- B'Elanna Torres: Harry, have you ever inspired anybody?
- Harry Kim: That's kind of a strange question.
- B'Elanna Torres: It's been a strange couple of weeks.
- [Kelis has reprimanded Jero for crying while playing the part of Tuvok]
- Kelis the Poet: The land of Vulcan has no laughter and it has no tears. It is a very quiet place, calm, just like Tuvok.
- Jero: I can't believe that!
- Kelis the Poet: You don't have to. Just don't cry!
- Jero: The audience won't believe it either. They'll either think Tuvok is an unfeeling monster or that I am a bad performer.
- Kelis the Poet: They'll realize that beneath your unfeeling exterior is a heart that's breaking, silently, and in more pain than any of us can possibly understand, because that's what it is to be Vulcan!
- Kelis the Poet: Tell me about Earth.
- B'Elanna Torres: I have to sing for my supper, huh?
- Kelis the Poet: We all do - in one way or another.
- Kelis the Poet: Stay and help me. I still need an ending.
- B'Elanna Torres: You'll figure something out.
- Kelis the Poet: "B'Elanna Torres dies tragically..."
- B'Elanna Torres: You wouldn't dare.
- Kelis the Poet: We have to support each other, we poets.
- B'Elanna Torres: I'm an engineer. I fix things.
- Kelis the Poet: From the looks of it, you're not doing so well.
- B'Elanna Torres: Are you a poet or a critic?
- Kelis the Poet: [about the types of artifice in theater] Mistaken identity - a character who is someone else. Discovery - the moment when that identity is revealed. Reversal - a situation that turns from good to bad in a blink of an eye.
- Chorus #1: [entering] Find the truth of your story, and you won't need all those tricks.
- Chorus #1: [to Torres] I don't know how things are done across the Eastern Sea, but here, poets have become lazy. They rely on manipulation to move their audience. It wasn't always that way.
- [in Kelis's play, Captain Janeway has asked Seven of Nine to look out for B'Elanna Torres]
- Lanya: [as Seven of Nine; to the audience] I, Seven of Nine, have no intention of finding B'Elanna Torres. I, Seven of Nine, am Queen of the Borg. Surprised? No one will be more surprised than Janeway, when I take my revenge on Voyager. Say nothing - or you, too, will be assimilated.
- Lanya: [to "Janeway", submissively] Captain, I will comply.
- [exits]
- Tanis: [as Janeway; to the audience] My enemies are everywhere, without and within. Seven of Nine is Queen of the Borg. Surprised? So was I. Tell her nothing, or I will lose my advantage - and my ship as well.
- [in the play, Janeway holds Seven of Nine at spearpoint]
- Lanya: [as Seven of Nine] My death is irrelevant. You'll never see the gleaming cities of Earth. You will be assimilated!
- Tanis: [as Janeway] And if I let you live?
- Lanya: Also irrelevant.
- Tanis: You don't believe that.
- [she throws her spear aside]
- Tanis: The battle is over. Go home.
- Lanya: How foolish of you to let me go, free to attack you again.
- Tanis: And again, and again, until all your drones and all my crew are destroyed, until everything we value is gone and there is nothing left... but our hatred.
- [last lines]
- [epilog of Kelis's play]
- Kelis the Poet: These stories will continue for as long as we have the breath to tell them, and as long as our patrons remain wise and compassionate. And Voyager will continue on her journey to the gleaming cities of Earth, where peace reigns and hatred has no home.
- B'Elanna Torres: You made a play out of our logs?
- Kelis the Poet: "The Away Mission of B'Elanna Torres." My patron was impressed.
- B'Elanna Torres: He has great taste.
- Kelis the Poet: Anger is like fire. Love can be the rain that extinguishes it. My patron is filled with hatred for his rival, so our play should be filled with love.
- B'Elanna Torres: You can't change somebody's way of life with a few lines of dialogue.
- Kelis the Poet: Yes, you can! It's been done before. Do you know what this place used to be, a hundred years ago? A temple, and this was the altar stone. Every year, a victim would be sacrificed on it in honor of winter; and then, one year - nobody remembers exactly when or why - a play took the place of the ritual, and no one had to die here again. Why can't my play take the place of a war?
- B'Elanna Torres: Well, you're gonna have to do a lot better than Harry Kim kissing the Delaney sisters.
- B'Elanna Torres: [noticing her unnatural wounds] You're trying to kill me.
- Kelis the Poet: I'm releasing the heat from your veins.
- B'Elanna Torres: What are you talking about?
- Kelis the Poet: You've been in a fever since I found you. Bleeding is the best way to treat it.
- Neelix: Maybe I've miscounted, but... I don't think you've slept in... ten days?
- Tuvok: Your count is accurate.
- Neelix: Don't you think you should go to bed?
- Tuvok: [sigh] As a Vulcan, I can function without sleep for more than two weeks.
- Neelix: But there's a point of diminishing returns when your mind starts to play tricks on you.
- Tuvok: My mind, Mr. Neelix, does not play tricks.
- Kelis the Poet: Today, audiences want excitement... passion! Let me show you what I've done with Captain Janeway and Commander Chakotay.
- Kelis the Poet: [to his troupe] Let's make a good impression on our visitor.
- [Tanis and Jero run through a scene]
- Tanis: [as Janeway] Chakotay, why must I be denied what every other female officer on this ship can have?
- Kelis the Poet: [as Chakotay] Captain?
- Tanis: The privilege of your touch.
- [they kiss; B'Elanna, aghast, doesn't know what to say]