- Opening Title Card: The mind of the subject will desperately struggle to create memories where none exist.
- Robert Lutece: I told you they'd come.
- Rosalind Lutece: No, you didn't.
- Robert Lutece: Right. I was going to tell you they'd come.
- Rosalind Lutece: But you didn't.
- Robert Lutece: But I don't.
- Rosalind Lutece: You sure that's right?
- Robert Lutece: I was going to have told you they'd come?
- Rosalind Lutece: No.
- Robert Lutece: The subjunctive?
- Rosalind Lutece: That's not the subjunctive.
- Robert Lutece: I don't think the syntax has being invented yet.
- Rosalind Lutece: It would have had to have had been.
- Robert Lutece: Had to have... had... been? That can't be right.
- Elizabeth: What happens if someone finds us here?
- Booker DeWitt: We tell them we got lost looking for the bathroom.
- Elizabeth: And that works?
- Booker DeWitt: Not usually, no.
- Zachary Hale Comstock: One man goes into the waters of baptism, a different man comes out, born again. But who is that man who lies submerged? Perhaps that swimmer is both sinner and saint, until he is revealed unto the eyes of man.
- Daisy Fitzroy: When I first seen Columbia, that sky was the brightest, bluest sky that there ever was. Seemed like Heaven. Then your eyes adjusted to the light, and you see that sea of white faces looking hard back at you.
- Lady Comstock: Love the Prophet, cause he loves the sinner. Love the sinner, because he is you. Without the sinner, what need is there for a redeemer? Without sin, what grace has forgiveness?
- Girls: [Chanting] Songbird. Songbird, see him fly. / Drop the children from the sky. / When the young ones mis-be-have. / Es-corts chil-dren to their grave. / Ne-ver backtalk-never lie. / Or he'll drop you from the sky!
- Robert Lutece: One goes into an experiment knowing one could fail.
- Rosalind Lutece: But one does not undertake an experiment knowing one has failed.
- Zachary Hale Comstock: And the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great and he repented that he had made man on the earth. Rain, Forty-days and Fourty-nights of the stuff, and he left not a thing that walked alive. You see my friends, even god is entitled to a do-over, and what is Columbia if not another ark, for another time.
- Elizabeth: I just realized who those two are. They... well, at least she... invented the technology that allows the city to float.
- Booker DeWitt: Giant balloons?
- Elizabeth: Quantum particles, suspended in space-time at a fixed height.
- Booker DeWitt: So... Not giant balloons?
- Booker DeWitt: But what is she? Alive or dead?
- Robert Lutece: Why do you ask "what"?
- Rosalind Lutece: When the delicious question is "when"?
- Robert Lutece: The only difference between past and present...
- Rosalind Lutece: ...is semantics.
- Robert Lutece: Lives, lived, will live.
- Rosalind Lutece: Dies, died, will die.
- Robert Lutece: If we could perceive time as it truly was.
- Rosalind Lutece: What reason would grammar professors have to get out of bed?
- Elizabeth: Thousands of doors... opening all at once. My God! They are beautiful!
- Booker DeWitt: What? The stars?
- Elizabeth: Not stars. They're doors.
- Booker DeWitt: Doors to...
- Elizabeth: To everywhere. All that's left is the choosing.
- Robert Lutece: Dead is dead.
- Rosalind Lutece: I see... heads.
- Robert Lutece: And I see tails.
- Rosalind Lutece: It's all a matter of perspective.
- Zachary Hale Comstock: The seed of the prophet shall sit the throne, and drown in flame the mountains of man.
- Zachary Hale Comstock: And then the archangel showed a vision... a city lighter than air. I asked her "Why do you show this to me, archangel?" "I am not a strong man, I am not a righteous man, I am not a holy man." and she told me the most remarkable thing. "You're right, prophet, but if grace is within the grasp of one such as you, how can anyone else not see it within themselves?"
- Elizabeth: It always starts with a lighthouse.
- Booker DeWitt: I don't understand.
- Elizabeth: We don't need to. It'll happen all the same.
- Booker DeWitt: Why?
- Elizabeth: Because it does. Because it has. Because it will.
- Daisy Fitzroy: Days at Comstock House was simple, hard work sure, but simple. Wringing the linens, scrubbing the floors, Lady Comstock even had a kind word to say now and then. Almost enough to think I had a place in their world. God made foolish girls, so he could have something to play with.
- Rosalind Lutece: When I was girl, I dreamt of standing in a room, looking at a girl who was and was not myself, who stood looking at another girl who was and was not myself. My mother took this as a nightmare. I saw it as the beginning of a career in physics.
- Rosalind Lutece: Odd, isn't it?
- Robert Lutece: What's odd?
- Rosalind Lutece: The fact that we sometimes...
- Robert Lutece: ...finish each other's sentences?
- Rosalind Lutece: Exactly.
- Zachary Hale Comstock: And when the angel Columbia gave unto The Founders the tools to build the new Eden, they did so without hesitation. For Eighty-Five years, they prepared the way of the Lord. But when the great Apostate came, he brought War with him and the fields of Eden were soaked with the blood of brothers. The only Emancipation he had to offer... was death.
- Rocket Computer Voice: Make yourself ready pilgrim. The bindings are there as a safeguard.
- First Zealot: Sweet mother of Columbia. Why do we worship three symbols in your memory? We worship the sword, so we might avenge you. We worship the raven, so we may cover the city with eyes. We worship the coffin, because it symbolizes the weight of our failure.
- Booker DeWitt: She's given us a way to get past the Songbird. We're gonna find an airship, and we're gonna leave for Paris, Elizabeth! Remember you wanted to go to...!
- Elizabeth: We are not leaving. We are going to find Comstock.
- Booker DeWitt: Why?
- Elizabeth: You saw what he turns me into. I will not allow that.
- Booker DeWitt: And so, what? You're going to kill him?
- Elizabeth: Is this where you start moralizing, Booker? You forget: I know you.
- Booker DeWitt: [dangerously] I'm not going to let you kill him.
- Elizabeth: [standing defiantly before Booker and summoning a great storm in the room] Really, Booker? What are you going to do to stop me?
- Booker DeWitt: Not a damn thing. 'Cause I'm gonna do it for you.
- [the storm immediately stops]
- Constance Fields: Madame Lutece, I have read all of your books on the sciences. Mamma says it's not a fit occupation for a lady, but I think she's jealous of our cleverness. Is it true that you're the only one allowed to visit the girl in the tower? If the Lamb is lonely too, I would very much like to meet her as we have so much in common. Warmest regards, Constance
- Zachary Hale Comstock: What exactly was the great emancipator, emancipating the negro from? From his daily bread, from the nobility of honest days work, from wealthy patrons who sponsered them from cradle to grave. Front clothing and shelter and what have they done?, Why go to Finkton and you shall find out. No man is born free, except the white man, and it is our burden to care for the rest of creation.
- Zachary Hale Comstock: When a soul is born again, what happens to the one left behind in the baptismal water? Is he simply... gone? Or does he exist in some other world, alive, with sin intact?
- Preston E. Downes: Comstock came by the wagon, and he was just transfixed by my trophy scalps, asked about the white ones there. I said "Well, sir, if your quarry sits in the jungle and beds down with the local colored, why split hairs?" Not a chuckle out of him. Either he ain't seen a man go native, or maybe too many. Now he's got me hunting down this Daisy Fitzroy. Hope he's not wanting me to "Stuff and Mount" her. Ha Ha.
- Elizabeth: Our minds are born festering with sin. Some are so blighted they will never find redemption. The mind must be pulled up from the roots! My children... are without blame, without fault, and without choice. For what is the value of will, when the spirit is found wanting?
- Rosalind Lutece: What makes the girl different? I suspect it has less to do with what she is, and rather more with what she is not. A small part of her remains from where she came. It would seem the universe does not like its peas mixed with its porridge.
- Jeremiah Fink: The truth is, I don't have a lot of time for all that "prophecy" nonsense. I tell you, belief is... is just a commodity.
- Elizabeth: What I've done... cannot be undone. I cannot stop... what I have put in motion. But perhaps... I can keep it from ever starting. He was my first hope, and now... he is my last.
- Rosalind Lutece: Where he sees an empty page, I see "King Lear". But he is my brother, so I shall play my part, knowing it shall all end in tears.
- Graffiti: The Founders will bleed!
- Lady Comstock: To those who loved me, I was the most... generous of souls. There was no pain I would deny them. No betrayal I would not gladly give. And when I had scorched the hearts of all who loved me, the Prophet said: "There is nothing you can do for which I will not forgive you. For God has granted me sight, and through His eyes, even you are loved."