- Quellcrist Falconer: Focus on what you care about most in this world, with every atom of your existence. Rip yourself open, and you can rip a hole in the virtual world. That is how you get back to the real. That is how you get to the next screen.
- Mickey: No matter how long you live, you never finish. You have to learn to let the world continue. Accept that death is part of life. Please, my love. Don't bring me back again. Okay? Please.
- Quellcrist Falconer: The program pulls subliminal memories of trauma. Someplace you felt trapped. First step is how we experience helplessness. What do you do when you can't get out?
- [Al takes out each of his attackers]
- Quellcrist Falconer: Now what? They control the construct. They just send more and you're still here. You have to beat the player, not the game. There are some things you can't kill your way out of.
- Quellcrist Falconer: If they catch you, they will torture you. But virtual is like everything else. Assume nothing. Only then can you truly see what you're dealing with. Understand there is no conditioning that can prepare you for having cigarettes stubbed out in your eyes - for being burnt to death - being raped, drowned, suffocated, over and over and over. DHF made it possible to put someone in virtual, torture them to death and then start again.
- O. G. Kovacs: But it's not real. Even Kovacs can handle it.
- Quellcrist Falconer: To the mind, pain is pain. Torture, die, repeat. Eventually, you'll break. And if it doesn't stop, you'll go insane.
- Female Trainee: So what do we do?
- Quellcrist Falconer: The mind does interesting things under extreme stress. Hallucination. Displacement. Retreat. As Envoys, we learn to use those things, not as blind reactions to adversity, but as moves in a game.
- Dimi 2: Who are you supposed to be now?
- Takeshi Kovacs: Someone you should truly not have fucked with. You dumb motherfuckers just abducted and tortured a CTAC officer. You have any idea what they're going to do to you?
- Wei Personnel: Oh, shit.
- Takeshi Kovacs: They're gonna hunt you down. All of you. Gonna make what you did to me look like a tropical cruise. They're gonna rip your stacks out and feed 'em to the shredder. They're gonna kill your families, friends, dogs, cats and fucking goldfish.
- Abboud: I know Abuela sounds happy and funny, but remember, God gave you one body. After you die, if you spin back up, you will never be welcome in His Kingdom.