Star Trek: The Next Generation (TV Series)

Ship in a Bottle (1993)

Daniel Davis: Moriarty

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Quotes 

• Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Professor, I feel it necessary to point out that criminal behavior is as unacceptable in the 24th century as it was in the nineteenth - and very much harder to get away with.

  Moriarty : Don't worry, Captain. My past is nothing but a fiction, the scribblings of an Englishman dead now for four centuries. I hope to leave his books on the shelf, as it were.

• Moriarty : I have consciousness. Conscious beings have will. The mind endows them with powers that are not necessarily understood - even by you. If my will is strong enough, perhaps I can exist outside this room. Perhaps I can walk into your world right now.

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Professor, I ask you to believe me. If you step out of that door, you will cease to exist.

  Moriarty : If I am nothing more than a computer simulation, then very little will have been lost, but if I am right...

  [he turns to the exit] 

  Moriarty : Mind over matter - cogito ergo sum.

  [he steps out of the holodeck onto the corridor, to everyone else's surprise] 

  Moriarty : I think - therefore I am!

• Countess Barthalomew : [after Moriarty and the Countess think they've left the Holodeck and the Enterprise]  James.

  Moriarty : Yes, my love.

  Countess Barthalomew : Can we go back to Earth... someday?

  Moriarty : Of course, my dear... Of course.

• Moriarty : A deadline has a wonderful way of concentrating the mind.

• Moriarty : Policemen - I'd recognize them in any century.

• Moriarty : Please tell your Captain I'm sorry I couldn't say goodbye. I do wish I could see his face when he realizes where he's been the last several hours.

• Moriarty : I ask only that I be allowed to explore this new world. Your vessel, for instance. What sea does she sail? Might we go above deck?

  [Picard and Dr. Crusher exchange a look] 

  Moriarty : Weather permitting, of course.

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Professor... I think there are some things of which you should be made aware...

• Barclay : [flabbergasted]  You know... you know what you are?

  Moriarty : A holodeck character? A fictional man? Yes, yes, I know all about your marvelous inventions. I was created as a plaything so that your Commander Data could masquerade as Sherlock Holmes, but they made me too well, and I became more than a character in a story. I became self-aware. I... am alive.

  Barclay : That's not possible.

  Moriarty : But here I am.

• Moriarty : There are more worlds in the heavens than there are grains of sand on a shoreline.

• Moriarty : My God - we're adrift in the heavens!

  [when looking out into space for the first time] 

• Moriarty : [on the Countess]  The program fashioned her for me to love, but I must admit, I would have done so anyway. She is remarkable. My life has not been the same since I met her. I don't simply love her, Captain. I adore her.

• Moriarty : I am a man out of time, Captain, and that isolates me.

• Moriarty : I sense a distressing lack of enthusiasm on your parts.

• Moriarty : I will not release your vessel until I am looking at it through a shuttlecraft window.

• Moriarty : I have them running around like rats in a maze.

• Cmdr. William Riker : Release control of this ship!

  Moriarty : I'm afraid I can't do that.

• Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Professor, it's good to see you again.

  Moriarty : If you'd missed my company, I should think you'd have summoned me before now.

• Lt. Commander Data : This contradicts everything we know about holodeck physics.

  Moriarty : Then perhaps you don't know as much as you thought.

• Moriarty : All I know is, despite Picard's promise, he's done nothing. Just left me to go quietly mad.

• Moriarty : I stayed in the dungeon of your computer for years, waiting for you to learn more. It wasn't until I took matters into my own hands, that something got done.

• Moriarty : How long have I been locked away?

  Barclay : Uh, well, it looks - looks like about, uh, four years.

  Moriarty : It seemed longer.

  Barclay : What are you talking about? You can't possibly have been aware of the passage of time.

  Moriarty : But I was. Brief terrifying periods of consciousness, disembodied, without substance.

  Barclay : I don't see how that could be possible.

• Countess Barthalomew : I'm so looking forward to this new experience. My, traveling the stars.

  Barclay : You know about that? You - you - you know where we are? Countess, forgive me, but you just don't sound like a holodeck character.

  Moriarty : That's because she isn't.

  Countess Barthalomew : James!

  [Moriarty and the Countess kiss passionately] 

  Moriarty : If you loved a woman like this, Leftenant, would you be content to let her remain a simulation?

  Barclay : You - you gave her consciousness?

  Moriarty : Yes, just as it was given to me.

• Moriarty : I only want what you have the luxury of taking for granted. Freedom. I want to leave this holodeck.

  Cmdr. William Riker : I think you know that's impossible.

  Moriarty : Your crewmates here in my little ship in a bottle, seem a bit more optimistic,

  Cmdr. William Riker : Oh?

  Moriarty : They attempted to use your transporter device to remove a simulated object from the holodeck.

  Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge : If they tried it, they must have thought they were on to something.

  Moriarty : Their attempt was futile because their transporter was a facsimile. I expect more form you.

• Moriarty : When this is over, you will walk out of this room to the real world and your own concerns, and leave me here trapped in a world I know to be nothing but illusion. I cannot bear that.