Star Trek:  The Captain's Table

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This page was last updated on 02/20/01.

Book One of Six: War Dragons by L. A. Graf (TOS)

"I just sometimes get real tired of aliens."

"The best judge of a pirate is one of his own."

Kirk: "We call it kindness.  It's a human custom."

Kirk: "I hate waiting.  More specifically, I hate doing nothing.   Even when there's not a damned thing I can do, I'd still rather be inventing some kind of work for myself ...."

Kirk: "A Captain never has to lie ... as long as he's careful about the promises he makes."

Sulu: "People with glass chins should refrain from piloting ships with uncalibrated inertial dampeners."

Kirk: "... Vulcan's didn't get irked, they merely withheld comment until they had further data."

Kirk: "This is a primarily human crew....  That means our feelings will have an impact on the performance of our duties, even when that's not appropriate."

Spock: "Merely because Vulcan's have chosen not to let emotional states dictate our behavior does not mean we are incapable of understanding them."

Kirk: "Whether or not emotions make sense, they are part of the human equation, part of what makes humans behave and function in the ways they do.  By refusing to acknowledge human emotion as real when you deal with the crew, you're willfully ignoring a variable, then wondering why your sums don't add up.  What matters is that humans believe in what they feel.  Humans will always have that variable in motion, whether or not you choose to allow for it."

Schulman: "... Ockham's Razor says that the simplest explanation is most likely to be correct."

Spock: "Contrary to human conviction, data obtained after the fact cannot be applied retroactively."

Old Joke: What's the last thing to go through a starship commander's mind when his ship hits a moon?
Answer: His warp drive.

Kirk: "Inspiration is nine-tenths desperation."

Kirk: "In an outfit likes Starfleet, competence is easy come by; brilliance is only slightly harder.  More valuable than either, though, is the ability to transcend species and transfix creatures you had never even met before.   In a communications officer, that skill becomes priceless."

Kirk: "Peaceful people didn't make threats to their less sophisticated neighbors, especially threats they honestly had no intention of keeping.   Once you've promised something dire, you'd better be prepared to deliver the first time they decided to test your resolve, otherwise it's as good as making no threats at all." 

McCoy: "They thought you were a girl, Jim."

Sulu: "Even a slam chance was better than not looking at all."

Sulu: "... the easy, unthinking, natural response to a situation could sometimes be utterly the wrong one."

Klingon proverb: "Choose your enemies more wisely than your friends.   Your friends do not come back to kill you later."

Book Two of Six:  Dujonian's Hoard by Michael Jan Friedman  (TNG)

Picard: "... I think one should do whatever one can to keep by and soul together, but I stop short of endangering the lives of others."

Robinson: "If you've got coined, buy what you like.  But don't reach into someone else's pocket."

Hompaq: "Only a coward allows himself to be herded like a pack animal."
Picard: "Only a fool wastes his life on a useless gesture."

Picard: "... uncertainty is a terrible thing.  It can gnaw at you until your very sanity gives way."

Book Three of Six:  The Mist by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch  (DS9)

"... sometimes wars are won in the footnotes."

Cap: "Only a coward draws on an unarmed man."

Sisko: "... leadership is one-third knowledge, one-third common sense, and one-third a deep-in-your-heart, unprovable moment of absolute certainty, based solely on pure gut instinct.  The best leaders learn how to separate that instinct from wishful thinking.  It is, I think, the hardest thing of all to do, even harder than preparing a beloved crew for war."

"Add enough intoxicants, and every species reverted to childhood."

Sisko: "... opinionated and aggressive.  Those are good traits for a warrior."

Quilli: "... in each story, the teller is allowed one impossible thing."

Quilli: "... sometimes desperate fools make dangerous enemies."

Ell-Lee: "Embarrassment is a good emotion.  It tends to stop a repeat of the same action."

Book Four of Six:  Fire Ship by Diane Carey  (VOY)

Janeway: "Know your friends, know your enemies, know yourself."

Janeway: "Often the truth spills from a toppled barrel."

Janeway: "One of the principles of conflict is that you must be willing to meet your enemy on his own level of behavior.  Whether down or up, you've got to be willing to go there."

Janeway: "Choice is the blood of life....  No choice ... no life."

Janeway: "Battle possessed undeniable intoxication for anyone trained to do it."

Book Five of Six:  Once Burned by Peter David  (New Frontier)

Mackenzie Calhoun: "You never forget the first man you kill."

Calhoun: "Stupidity is remarkably evenhanded."

Cap: "The easy answers don't always present themselves readily."

Cap: "No man should know his own destiny.  No man can know; otherwise he just becomes a pawn of fate and no longer a man."

Calhoun: "I acknowledge authority. I acknowledge that those in authority have power over me.  But that is not a condition that I take either lightly or for granted, no matter how much they endeavor to drill the chain of command into me.   When those in authority are acting stupidly, I do not feel constrained to join them.  That doesn't make for good officers.  Just more stupidity.  Rules and regulations are not handed down on high from the gods.  They're made by people, mortal people, no more, no less.  People who can't be expected to anticipate every eventuality.  What some individuals perceive as immutable laws that  restrict our actions, I see as guidelines that indicate what a particular body of opinion-makers believes to be the best way of completing a mission and coming home safely.  But just because they believe it to be the best doesn't automatically make it so, and under no circumstances is it the only one.  And if there are consequences for deviating from the limits that others have made, then I will accept those consequences.  But no one, ... is going to tell me how to live my life or force me to do that which I know, in my heart, to be wrong.  I will be free, in thought and action."

Stephanie Kenyon (to Calhoun): "Regrets are terrible things to have, because you know what?  Life's just too damned short."

Byron: "Once someone is in power ... they tend to view things a bit differently."

Calhoun: "They say that silence is golden.  They don't know what the hell they're talking about."

Calhoun: "... the funny thing about the road to ruin is that you rarely stride down it.  It's taken in small, delicate steps, and you don't realize how completely doomed you are until you're much too far along."

Calhoun: "... when you look for something, more often than not you find it."

Calhoun: "... sometimes good people go somewhat crazy."

Calhoun: "It's amazing how slowly you can move when you want to go very, very quickly."

Book Six of Six:  Where Sea Meets Sky by Jerry Oltion  (Pre-TOS: Capt. Pike)

Perri: "Even the most vocal advocate can harbor doubts."

Nowan: "... a true man will rise above his bloodlust and not let passion rule his actions."

Nowan: "To overcome one's passion is in no way cowardly.  It often requires great courage."

Nowan: "Men who need to kill things to prove themselves have no honor."

Hompaq: "A warrior should learn to keep his mind on the battle."