- Captain James T. Kirk: You say you can communicate with it. Perhaps you can find out what we're doing here.
- Zefram Cochrane: I already know.
- Captain James T. Kirk: You wouldn't mind telling us?
- Zefram Cochrane: You won't like it.
- Captain James T. Kirk: I already don't like it.
- Captain James T. Kirk: Our species can only survive if we have obstacles to overcome. You take away all obstacles. Without them to strengthen us, we will weaken and die.
- Captain James T. Kirk: You wanna leave here?
- Zefram Cochrane: Believe me, Captain, immortality consists largely of boredom.
- Nancy Hedford: Loneliness. This is loneliness. Oh, what a bitter thing. Oh, Zefram, it's so sad. How do you bear it, this loneliness?
- Captain James T. Kirk: There's no doubt about it, the Companion is female.
- Zefram Cochrane: I don't understand.
- Dr. McCoy: You don't? A blind man could see it with a cane. You're not a pet. You're not a specimen kept in a cage. You're a lover.
- Zefram Cochrane: I could even offer you a hot bath.
- Nancy Hedford: [dripping with sarcasm] How perceptive of you to notice that I needed one.
- Mr. Spock: Your highly emotional reaction is most illogical. Your relationship with the Companion has for one hundred and fifty years been emotionally satisfying, eminently practical, and totally harmless. It may indeed have been quite beneficial.
- Zefram Cochrane: Is this what the future holds? Men who have no notion of decency or morality? Well maybe I'm 150 years out of style, but I'm not gonna be fodder for any inhuman monster.
- Captain James T. Kirk: You are the Companion. He is the man. You are two different things. You can't join. You can't... love. You may keep him here forever... but you will always be separate. Apart from him.
- The Companion: If... I were human, there can be... love?
- Nancy Hedford: Captain, what's happening? I demand to know.
- Captain James T. Kirk: You already know as much as we do, Miss Hedford.
- Captain James T. Kirk: How do you fight a thing like that?
- Dr. McCoy: Maybe you're a soldier so often that you forget you're also trained to be a diplomat. Why not try a carrot instead of a stick?
- Zefram Cochrane: I was eighty seven years old when I came here.
- Captain James T. Kirk: You say this Companion found you and rejuvenated you? What were you doing in space at the age of eighty seven?
- Zefram Cochrane: I was tired, Captain. I was gonna die, and I wanted to die in space. That's all.
- Mr. Spock: True, his body was never found.
- Zefram Cochrane: You're looking at it, Mister Spock.
- Mr. Spock: If so, you wear your age very well.
- Mr. Spock: This is a marvelous opportunity to add to our knowledge. Ask it about its nature, its history.
- Captain James T. Kirk: Spock, this isn't a classroom. I'm trying to get us out of here.
- Mr. Spock: A chance like this may never come again. It could tell us so much.
- Captain James T. Kirk: This isn't the time.
- Mr. Spock: [checking the crashed shuttlecraft for malfunctions] Unusual... unlikely... in fact, Captain, I would say quite impossible.
- Captain James T. Kirk: Nothing wrong, but nothing works.
- Mr. Spock: Precisely.
- Captain James T. Kirk: The Enterprise is waiting, Mr. Cochrane.
- Zefram Cochrane: I can't take her away from here. If I do, she'll die. If I leave her, she'll die of loneliness. I owe everything to her; I can't leave her. I love her. Is that surprising?
- Mr. Spock: Not coming from a human being. You are, after all, essentially irrational.
- Captain James T. Kirk: Think it over, Mr. Cochrane. There's a whole galaxy out there waiting to honor you.
- Zefram Cochrane: I have honors enough.
- Mr. Spock: But you will age, both of you. There will be no immortality; you'll both grow old here and finally die.
- Zefram Cochrane: That's been happening to men and women for a long time. I've got the feeling it's one of the pleasanter things about being human... as long as you grow old together.
- Captain James T. Kirk: Are you sure?
- Zefram Cochrane: There's plenty of water here, the climate's good for growing things, I might even try and plant a fig tree here. A man's entitled to that, isn't he? It isn't gratitude, captain, now that I see her, touch her, I know that I love her. We'll have a lot of years together, and they'll be happy ones.
- Captain James T. Kirk: All the best.
- Zefram Cochrane: Captain, don't tell them about me.
- Captain James T. Kirk: Not a word, Mr. Cochrane.
- Uhura: [on the bridge of the USS "Enterprise": the "Enterprise"'s shuttlecraft has gone missing, leaving Mr. Scott in command] What do you think it means, Mr. Scott?
- Scott: The shuttlecraft was on schedule until it was shy 5 hours of rendezvous. Then something happened.
- Uhura: Well, I'd feel a lot better if you were a little more definite.
- Scott: [looking a bit stumped] It didn't wreck, there was no debris, there's no trace of expelled internal atmosphere, no residual radioactivity... Ah, it's... something took over. Tractor beams, maybe. Something. They dragged it away on the heading we're now on.
- Uhura: If there are no further traces, how are we gonna' follow them?
- Scott: [pragmatically] We stay on this course. See what comes up.
- Uhura: [gives him a sly look, then teases him with a Scottish accent] It's a big galaxy, Mr. Scott.
- Scott: [gives her a look, slight pause] ... Aye.
- Dr. McCoy: [final lines] Jim, what about that war on Epsilon Canaris III?
- Captain James T. Kirk: Well, I'm sure the Federation can find another woman *somewhere* who'll stop that war...
- [Jim, McCoy and Spock depart]
- Nancy Hedford: Must you keep it so terribly hot in here?
- Zefram Cochrane: Well the temperature is a constant seventy-two degrees. Let me get you something cool to drink.