Quantum Leap

Repeated quotes

• Theorizing that one could time-travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator...and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap...will be the leap home!
  • Opening narration.
  • Theorizing that one could time-travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett led an elite group of scientists in the desert, to develop a top secret project known as 'Quantum Leap'. Pressured to prove his theories or lose funding, Dr. Beckett prematurely stepped into the project accelerator...and vanished. He awoke to find himself in the past, suffering from partial amnesia, and facing a mirror image that was not his own. Fortunately, contact with his own time was maintained through brainwave transmissions with Al, the project observer, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Dr. Beckett can see or hear. Trapped in the past, Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, putting things right that once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap...will be the leap home!
    • Extended opening narration.

• Oh, boy...
  • Sam at the end of each episode.

Season 1

Genesis [1.01]

Al: Your best shot is freezing the brain until all electrical activity has ceased.

Sam: That's called death.

Al: I never said it would be easy.

Star-Crossed [1.02]

Al: Ziggy is blowing out microchips like they were popcorn. He just, he didn't see it coming.

Sam: What?

Al: What? Sam, this is the 17th of June 1972.

Sam: So?

Al: So? We're in the Watergate! Break-in, Nixon, impeachment...

Sam: I don't remember.

Al: Oh, boy. The Republicans would love you.

The Right Hand of God [1.03]

Sam: I love my favorite-it's one of my favorites.

How the Tess Was Won [1.04]

Al: It always amazes me what your Swiss-cheesed brain chooses to remember.

Double Identity [1.05]

Al: At 22:15 Greenwich Mean Time, you must plug in a thousand-watt hairdryer in a house located at 111 Erie Drive, Buffalo, New York.

Sam: What?!

The Color Of Truth [1.06]

Sam: Is sex all you ever think about?

Al: Well, except when I'm pulling you out of the fire, yes.

Al: You are a elderly black man in the deep South and that is dangerous.

Camikazi Kid [1.07]

Sam: Wanna bite? Oh, I'm sorry, you're a hologram.

Play It Again, Seymour [1.08]

Sam: We've got Clapper.

Al: Careful, Sam--there was no cure for that in 1953.

Season 2

Honeymoon Express [2.01]

Al: In two days, the Russians are going to shoot down the U-2.

Sam: The rock group?

Jimmy [2.08]

Sam: How do I act retarded?

Al: Just act natural.

Another Mother [2.13]

Sam: The fact that you were a practicing pervert at the age of 5 has nothing to do with the rest of the world!

All Americans [2.14]

(Sam struggling with opening his soda)

(Chuey grabs Sam's soda and pops it open with a soda opener)

Chuey (handing the soda back to him): If you're really macho.. next time try your teeth.

Her Charm [2.15]

Dana: Don't tell me there's not any light.... You brought me up here to a cabin to get murdered without electricity?!

[Sam turns on a lamp.]

Sam: See? Light, to shoot you by.

Leaping in Without a Net [2.19]

Al: Well when I was 8 years old I had a pet roach. Only problem was, the kid in the next bed had a pet lizard. I'll never forget him. His name was Kevin.

Sam: The kid in the next bed?

Al: No, the roach.

Sam: Why do I even ask.

M.I.A. [2.22]

Al: Ziggy says the odds are real good.

Sam: How good?

Al: Oh, you know. They're way up there.

Season 3

The Leap Home, Part 1 [3.01]

Sam: John is gonna write my favorite song in the future.

Katie: Your favorite song in the future? Well, sing it to me.

The Leap Home, Part 2 [3.02]

Al: [to Sam] Just remember you have an ace in the hole... me.

The Boogieman [3.05]

Mary: Who are you?

Fake Al: Yin and yang, good and bad. God...

Sam: ...The Devil.

Fake Al: In the flesh, so to speak.

Mary: This isn't possible!

Sam: Come on Al, tell me he's not real...

Al: Uh...I...you...ah...he's real. Oh Sam, he's very real.

Mary: What is happening?

Sam: Why are you doing this?

Fake Al: To put an end to your meddling. Who gave you the right to go bungling around in time, putting right what I made wrong?!

Sam: I'm just trying to get home.

Fake Al: Well you're not going to make it!

A Little Miracle [3.10]

Al: What's with Ebenezer there?

Sam: He's ready to tear down the mission with his bare hands, Al; I think I'm making things worse.

---

[Al is impersonating a future ghost]

Blake: I know you. You're that jerk from the lobby.

Al: I am the Ghost of Christmas Future. Whoo-haha!

Blake: Please. The Ghost of Christmas Future wore a black cape. Jacob Marley had the chains.

8 1/2 Months [3.12]

Al: She think's she's having her baby in an alien spaceship.

Future Boy [3.13]

Captain Galexy: Im Afraid Captain Galaxy will have to go away for a while..we have time for one more letter..." {He reads a letter from Sam Beckett the boy asking about traveling through space/time; Galaxy explanation is just how the Adult Dr Sam Beckett does travel through time!]

Private Dancer [3.14]

Al: Shake your booty.

Southern Comforts [3.16]

Al: Don't do anything I wouldn't do. And if you do, take pictures.

Last Dance Before an Execution [3.19]

Al: It's not like you're lost in a mall — you're lost in time.

Nuclear Family [3.21]

Sam: Do you have to sneak up on me?

Al: I'm sorry. What do you expect a hologram to do? Knock?

Season 4

The Leap Back [4.01]

[Sam and Al have traded places — Al as the leaper, Sam as the hologram from the lab.]

Al: Do you have any Sweet 'n Low? Or Equal?

Kelly: Sweet 'n low? Equal?

Sam: No, no, no, no, no. They didn't have any artificial sweetner in 1945. Okay?

[Sam looks at Kelly.]

Sam: But boy, did they have women with big kazooms!

---

Kelly: Even with the cafe I'm rationed a half a pound of sugar a week. And Mike tries to put all of it into in his cup.

Mike: Are you forgetting who slips you an extra pound of butter every now and then?

Kelly: I didn't know I was swappin' sugar for it.

Sam: Well, if a pound of butter is all it takes, I got me a dairy farm that I...

Al: [to Sam] Stop that!!

---

Clifford Whiteside: We're to be married in two days! What are my mother and father going to say?

Sam: Cancel the church, the reception, the cake...

---

Sam: Revenge is mine, thus sayeth the hologram.

---

Sam: What do you got on Al?

Ziggy: He is 175.26 cm tall, weighs 70.91—

Sam: Ziggy!

Ziggy: Yes, Doctor?

Sam: Give me what I want, baby.

Ziggy: Oooh. If you weren't my father...

---

Sam: Dammit Ziggy! Tell me something I don't know!

Ziggy: Tina's having an affair with Gushie.

Sam: Something to help Al.

Justice [4.04]

[around 39:42] according to the dvd of this episode [dramatic music] Sam: "I agree with the grand dragon. I agree with the grand dragon 100%. We should hang this man and while we're at it hang me too. Al: Sam have you gone crazy Sam: Cause I don't want to live in a world where fear and hate live behind a call for justice. Where men women and children born as free as you and me are denied among other things the right to vote. And if they try to do anything about it. you hang 'em or blow them up in a church. They are so proud of what they are doing. These dispensers of justice that they have to hide behind masks to do it. Cody you look at me, son. This is not justice. This is merely a desperate attempt to hang on to the past, a shameful past. That can never and should never be restored. So go ahead, you hang us now but you cannot stop the future because you can not kill everyone who is here tonight. And they can never forget what they saw. Grand Dragon: Take them down and nathaniel too. [dramatic music curtails]

The Wrong Stuff [4.07]

Sam: That's if I'm a human. I'm not a human — I'm a chimp. We don't have rules for chimps, do we?

The Play's the Thing [4.11]

Al: It's much worse than death... in two days, she goes home... she spends the rest of her life alone... without love... in Cleveland.

Running For Honor [4.12]

Al: Tea? Not coffee?

Sam: I'm making some tea. Tea. T-E-A tea. Tea, tea, tea. I don't like coffee, I like tea....Does drinking tea make me any less of a man than somebody who drinks coffee? I mean, is every tea-drinker in the entire history of the world gay to you? Is that it? What about the Boston Tea Party? Was that like some kind of a gay boat festival or something?

Roberto! [4.17]

Jannie Eisenberg: I'll tell you what. Why don't you lie down in the parking lot and I'll accidentally back over you with my car. Probably we can get a whole week out of that!

Al: Sam, Roberto would never let her get away with that. Try this...

Sam: What's the matter, did you fall off your broomstick this morning!?

Al: Stay on her, Sam.

Sam: And what earth-shattering news are you working on this week?

Jannie Eisenberg: Gas stations that promise full service but don't deliver.

Al[sarcastic]: Now there's a national emergency.

Sam[snatching up a phone]: Get Me The President!

It's A Wonderful Leap [4.18]

Sam: I was trying to save your life.

Angela: By running me down and beating me up?

Sam: No, no. I thought...I thought that your heart had stopped. I was just trying to get it started again, that's all.

Angela: Oh, why don't you back over me a couple more times?

Sam: You shouldn't move.

Angela: You shouldn't drive.

The Curse of Ptah-Hotep [4.20]

Al: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. 'Oops! It was an accident! I accidentally killed everybody. Haw haw. Now I'm stuck with this secret load of secret treasure. Oh, I'm going to have to give up my measley, poor-paying professorship and go somewhere and live a life of ease and luxury somewhere else. Ha ha.' Give her an Oscar and let's get the hell outta here.

A Leap for Lisa [4.22]

Al: Bingo bango bongo!

Season 5

Lee Harvey Oswald, Part 2 [5.02]

Al: I know it's more comforting to believe in plots, because if Kennedy could be killed that easily, by one sicko, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Star Light, Star Bright [5.06]

Al: Gushie, if I should suddenly pop out of existence, I want to leave everything to my first wife, Beth.

Trilogy, Part 3: The Last Door [5.10]

Al: He thinks I'm Saint Peter and that I'm going to send him to Hell for overcharging his hours.

Blood Moon [5.15]

Al: He has all the signs of the undead.

Sam: And you have all the signs of the brain dead.

Memphis Melody [5.21]

[Al consults his frequently malfunctioning handlink.]

Al: He's at dinner.

Sam: He's at a dinner?

Al: Yeah.

Sam: In the middle of the afternoon? He's at a dinner?

Al: He's at a dinner, having diner.

Sam: What?

[Al slaps the handlink.]

Al: Oh, he's at the diner having dinner... make it lunch.

---

Sam: You've got to reach for the stars, not for the ceiling.

---

Al: He cancels out on Elvis! Oh! This is awful, Sam! Ziggy says now, Elvis doesn't even get discovered. And "Heartbreak Hotel" is recorded by the... Monkees! And "Jailhouse Rock" is recorded by Tony Orlando and Dawn!? Ughh! Gag me with a spoon!

Mirror Image [5.22]

Sam: You're not just a bartender.

Bartender Al: That's true. I own the place, too.

Opening narrations

• It all started when a time-travel experiment I was conducting went...a little ca-ca. In the blink of a cosmic clock, I went from quantum physicist...to Air Force test pilot, which could have been fun — if I knew how to fly. Fortunately, I had help: An observer from the project, named Al. Unfortunately, Al's a hologram. So, all he can lend is moral support. Anyway, here I am — bouncing around time, putting things right which once went wrong. A sort of...time-traveling Lone Ranger, with Al as my Tonto; and I don't even need a mask. Oh, boy...
  • Opening narration, spoken by Scott Bakula, Season 1–2, episode 12

• Theorizing that one could time-travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett led an elite group of scientists into the desert, to develop a top-secret project known as "Quantum Leap". Pressured to prove his theories or lose funding, Dr. Beckett prematurely stepped into the Project Accelerator — and vanished. He awoke to find himself in the past, suffering from partial amnesia, and facing a mirror image that was not his own. Fortunately, contact with his own time was maintained through brainwave transmissions with Al, the Project Observer, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Dr. Beckett can see and hear. Trapped in the past, Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, putting things right that once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.
  • Opening narration, Season 2, episodes 13–22

• Theorizing that one could time-travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator — and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap... will be the leap home.
  • Opening narration, Seasons 3–5 and syndication

About Quantum Leap

• When I pitched this idea to Brandon Tartikoff and he told me to explain it to him in twenty seconds so his mother could understand it, I decided not to get into the physical aura aspect of it.

Had he leapt into Jimmy, and truly been a person who had a handicap, or was retarded, then I don't know what we'd have been accomplishing with that. Sam might have learned something out of it, but he learned something leaping in and being himself and being perceived as being a retarded person. And that means that people see you as something, and they treat you like it, and they don't give you the chance to be who you could be. And that's a part of what we're talking about, part of what we're trying to change.

So the idea is not that he really is that person. That never was the concept. The concept in my head was that when he leaped in, people saw the aura of the person he leaped into. It's a little bit like, if I came up here in the beginning of this thing as I did, and I somehow hypnotized you all, and instead of Scott Bakula being up here, because he was down working on the show, I had Michael Zinberg, who's a producer, come up and sit down here, and you all saw him as Scott Bakula. That's what happens on the show. It's only when you look in a mirror do you see, do we see, does Scott see, what everybody sees around him. But I think that holds true.

And I hope, I think that's also interesting; because he can leap in as a very old man that everyone can perceive cannot do anything, and he can be quite physical, and shocks people when that happens. Or he can leap in as a man his age; he's not very old, but he can be trying to perform as a boxer who's twenty years old, and [it's] tough to do. So he is then handicapped in that situation by his limits. So that's the way we script it."

• Don Bellisario Hitchcock Theater "8 1/2 Months" screening of 2/25/91:

External links

• Quantum Leap quotes at the Internet Movie Database