Aside from its super fun and suspenseful storylines, the Doctor Who scripts themselves are full of chestnuts that are wise, heartfelt and hilarious. Here are 60 of the best Doctor Who quotes to inspire a binge-watch to get all caught up on the long-running British series.
Doctor Who Quotes
“The universe is big. It’s vast and complicated and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles.” “I’m the doctor, and I save people.” “Good men don’t need rules.” “Love is not an emotion. It’s a promise.” “There are things waiting in the darkness. Creatures of metal, fire, and blood. But he’s out there, burning through time, facing a thousand dangers across the stars, and never giving up. He looks like a man, but he’s a legend and his name is The Doctor. He’ll come back to save us and, this time, I’m going to be ready. Then, just like that…we’ll be gone.” “You know when grown-ups tell you everything’s going to be fine, but you really think they’re lying to make you feel better? Everything’s going to be fine.” “First thing’s first, but not necessarily in that order.” “Never knowingly be serious. Rule 27.” “As we learn about each other, so we learn about ourselves.” “Great men are forged in fire. It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame.” “I’m about to do something very clever and a tiny bit against the rules of the universe. It’s important that I’m properly dressed.” “From the day they arrive on the planet, and blinking step into the sun, there’s more to see than can ever be seen, more to—wait, that’s The Lion King.” “The way I see it every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice-versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant.” “For some people, small, beautiful events are what life is all about.” “Arrogance can trip you up.” The man who sent me out there, the man who told me to walk the Earth. His name is The Doctor. He has saved your lives so many times and you never even knew he was there. He never stops. He never stays. He never asks to be thanked. But I’ve seen him, I know him, I love him and I know what he can do.” “Do what I do: Hold tight and pretend it’s a plan!” “People like us, we go on too long. We forget what matters. The last thing we need is each other. We need the mayflies. You see the mayflies, they know more than we do. They know how beautiful and precious life is because it’s fleeting.” “You’ll find that it’s a very small universe when I’m angry with you.” “You know that in 900 years in time and space, I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important before.” “See the bowtie? I wear it and I don’t care. That’s why it’s cool.” “Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up, never give in.” “You’re not gonna make the world any better by shouting at it!” ”Rest is for the weary, sleep is for the dead.” “You want weapons? We’re in a library! Books! Best weapons in the world!” “Though the man above might say hello, expect no love from the beast below.” “There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes.” “What’s the point in two hearts if you can’t be a bit forgiving now and then?” “Never be certain of anything. It’s a sign of weakness.” “We all change, when you think about it. We’re all different people all through our lives. And that’s OK, that’s good, you gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be.” “Courage isn’t just a matter of not being frightened, you know. It’s being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway.” “I’m not running away from things, I am running to them. Before they flare and fade forever.” “There’s a lot of things you need to get across this universe. Warp drive, wormhole refractors. You know the thing you need most of all? You need a hand to hold.” “I do think there’s always a way to put things right. If I didn’t believe that I wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning, I wouldn’t eat breakfast; I wouldn’t leave the TARDIS ever. I would never have left home. There is always something we can do.” “Demons run when a good man goes to war / Night will fall and drown the sun / When a good man goes to war / Friendship dies and true love lies / Night will fall and the dark will rise / When a good man goes to war / Demons run, but count the cost / The battle’s won, but the child is lost.” “I’d forgotten not all victories are about saving the universe.” “Why do humans never do as they’re told? Someone should replace you all with robots. No, on second thought, they shouldn’t, bad idea.” “You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: they don’t alter their views to fit the facts; they alter the facts to fit their views.” “The secret is not just to be stunning, which I find comes rather easily, to be honest. The tricky thing is getting exactly the right level of stun for the occasion.” “When I was your age—about, o]oh, a thousand years ago—I loved a good bedtime story. The Three Little Sontarans. The Emperor Dalek’s New Clothes. Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday. All the classics.” “I’m going to tell you a story about a man who travels, and everywhere he goes, he makes everyone’s lives better. I’m not that man. That man doesn’t exist. I wish he did. I’d believe in him.” “I am and always will be the optimist, the hoper of far-flung hopes and the dreamer of improbable dreams.” “One day I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.” “Never run when you’re scared.” “I don’t know. I can’t tell the future! I just work there.” “You know when sometimes you meet someone so beautiful, and then you actually talk to them, and five minutes later they’re dull as a brick? But then there’s other people, and you meet them and you think ‘Not bad, they’re OK,’ and then you get to know them, and their face sort of becomes them, like their personality’s written all over it, and they just they turn into something so beautiful.” “My back’s playing up. It simply refuses to carry the weight of an entirely pointless stratum of society who contribute nothing of worth to the world and crush the hopes and dreams of working people.” “So is this how it works, Doctor? You never interfere with the affairs of other peoples or planets, unless there are children crying?” “Everything ends, and it’s always sad, but everything begins again, too. And that’s always happy. Be happy.” “Some people live more in twenty years than others do in eighty. It’s not the time that matters, it’s the person.” ”Everything’s got to end sometime. Otherwise, nothing would ever get started.” “It is difficult to know what will be a waste of time until after the time has been wasted, by which time it is too late. So predicting what will be a waste of time is something of a waste of time. Unless it gives you pleasure, of course when it probably doesn’t count as a waste of time.” “There’s always something to look at if you open your eyes!” “I looked into your eyes and I saw my worst fears. Weariness. Emptiness.” “There’s something that doesn’t make sense. Let’s go and poke it with a stick.” “We’re all capable of the most incredible change. We can evolve while still staying true to who we are. We can honor who we’ve been and choose who we want to be next.” “Darkness never sustains, even if it feels like it might.” “Good is good in the final hour, in the deepest pit—without hope, without witness, without reward. Virtue is only virtue in extremis.” “Where there’s risk, there’s hope.” “We’re all stories in the end. Just make it a good one.” Next, check out the very best parts of Doctor Who!
