- Jake Sisko: The battle of Ajilon Prime will probably be remembered as a pointless skirmish. But I'll always remember it as something more - as the place I learned that the line between courage and cowardice is a lot thinner than most people believe.
- [last lines]
- Captain Sisko: Anyone who's been in battle would recognize himself in this. Most of us wouldn't care to admit it. It takes courage to look inside yourself, and even more courage to write it for other people to see. I'm proud of you, son.
- Jake Sisko: Some people say that you don't know what you're really made of until you've been in battle.
- Doctor Bashir: Well, let me tell you, Jake. There are many situations in life which test a person's character. Thankfully, most of them don't involve death and destruction.
- [Quark has tried to replicate a decaffeinated variety of raktajino, yet with little success]
- Quark: The removal of caffeine from beverages has plagued bartenders and restaurateurs for centuries. You can't expect me to solve it overnight.
- Chief O'Brien: I'm not paying for that!
- Odo: So much for 'Quarktajino'.
- [after saving everyone in the hospital from the invading Klingons by chance, Bashir calls Jake a hero]
- Jake Sisko: More than anything, I wanted to believe what he was saying. But the truth is, I was just as scared in the hospital as I'd been when we went for the generator. So scared, that all I could think about was doing whatever it took to stay alive. Once that meant running away, and once it meant picking up a phaser.
- Jake Sisko: Who cares about anomalies? People want stories about things they can relate to - life and death, good and evil. An outbreak of Cartalian fever would be just the thing. The brave doctor battles the deadly virus! Listen to me, I'm actually rooting for a plague.
- Odo: Solid! I wonder why my people use that term. Humanoid bodies are so fragile.
- Captain Sisko: Yes, they are... And there are a lot of ways you can get hurt.
- Odo: I never realized how stressful it is to be a parent. I have to say, I don't think it's for me.
- Captain Sisko: That's your choice. But you don't know what you're missing.
- Captain Sisko: It seems... just yesterday, he was five years old... clinging to me, because he'd just scraped his knee. And I was the only one in the world who could make it better. I remember sometimes getting up in the middle of the night and slipping into his room, just to make sure he was all right. And I'd sit there and watch him sleep. And I'd think to myself... that no matter what, I wasn't going to let anything bad happen to this child. And now he's a sector away in a warzone, and there is nothing I can do to protect him.
- Jake Sisko: I've been on the station when it was under attack plenty of times. But somehow the danger never seemed as real as it does here. Maybe it's because I spent all day seeing first hand what the Klingons are capable of. Or maybe it's because for the first time in my life my father's not here to protect me.
- Jake Sisko: [writing] Triage, the sorting of the wounded, forces decisions that - I gotta get a grip. Focus! - decisions that test what it means to be a doctor...
- Ensign: The Klingons had us pinned down. We were done for, we all knew it. Hendriks and Pajal, they got scared, they ran. They ran! Then Sully got hit in the leg... and the medics pulled him off the line. And all I could think was... I wish I were him. And I took my phaser...
- [he starts to sob]
- Ensign: Oh God! What did I do to myself? What did I do?
- Jake Sisko: I keep turning it over in my head. The shelling. Losing sight of Bashir. Running. And I keep trying to make sense of it all - to justify what I did. But when it comes down to it there's only one explanation: I'm a coward!
- Jake Sisko: I couldn't stand hearing him apologize to me like that - not after what I'd done to him.
- [Jadzia tells Ben Sisko about a serious illness one of her - Audrid Dax's - daughters had to go through once]
- Captain Sisko: So, how did it turn out with Neema?
- Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax: She pulled through.
- Captain Sisko: Phew! I was hoping you were going to say that. Because if this story had an unhappy ending I would have never forgiven you.
- Ensign: It's funny - one minute your life's moving along, just like you always thought it would. And the next you do somethin'... that changes everything - that makes you realize you're not who you thought you were. At the Academy, I did really well in the battle simulations; I never had any problems. But when you're out there, and the live shells are detonating all around you, it's a whole different thing.
- Jake Sisko: All you can think about is getting away from the explosions...
- Jake Sisko: I wonder if Kirby knew that the whole time we were talking, all I could think about was how close the Klingons were. He didn't seem that worried. No one else seems to be losing sleep over it. So why is it the only thing I can think about?
- Ensign: I don't deserve to be in Starfleet. Therapy won't change what I did. Nothing will. I just wish I'd aimed that... phaser a little higher.