien: My wife told me something along those lines just last week.
- Joseph: [talking about the transition from a technologically influenced society to a more traditional lifestyle] I was the last convert. But as time passed, I realized Alixus was right. She was helping us discover a new philosophy of life together. Because we needed one - to survive. And I'll tell you, every one of us is better for it. We're more committed to each other, we're truly a part of each other's lives. We've renewed a sense of community, that man left behind centuries ago.
- Alixus: No one follows me; they follow their own hearts.
- Commander Sisko: My heart tells me to try to get back to my ship.
- Alixus: I'm sure it does. But if we'd had that attitude for the last ten years, we wouldn't have been doing what was necessary to survive here - to find the plants, herbs, molds that cure disease. We've conquered seventeen illnesses, with the most powerful resource man has: his ingenuity.
- Commander Sisko: An interesting philosophy. And while we're debating it, a woman is dying.
- Alixus: We're doing everything we can for her.
- Commander Sisko: No, we're not.
- Commander Sisko: [after being stranded on a planet] I hope you find a few more of those talents you never knew you had...
- Alixus: That's the first core behavior I've seen from you since you arrived.
- Commander Sisko: 'Core behavior' - does that chapter come before or after sexual procurement?
- Alixus: Cassandra came to me; she was worried. She sensed that you weren't happy.
- Commander Sisko: She was right about that.
- Commander Sisko: You never had much use for technology, did you? It's interesting how you happened to crash on a planet that fit your philosophy of life so well.
- Alixus: I agree. In fact, I've started writing a book about our experiences. I've been wondering if in the ancient religions of man there aren't some new truths to be found, something, to explain how sometimes fate delivers us exactly where we need to be.
- Commander Sisko: [sarcastic] Perhaps one day, you'll even feel the hand of God on your shoulder.
- Lieutenant Jadzia Dax: A very talented Hopi I knew did things with a rope you wouldn't believe. It's an old West American artform.
- Alixus: Look at yourselves! Look at what you've become. What you've achieved, here, has redefined your potential: the potential of man. Just as I knew it would. You are the living proof.
- Joseph: Whatever Alixus may be guilty of, she did give us a community. I-I'm not sure if we'll leave the device on or off, now that we know it's there. And we'll have to decide if we want to establish contact with the outside world. But Alixus is right: we have found something here... that none of us is willing to give up.
- Chief O'Brien: [smugly,in his skivvies, standing above his now subdued attacker] Well, you finally got one of us out of our uniform.