(in Alternate!1985, Doc and Marty discover that Biff became rich from betting with the Gray's Sports Almanac that Marty left behind in 2015 and that his older self gave him after taking the DeLorean)
Marty: The Almanac! Son of a bitch stole my idea! He must have been listening when I... (realization) It's my fault. The whole thing is my fault. If I hadn't brought that damn book, none of this would have happened!
Doc: It's all in the past.
Marty: You mean the future!
Doc: Whatever! It demonstrates precisely how time travel can be misused, and why the time machine must be destroyed... after we straighten all of this out.
Marty: Right. So, we go back to the future and we stop Biff from stealing the time machine.
Doc: We can't! Because, if we travel into the future from this point in time, it will be the future of this reality, in which Biff is corrupt and powerful, and married to your mother, and in which this has happened to me! (holds up a newspaper headline about him getting committed) No! Our only chance to repair the present is in the past, at the point where the timeline skewed into this tangent! In order to put the universe back as we remember it and get back to our reality, we have to find out the exact date and the specific circumstances of how, where and when young Biff got his hands on that Sports Almanac!
Marty: (beat) I'll ask him.
Marty: The Almanac! Son of a bitch stole my idea! He must have been listening when I... (realization) It's my fault. The whole thing is my fault. If I hadn't brought that damn book, none of this would have happened!
Doc: It's all in the past.
Marty: You mean the future!
Doc: Whatever! It demonstrates precisely how time travel can be misused, and why the time machine must be destroyed... after we straighten all of this out.
Marty: Right. So, we go back to the future and we stop Biff from stealing the time machine.
Doc: We can't! Because, if we travel into the future from this point in time, it will be the future of this reality, in which Biff is corrupt and powerful, and married to your mother, and in which this has happened to me! (holds up a newspaper headline about him getting committed) No! Our only chance to repair the present is in the past, at the point where the timeline skewed into this tangent! In order to put the universe back as we remember it and get back to our reality, we have to find out the exact date and the specific circumstances of how, where and when young Biff got his hands on that Sports Almanac!
Marty: (beat) I'll ask him.
(Richtofen just headshotted his future self)
Dempsey: Dammit Richtofen! I thought we were done with this!
Richtofen: What can I say Dempsey? Things change.
Nikolaï: Only a fool would dare to change history.
Richtofen: I am no fool, for what I do, I do only to secure a better tomorrow.
Dempsey: Well let's hope we get to see it.
Dempsey: Dammit Richtofen! I thought we were done with this!
Richtofen: What can I say Dempsey? Things change.
Nikolaï: Only a fool would dare to change history.
Richtofen: I am no fool, for what I do, I do only to secure a better tomorrow.
Dempsey: Well let's hope we get to see it.
— Call of Duty: Zombies, The Giant
"We only have a few years to stop 9/11."
"Remix, rewind, go for another try. Run it back again. Replay, hit rewind; this time you'll do it right. Run it back again."
— Corbin Bloom singing "Run it Back Again" for Minute Men
"Is it just the chance to get off the dreary Voyager sets for somewhere that looks a bit more dynamic, or is just the little boy in me that wants to go exploring? If I were going to request any assignment on a Starship I wouldn’t want to be stuck somewhere dull like under Picard’s care or in Janeway’s Starfleet hell, I wouldn’t even want to shack up with Annorax ("Year of Hell") and blast away entire civilisations. Nope, the Dauntless would be my ideal assignment, travelling backwards and forwards in time dealing temporal incursions. Frankly it’s a notion that has so much potential I’m surprised they didn’t pick it up as a possible candidate as the next Star Trek series rather than Enterprise. Just think of the possibilities, the cameos that could be had, the imaginative stories you could explore – a series with time travel built into its core can be quite malleable I hear (or at least a 50 year old British SF show tells me)."
— Doc Oho
on Star Trek: Voyager, "Relativity"
on Star Trek: Voyager, "Relativity""If all I have to do to survive is tweak the future a bit, what's stopping me? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The ripple effect. Maybe it will mean that the universe will be ruled by cats or something, in the future. But the way I see it, even a ghastly future is better than no future at all."
— The Doctor, Doctor Who, "Before the Flood"
"This tragedy, greater than the Seventh Umbral Calamity, must be undone. If history must be unwritten, let it be unwritten."
— The Crystal Exarch, Final Fantasy XIV
"We're going back in time, to the first Thanksgiving, to get turkeys off the menu. (turns to the camera) That's right! We're going back in time to the first Thanksgiving to get turkeys! Off! The menu!"
— Jake, Free Birds
"If I don't come back in time to stop you, how bad an idea can it really be?"
— Bunnyx, Hero Chat
"Long ago in a distant land, I, Aku, the shapeshifting master of darkness, unleashed an unspeakable evil! But a foolish samurai warrior wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck, I tore open a portal in time and flung him into the future, where my evil is law! Now the fool seeks to return to the past and undo the future that is Aku!"
— Aku, Samurai Jack, Season 1-4 opening narration
Darryl Weathers: Think about it. These people are from the future, right? Well, if we can git everyone t' turn queer, th'n there won't be no children to have no children, and the people from the future won't exist to take our jobs!
Jimbo Kern: (beat) I ain't turnin' queer.
Darry: Ya' have to, Jimbo! Or else, we won't be able to stop 'em! Dammit, they took 'r euaghbs!
Jimbo Kern: (beat) I ain't turnin' queer.
Darry: Ya' have to, Jimbo! Or else, we won't be able to stop 'em! Dammit, they took 'r euaghbs!
— South Park, "Goobacks"
"One more ship will make no difference in the here and now. But twenty-two years ago, one ship could have stopped this war before it started."
— Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Yesterday's Enterprise"
"The machines rose from the ashes of the nuclear fire. Their war to exterminate mankind had raged for decades, but the final battle would not be fought in the future. It would be fought here, in our present. Tonight..."
"August 29, 1997, came and went. Nothing much happened. Michael Jackson turned 40. There was no Judgment Day. People went to work as they always do. Laughed, complained, watched TV, made love. I wanted to run to through the street yelling to grab them all and say, 'Every day from this day on is a gift. Use it well.'"
— Sarah Connor, Terminator 2: Judgment Daynote
"The battle for tomorrow begins today."
— Terminator 2: Judgment Day prologue (NES)
"We travel through time to help history along — give it a push where it's needed. When the Omni's red, it means history's wrong. Our job is to get everything back on track."
— Voyagers! Opening
"I can go back. I can go back and give them the device before they die. They can still use it. They can still go back and be with him. Or I could go back. Go back even further. With enough time... maybe I could save him. Or even... I could save them all. Do it all over again. All my mistakes — so many mistakes. I could do it right this time. I would know everything. I would be perfect."
Guy: Benjamin Franklin?
Franklin: Yes?
Guy: I bring a message from the future! I don't have much time.
Franklin: What is it?
Guy: The convention you're setting for electric charge is backward. The one left on glass by silk should be the negative charge.
(We were going to use the time machine to prevent the robot apocalypse, but the guy who built it was an electrical engineer.)note
Franklin: Yes?
Guy: I bring a message from the future! I don't have much time.
Franklin: What is it?
Guy: The convention you're setting for electric charge is backward. The one left on glass by silk should be the negative charge.
(We were going to use the time machine to prevent the robot apocalypse, but the guy who built it was an electrical engineer.)note
— xkcd #567: Urgent Mission
Past Charles Xavier: So, this is what becomes of us? Eric was right. Humanity does this to us...
Future Charles Xavier: Not if we show them a better path.
Past Charles Xavier: You still believe?
Future Charles Xavier: Just because someone stumbles, loses their way, it doesn't mean they're lost forever. Sometimes we all need a little help.
Future Charles Xavier: Not if we show them a better path.
Past Charles Xavier: You still believe?
Future Charles Xavier: Just because someone stumbles, loses their way, it doesn't mean they're lost forever. Sometimes we all need a little help.
