- [first lines]
- Takeshi Kovacs: [narrating] The danger of living too many times: you forget to fear death. We dismiss the Grim Reaper as a quaint metaphor. But fearing death it's good for you.
- [defibrillators charging, surging]
- Quellcrist Falconer: I wanted to be an explorer. See other worlds with my own eyes, but one life wasn't enough time to see the stars, so I found a way to transfer the Human consciousness between bodies and in that creation, soar. Suddenly anyone could travel the distances beyond imagination faster than light and no one would ever be limited by one lifetime again.
- Reileen Kawahara: I went back to Harlan's World. You should see it. I don't know what I thought I'd find. But nothing I remembered survived. It's all gone. That's the hardest thing to get used to. Nothing survives. Nothing but us.
- Quellcrist Falconer: This sleeve is a tool. It does not control me. I control it. This is the weakness of weapons. They are tools to kill and destroy. They are not what gives you power. You are the weapon. You are the Killer and Destroyer
- Takeshi Kovacs: [narrating] Death isn't only about the destruction of the body. Sometimes, just like that, you extinguish one self and another is born. But every birth is violent and there's no death without pain.