Part of what made Fireflythe best show to ever get cancelled by the Faux Network was its many, many awesome lines. Depending on the tone of things, they could cheeky, witty, smart-assed, or just downright hilarious. And after giving the show a review, I thought I might dredge up some of the better ones that I happen to recall (or can find with the help of Wiki!) Enjoy!
Pilot/Serenity:
The introductory episode, where we get to meet the extended crew, learn about their various plights, and set up the rest of the show. Among the more important aspects were the fencing of stolen goods, the introduction of Simon and River, , and the revelation that the Alliance is onto the fact that they have fugitives aboard.
Wash [as Stegosaurus]: Yes… yes. This is a fertile land, and we will thrive. We will rule over all this land, and we will call it… This Land.
Wash [as Allosaurus]: I think we should call it… your grave!
Wash [as Stegosaurus]: Ah! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!
Wash [as Allosaurus]: Ha ha ha! Mine is an evil laugh! Now DIE!
Zoe: Sir, we don’t want to deal with Patience again.
Mal: Why not?
Zoe: She shot you.
Mal: Well, yeah, she did a bit.
Mal: You will keep a civil tongue in that mouth or I will sew it shut. Is there an understanding between us?
Jayne: You don’t pay me to talk pretty. Just because Kaylee gets lubed up over some big-city dandy-
Mal: Walk away from this table, right now.
Simon: What do you pay him for?
Mal: What?
Simon: I was curious… what is his job on this ship?
Mal: … Public relations.
Mal: I got to know how close the Alliance is, exactly how much you told them ‘fore Wash scrambled your call. So I’ve given Jayne here the job of finding out.
Jayne: [draws a huge knife] He was non-specific as to how.
Jayne: Testing, testing. Captain, can you hear me?
Mal: I’m standing right here.
Jayne: You’re coming through good and loud.
Mal: ‘Cause I’m standing right here.
Mal: But he did try to get you to turn on me?
Jayne: Yeah.
Mal: So, why didn’t you?
Jayne: Money wasn’t good enough.
Mal: What happens when it is?
Jayne: Well, that’ll be an interesting day.
The Train Job:
Mal and the crew agree to take on a heist job in order to turn around their fortunes. However, things get complicated when they realize that the loot is medicine which the locals sorely need.
Lund: You know, your coat is kinda a brownish color…
Mal: It was on sale.
Lund: You didn’t toast. You know, I’m thinkin’ you one of ‘em In’e’pen’ents.
Mal: And I’m thinkin’ you weren’t burdened with an overabundance of schooling. So why don’t we just ignore each other until we go away?
Lund: The In’e’pen’ents were a bunch of cowardly, inbred piss-pots. Should’ve been killed off of every world spinnin’.
Mal: Say that to my face.
Lund: I said you’re a coward and a piss-pot. Now what are you gonna do about it?
Mal: Nothing. I just wanted you to face me so she could get behind you.
Inara: What did I say to you about barging into my shuttle?
Mal: That it was manly and impulsive?
Inara: Yes, precisely. Only the exact phrase I used was, “Don’t.”
Jayne: You know what the chain of command is? It’s the chain I go get and beat you with ’til you understand who’s in ruttin’ command here! Now we’re finishing this deal, and then maybe, maybe we’ll come back for those morons… got themselves caught… and you can’t change that by getting all… bendy.
Wash: All what?
Jayne: You got the light… from the console to keep you… lifting you up… they shine like… little angels… [falls flat on the floor.]
Wash: Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?
Simon: I told him to sit down.
Sheriff Bourne: You were truthful back in town. These are tough times. A man can get a job, he might not look too close at what that job is. But a man learns all the details of a situation like ours… well… then he has a choice.
Mal: I don’t believe he does.
Mal: Now this is all the money Niska gave us in advance. You give it back to him, tell him the job didn’t work out. We’re not thieves… well, we are thieves, but the point is we’re not taking what’s his. We’ll stay out of his way as best we can from here on in. You’ll explain that’s best for everyone, okay?
Crow: Keep the money. Use it to buy a funeral. It doesn’t matter where you go, or how far you fly, I will hunt you down, and the last thing you see will be my blade.
Mal: Darn. [kicks Crow into Serenity’s engine intake. Cut to another henchman being placed before Mal]
Mal: Now this is all the money Niska gave us in advance—
Henchman: Oh, I get it! I’m good. Best thing for everybody. I’m right there with you.
Bushwhacked:
The crew of the Firelfy come upon a derelict ship, which turns out to be carrying a survivor of a Reaver attack. After being pulled aboard by an Alliance cruiser, the passenger escapes from their medbay and begins wreaking havoc.
Zoe: Proximity alert. Must be coming up on something.
Wash: Oh my god. What can it be? We’re all doomed! Who’s flying this thing!? Oh right, that would be me. Back to work.
Simon: Oh yes, he’s a real beast. [looks at Jayne] It’s a wonder you’re still alive.
Jayne: Looked bigger when I couldn’t see him.
Alliance Commander: You fought with Captain Reynolds in the war?
Zoe: Fought with a lot of people in the war.
Alliance Commander: And your husband?
Zoe: Fight with him sometimes, too.
Mal: That poor bastard you took off my ship. He looked right into the face of it—was made to stare.
Harken: “It”?
Mal: That darkness. Kind of darkness you can’t even imagine. Blacker than the space it moves through.
Harken: Very poetic.
Mal: They made him watch. He probably tried to turn away, and they wouldn’t let him. You call him a survivor? He’s not. A man comes up against that kind of will, the only way to deal with it, I suspect, is to become it.
Shindig:
A formal ball takes place and Mal, Inara are both in attendance as part of a job. However, Mal bites off more than he can chew when he slugs a patron and is challenged to a sword fight.
(Mal shows Inara the money he stole from the slaver)
Inara: Mal!
Mal: Oh, terrible shame. ‘Course, they won’t discover it till they go order their next round of drinks.
Slaver: Wei.
Mal: Good drinker, that one.
Zoe: Planet’s coming up a mite fast.
Wash: That’s just ’cause— I’m going down too quick. Likely crash and kill us all.
Mal: Well, that happens, let me know.
Badger: Course you couldn’t buy an invite with a diamond the size of a testicle. I’ve got my hands on a couple. [Mal and Jayne grin] Of invites!
Atherton: You belong here, Inara, not on that flying piece of go-se. You see that, don’t you?
Inara: Atherton, language.
Atherton: What? “Piece of go-se”? But it is a piece of go-se.
Major Domo: Miss Kaywinnet Lee Frye and escort.
Inara: Kaylee? [Kaylee enters with Mal] Oh, go-se.
[Mal is challenged to a duel]
Mal: Well why wait? Where’s that guard? He collected a whole mess of pistols.
Nobleman: If you require it, any gentleman here can give you use of a sword.
Mal: Use of a s-what?
Mal: Now, you taking on this job – being my second – does this mean we’re in business?
Sir Warwick Harrow: It means you’re in mortal danger. But you mussed up Atherton’s face, and that has endeared you to me somewhat.
Sir Warwick: You have to finish it, lad. [Mal doesn’t move] You have to finish it. For a man to lay beaten, yet breathing? It makes him a coward.
Inara: It’s humiliation.
Mal: It would be humiliating, having to lie there while the better man refuses to spill your blood. Mercy is the mark of a great man. [lightly stabs Atherton] Guess I’m just a good man. [Stabs again] Well, I’m all right.
Safe:
During a routine cargo haul, Book is wounded in a firefight. Things are further complicated as River and Simon (the ship’s surgeon) are kidnapped by some local villagers.
Mal: So, she’s added cussing and hurling about of things to her repertoire. She really is a prodigy.
Simon: It’s just a bad day.
Mal: No, a bad day is when someone’s yellin’ spooks the cattle. Understand? You ever see cattle stampede when they got no place to run? It’s kind of like a…a meat grinder. And it’ll lose us half the herd.
Simon: She hasn’t gone anywhere near the cattle.
Mal: No, but in case you hadn’t noticed, her voice kinda carries. We’re two miles above ground and they can probably hear her down there. Soon as we unload, she can holler until our ears bleed.” (to River) “Although I would take it as a kindness if she didn’t.
River: The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
Mal: See, morbid and creepifying, I got no problem with, long as she does it quiet-like.
Zoe: You sanguine about the kind of reception we’re apt to receive on an Alliance ship, Cap’n?
Mal: Absolutely. What’s ‘sanguine’ mean?
Zoe: ‘Sanguine’. Hopeful. Plus — point of interest — it also means ‘bloody’.
Mal: Well, that pretty much covers all the options, don’t it?
Jayne: [mock reading Simon’s journal] “Dear Diary…today I was pompous and my sister was crazy.” [flips page] “Today, we were kidnapped by hill folk never to be seen again. It was the best day ever.”
Mal: Y’all see the man hanging out of the spaceship with the really big gun? Now I’m not saying you weren’t easy to find but it was kinda out of our way, and he didn’t want to come in the first place. Man’s lookin’ to kill some folk. So really, it’s his will y’all should worry about thwarting.
Simon: So, finally a decent wound on this ship, and I miss out. I’m sorry.
Mal: Well, you were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.
Our Mrs. Reynolds:
After foiling some bandits on a remote colony, Mal is compensated with a rare gift… a new wife! However, she proves to be more than what she appears to be and betrays him and the crew to some salvagers, leaving Mal and the crew scurrying to save the ship.
Bandit: You gonna give us what’s due us. And every damn thing else on that boat. And I think maybe you gonna give me a little one-on-one time with the missus.
Jayne: Oh, I think you might wanna reconsider that last part. See, I married me a powerful ugly creature.
Mal: How can you say that? How can you shame me in front of new people?
Jayne: If I could make you prettier I would!
Mal: You are not the man I met a year ago!
Inara: So… explain to me again why Zoe wasn’t in the dress?
Mal: Tactics, woman. Needed her in the back. Besides, them soft cotton dresses feel kinda nice. There’s a whole… airflow.
Inara: And you’d know that because…?
Mal: You can’t open the book of my life and jump in the middle. Like woman, I am a mystery.
Wash: Is there any more where that came from?
Saffron: I didn’t think to make enough for your friends… But everything’s laid out if you’d like to cook for your husband.
Wash: Z— heh-heh… Isn’t she quaint? I’m just not hungry.
Book: If you take sexual advantage of her, you’re going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater.
Mal: Are you offering me a trade?
Jayne: A trade!? Hell, it’s theft! This is the best damn gun made by man. It has extreme sentimental value. It’s miles more worthy than what you got.
Mal: What I got? She has a name.
Jayne: So does this! I call it Vera.
Mal: Well, my days of taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle.
Saffron: But we’ve been wed. Aren’t… we to become one flesh?
Mal: Well, no, uh… we’re still two fleshes here, and… I think… that your flesh oughta… sleep somewhere else.
Saffron: I’m sorry. When we talked, I’d hoped, but I—
Mal: Whoa, hey! Flesh. Um… Saffron… i-it… it ain’t a question of pleasing me. It’s more a question of what’s…um… of what’s morally right.
Saffron: I do know my Bible, sir. [Recites a fictional bible verse] “On the night of their betrothal, the wife shall open to the man as the furrow to the plow, and he shall work in her, in and again, till she bring him to his fall, and rest him then upon the sweat of her breast.”
Mal: Whoa. Good Bible.
Saffron: Do you know the myth of Earth-That-Was?
Wash: Not so much.
Saffron: That when she was born, she had no sky, and was open, inviting. And the stars would rush into her, through the skin of her…
Wash: Huh.
Saffron: …making the oceans boil with sensation. And when she could endure no more ecstasy, she puffed up her cheeks and blew out the sky.
Wash: Whoa. Good myth.
Saffron: Everybody plays each other. That’s all anybody ever does. We play parts.
Mal: You’ve got all kinds o’ learnin’ and you made me look the fool without even trying, yet here I am, with a gun to your head. That’s ’cause I got people with me. People who trust each other, who do for each other, and ain’t always lookin’ for the advantage.
Saffron: Promise me you’re gonna kill me soon.
Mal: So here’s where I’m fuzzy. You got by that girl, came and found me, and somehow you happen to just trip and fall.
Inara: What do you mean?
Mal: Come on, Inara. How’s about we don’t play. You didn’t just trip, did you?
Inara: No.
Mal: Well, isn’t that something… I knew you let her kiss you.
As this is going long, I shall be breaking it down into another two posts. That ought to be enough to cover the remaining episodes and the movie… maybe. No promises though, lot of good lines in this show