Fifteenth Doctor

fictional character from Doctor Who
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This page is a collection of quotations from the era of the fifteenth official incarnation of The Doctor from the BBC science fiction television programme Doctor Who, during which the role of the Fifteenth Doctor was played by Ncuti Gatwa, who played the role during a series of specials aired over the course of November 2023. He is the second actor of color to take on the role of the Doctor, with the first being Jo Martin.

Doctor Who — Incarnations of The Doctor : 1st - 2nd - 3rd - 4th - 5th - 6th - 7th - 8th - War - 9th - 10th - 11th - 12th - 13th - 14th - 15th

2023 Specials

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(9 December 2023)
The Fifteenth Doctor: [first words] No way!

The Fourteenth Doctor: You're me!
The Doctor: No, I'm me... I think I'm really, really me! Oh-ho, I am completely me!

The Doctor: Hello! So good to see you! So good! Now... someone tell me what the hell is going on here?!

The Doctor: Our whole lifetime... That first Doctor that met the Toymaker never, ever stopped. Put on trial. Exiled. Key to Time. All the devastation of Logopolis...
The Fourteenth Doctor: Adric...
The Doctor: Adric. River Song. All the people we lost... Sarah Jane is gone, can you believe that for a second?
The Fourteenth Doctor: I loved her.
The Doctor: I loved her. And Rose. But the Time War, the Pandorica, Mavic Chen... We fought the Gods of Ragnarök, and we didn't stop for a second... to say "what the hell?"
The Fourteenth Doctor: But you're fine!
The Doctor: I'm fine because you fix yourself. We're Time Lords, we're doing rehab out of order.

The Doctor: Now, you two, if you don't mind, there is a great big universe out there calling, and I've gotta get going. So off you pop, old man.
The Fourteenth Doctor: You're the old man; you're older than me!
Donna: Actually, that is true. He's younger, 'cause you came after him, so you're the older Doctor.
The Doctor: Okay, kid. I love you, get out.

Series 14 / Season 1

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(25 December 2023)
The Doctor: Okay. Name: "The Doctor". Occupation: "Not a doctor". Current status: "Just passing by". Employer: "Myself". Address: "That blue box over there". Now, if you don't mind, I just got snowmanned, and I would like to go home.
Police Officer: Um... Uh, Doctor what would that be?
The Doctor: Just the Doctor!

Ruby: No, but who are you? Why are you an expert in time-traveling goblins and--
The Doctor: Oh! Pssh... They are not time-travelers, excuse me! Time travelers are great. Like, the best -- like, wow. This lot's just bimble.

The Doctor: I am learning the vocabulary of rope!

Mrs. Flood: Busy man, sweetheart! You and your box of tricks... You look like you've lost a pound and found a sixpence. What's wrong?
The Doctor: Just wondering... Maybe I'm the bad luck.

Mrs. Flood: Never seen a TARDIS before?
(11 May 2024)
Ruby: How do you keep going?
The Doctor: For days like this, Ruby Sunday. I don't have a people, I don't have a home... But I don't have a job, either. I don't have a boss, or taxes, or rent, or bills to pay. I don't have a purpose, or a cause, or a mission, but I have... freedom. That's why I keep moving on, to see the next thing, and the next, and the next. And sometimes... It looks even better through your eyes.

Ruby: Is that a monster?!
The Doctor: No. No, don't be silly -- There's never any such thing as monsters, they're just... Just creatures you haven't met yet.

Captain Poppy: We're not meant to be like this; did we grow up wrong?
The Doctor: Oh, Poppy... Oh, Popsicle. Look at me, look at me. Nobody grows up wrong. You are what you are, and that is magnificent.
Captain Poppy: But Mummy and Daddy left us...
The Doctor: That's okay! Mine did, too.
Captain Poppy: What happened?
The Doctor: Well, I was found.
Captain Poppy: Hooray!
The Doctor: Little baby me was left alone in the middle of outer space, and guess who took me in?
Captain Poppy: I don't know!
The Doctor: The Time Lords!
Captain Poppy: Oooooh...
The Doctor: Can you say it like me?
Captain Poppy: "Time Lords"!
The Doctor: That's in! Bah-bah-bah-bah-bah! But the point is... that it doesn't matter where I come from, because I am absolutely lovely, aren't I? [Poppy yawns] That wasn't rhetorical, Pops.
Captain Poppy: Yes, you are!
The Doctor: And you wanna know my secret? There's no one like me in the whole wide universe. No one like me exists, and that's true of everyone. That's not a problem, Captain Pops. It's a superpower.
(11 May 2024)
Timothy Drake: Who are you?
Maestro: My notation is... Maestro.
Timothy Drake: But... what are you?
Maestro: I am music.

The Doctor: In the past, right now, I live in a place called Totter's Lane. 1963, I parked the TARDIS in a junkyard, and I lived there with my granddaughter, Susan.
Ruby: Oh...!
The Doctor: Okay?
Ruby: Your what?
The Doctor: My granddaughter.
Ruby: Susan?
The Doctor: We could go and have a look, but y'know... timelines, [mimics explosion]
Ruby: Well, y-- you've got children?
The Doctor: I did have -- I will have. Time Lords get a bit complicated.
Ruby: Yeah, but you've got a granddaughter! Like, now? Like, today? Back in our time? My time. Gah! Where is she?!
The Doctor: I don't know.
Ruby: How do you not know?
The Doctor: Time Lords were murdered. Genocide rolled across time and space like a great big cellular explosion; maybe it killed her, too.
Ruby: Doctor! God...

Maestro: Can you find it? The lost chord? Are you enough of a genius?
The Doctor: Oh, I would never call myself that, Maestro. But I have lived. And I have loved. And I can only smile like this because I have lost so much. I've experienced everything. Every single thing. And if that's where music comes from... I can find the chord to banish you.
(18 May 2024)
Ruby: Where are we?
The Doctor: In the middle of a war.
Ruby: Oh. I was kind of hoping for a beach.
The Doctor: Ah! What do you think this is?
Ruby: It's not a beach!
The Doctor: Give it time. Everywhere's a beach eventually.

The Doctor: War is business, and business is booming.

The Doctor: I'm a much bigger bang than you bargained for. I'm a lot more explosive than I look, and, honey, I know how I look. Put a quantum chain reaction through me, and I will shatter this silly little battlefield of yours into dust. All of it, in a heartbeat, into dust.
Mundy: That's not possible.
The Doctor: Everything is possible! Everything is possible. Everywhere is a beach eventually. Scan me! Scan me, see for yourself!
[Mundy drops her gun, scans:]
Mundy: You could blow up half of this planet!

The Doctor: I mean, most armies would notice that they were fighting smoke and shadows, but not this lot, Ruby! You know why? 'Cause they have faith.
Mundy: Shut up!
The Doctor: "Faith"! The magic word that keeps you never having to think for yourself! Just surrender, Mundy. Just stop... and it's all over.
Mundy: Prove it.
The Doctor: What, seriously? Now you need proof, faith girl?

The Doctor: We're all dead eventually. There's hardly any time that we're not dead. Which is a a good thing, too! We've got to keep the pace up, otherwise nothing would get done. Dying defines us. Snow isn't snow until it falls.
Ruby: Snow?
The Doctor: Yeah, snow. We all melt away in the end. But something stays. Maybe the best part. A sad old man once told me, "What survives of us, is love."
(25 May 2024)
The Doctor: Mind you, Roger ap Gwilliam. That's a bad example of the Welsh, terrifying.
Ruby: Oh, yeah?
The Doctor: The most dangerous Prime Minister in history. He led the world to the brink of nuclear... Wait, what year are you from?
Ruby: 2024!
The Doctor: Oh. Yikes, sorry, he was 2046. Sorry, spoilers! Forget I said anything.

Ruby: Mum, what does she look like?
Carla: She looks like what she looks like.
Ruby: What does that mean?
Carla: She looks like what she is.

Roger ap Gwilliam: Amol, I'm a Welshman; I was born in Wales. And that's what the "ap" in my name means. It's not one of those apps you used to have on your phone in the old days. It means "son of". I am a son of Wales. And the Welsh don't always like to be oppressed. And that has taught me to say "no more". And that's what I am saying: "No more". I want Great Britain to say "No more", so yes! I have pledged to defend our borders and set us up on high as one of the greatest nations in the world.
Amol Rajan: But we're members of NATO.
Roger ap Gwilliam: When did NATO ever, y'know, fire a nuclear missile? Ever? 2031, the Great Russian War -- not a single rocket.
Amol Rajan: Excuse me, I'm sorry-- Are you saying that you actually want to fire a nuclear missile?
Roger ap Gwilliam: We'll cut that bit out, right?

Old Ruby: I presume she must be gone, my mother. No one ever told me. And I didn't find my birth mother. It never snowed again. But I keep thinking I know why. The woman! And I've been thinking about it my whole life. Why is she here? And I think, at the end, I have hope. 'Cause that's very you, isn't it, my old friend? I dare to hope.
The Doctor: You don't know me, but my name is the Doctor, and your life is in danger, okay? There are creatures out there in the real world; there are monsters, and they are coming to get you.

Penny Pepper-Bean: We miss you so much, darling. But I'd pay for the whole moon to make you happy. Just look up at the sky and wave to us on the Homeworld. Happy Finetime, Lindy-Loo! And don't forget, you're only a Bubble away.
The Doctor: ...who is that?
Lindy Pepper-Bean: I told you, it's Mummy.
Ruby: Hold on, I've seen her before.
The Doctor: Yeah, she's, like, she's the face of the ambulance on Kastarion III.
Ruby: No, no, no, I've seen her somewhere else...

Brewster: Now we can go out there to this planet, and we can fight it and tame it and own it. We'll be pioneers, just like our ancestors.
The Doctor: Or... you could come with us.
Lindy: [turns towards him and Ruby] We could what?
The Doctor: Come with us!
Ruby: Yeah, we helped you escape, didn't we? So we could get you out of here, in the blink of an eye.
The Doctor: I-- I have a ship, it's called the TARDIS. That blue box. It harnesses technology that makes it bigger on the inside than on the outside. I could take you all! I could carry you to the stars, I... could find you a home that is safe, and-- and clean, and everything you want.
Lindy: [amused] But... It's-- We couldn't travel with you.
Ruby: What? Wh-- Why not?
Lindy: [to the Fifteenth Doctor] Because you, sir, are not one of us. I mean, sir, you were kind. But it was your duty to save me, obviously. I mean, screen-to-screen contact is just about acceptable, but in person? That's impossible.
Hoochy Pie: Ay. You have a magic box? Seriously...
Brewster: "Bigger on the inside"?
Hoochy Pie: Excuse me, sir -- that's Voodoo. And it doesn't matter where we end up living, because it is our God-given duty to maintain the standards of Finetime, forever. Now thank you. And goodbye.
Ruby: Ugh, I can't even...
The Doctor: I don't care what you think! Look, you can say whatever you want. You can think absolutely anything. I will do anything... if you just allow me to save your lives.
Brewster: If you'll turn away, ladies? Before we're contaminated.
The Doctor: [desperately] BUT YOU WILL DIE OUT THERE! AND I CAN SAVE YOUR LIVES! NOW LET ME!
[Lindy turns away, getting on the boat out. The Doctor starts laughing, incredulous, and puts his hands on his thighs, doubling over, before screaming in frustration.]
The Doctor: DAMN!
The Doctor: Brooding. Good look. Do you practice in a mirror? Bit more frown, maybe. Yeah? Like this. Yeah? Like this, really. Really, like this.
Rogue: I didn't know the Dutchess employs a court jester.
The Doctor: Yeah, well I'm hilarious. And... you're kind of funny peculiar, standing here. Good vantage point. Keeping an eye out on the exits, like you're expecting trouble.
Rogue: Are you?
The Doctor: Honey, I'm here for fun.
Rogue: Then go and pursue your facile pleasures and leave me alone.
The Doctor: O-kay, rude! Lord...
Rogue: Not a Lord.
The Doctor: Does "Not a Lord" have a name?
Rogue: Rogue.
The Doctor: Nice to meet you. I'm the Doctor.
Rogue: Just "the Doctor"?
The Doctor: Just "Rogue"?

The Doctor: Who did you lose?
Rogue: What?
The Doctor: You lost someone.
Rogue: How'd you know that?
The Doctor: Because I know.
Rogue: There was... Yeah. We traveled together, we had fun. You know? And then a day came along, and at the end of that day... I lost them. What about you?
The Doctor: I lost everyone.
Rogue: At the party, I saw you with that woman.
The Doctor: Mmm. My best friend.
Rogue: Do you ever wonder, "Why keep going"?
The Doctor: Because we have to. We have to live each day, because they can't. You don't have to stay a bounty hunter, Rogue. You could travel with me! Oh, the worlds I could show you, Rogue...
Rogue: And what if I like what I do? Would you travel with me?
The Doctor: That is quite an argument. Tell you what, when we both get out of this, let's argue across the stars...
Rogue: I'd like that.

The Doctor: How long do they live for?
Rogue: Chuldur?
The Doctor: Mm.
Rogue: They have a lifespan of 600 years.
The Doctor: Good. Good. That's a long time to suffer.

The Doctor: There are as many dimensions as there are atoms in the universe. Don't even know his real name. Any...way! It is what it is, so onwards, fine, next. Off we go. Where shall we go? Anywhere!
Ruby: Doctor, you don't have to be like this.
The Doctor: I have to be like this cos this is what I'm like. Onwards. Upwards. New horizons. Moving on. It's fine.
The Doctor: Give me the lovin'!

Carla Sunday: That's your story, darling. The legend of Ruby Sunday.

Cherry Sunday: I would love a cup of tea.
Mrs. Flood: Would you, sweetheart? Well, we'd all like a lot of things… that aren't going to happen.
Cherry: What that supposed to mean?
Mrs. Flood: I'd be very careful, Mrs. Sunday; there's a storm coming in. He waits no more.

Kate Stewart: My father... He'd tell me stories about you when I was a kid. We'd sit there in the firelight, telling tales of the Doctor, his eyes shining. But he never ever mentioned a granddaughter.
The Doctor: I was a different Doctor back then, Kate. Great enigma. Still can't shake it off. I'm trying.
Kate Stewart: If you've got a granddaughter, that means you've got kids!
The Doctor: Well, not quite. Not yet.
Kate Stewart: What? You mean... you can have a granddaughter before a granddaughter?
The Doctor: Life of a Time Lord.
Kate Stewart: ...Okay. The grandchild exists, and you've got the TARDIS, but you've never come back to see her. Why not?
The Doctor: You've seen my life. I bring disaster, Kate. Disaster. What if I go back and I ruin her?
Kate Stewart: For what it's worth, I think you bring joy.

The Doctor: Kate, do you have a Time Window?
Kate Stewart: What--? You expressly told us in the 1970s, UNIT was absolutely forbidden to experiment with any form of time technology.
The Doctor: Do you have a Time Window?
Kate Stewart: Ten floors down.

The Doctor: If time is memory, and memory is time, then what is a memory of a time machine?

The Doctor: Kate, get Ruby to the Time Window.
Ruby Sunday: Wh-- What for?
Kate Stewart: You do not question, you move!

Harriet: He is hidden in the howling void, he is hidden within the tempest...
Kate Stewart: What...?
Harriet: He has braved the storm, and the darkness, and the pain. And he whispered to the vessel.
Morris Gibbins: Wh-- Who has? What do you mean?
Harriet: For all this time, he whispered, and delighted, and seduced, and the vessel did obey, for none shall be more mighty and none shall be more wise than the king himself.
Kate Stewart: Harriet. What are you doing?
Harriet: And the Lord of Time was blind and vain and knew nothing.

Susan Triad: But who am I?!
Harriet: There is the Toymaker, the god of games. There is Trickster, the god of traps. There is Maestro, the god of music. There is Reprobate, the god of spite.
[Susan falls to her knees, wailing, and Bailey tries to comfort her]
Doctor: No, no, no! Get away from her! Don't touch her!
Harriet: There is the Mara, the god of beasts, and the threefold deity of malice and mischief and misery.
Vlinx: Warning. Manifestation.
Harriet: There are gods of skin and shame and secrets.
[A black cloud is forming around the TARDIS]
Mel: Doctor, she needs you!
Harriet: There is Incensor, the god of disaster, and her children called Doubt and Dread. And standing on high is the mother and father and other of them all.
Kate Stewart: Whatever it is... here it comes.
Harriet: For the god of all gods has returned. And his names are many. His name has been Set, and Seth, and Sithifer. And his one true name for evermore is... Sutekh!
The Doctor: ...It was the wrong anagram.
[The cloud materializes into a snarling, jackal-like creature looming over the TARDIS]
Morris: Probable trap... 100%.
The Doctor: Mel, get away from her. Both of you, don't let her touch you!
Mel: Bailey, get back. Leave her alone.
Bailey: You said you were a doctor! Why don't you try to help...?
[Susan's face snaps up at him, now red-eyed and skull-like]
Harriet: Sutekh is the god of death, and by his hand, all creation shall fall into dust and ashes and ruin!
[Susan grabs Bailey's arm, and he immediately dissolves into sand; Sutekh laughs cruelly]
Susan Triad: I bring Sutekh's gift of death... to all humanity.
Sutekh: I am Sutekh, the god of death. I am the night. I am the terror. I am the loss.
Ruby: [approached by a robed, hooded figure] Mum?
Sutekh: And all life will perish at my hand! [laughs]
Susan Triad: Did you think I was family, Doctor? I bring Sutekh's gift of death... for you, and for all in your tiny, vile, incessant universe!
Mrs. Flood: Do you believe in the power of prayer?
Cherry Sunday: I most certainly do.
Mrs. Flood: Then tell your maker I will come to storm down his gates of gold and seize his kingdom in my true name.

Sutekh: [gripping the TARDIS] We meet again, my old friend.
The Doctor: Don't you dare...!
Ruby: Doctor, what is that thing?
The Doctor: Sutekh. The Death of Ages. The Typhonian Beast. The greatest monster I have ever fought. [sees scenes from their previous encounter on his monitor] The time window has my memories too.
Mel: It's your life, Doctor. It's telling the story of your life.
The Doctor: A long time ago, in the England of 1911, Sutekh had been bound and imprisoned for all eternity, but he rose again, and I defeated him. I cast you into the Time Vortex, I sent you forward to your own death!
Sutekh: Instead, I found a home. I clung to your infernal machine, and for so many years, I hid. I have travelled with you for all this time, riding the spine of your ship, staring into eternity and evolving into my true godhood. Now I know every beat of the heart of your time machine, and I can bend it to my will. It will stand as my altar. The temple of my empire of death. Never yours again, Doctor, never. And I saw, inside the TARDIS, so many secrets. Her name.
The Doctor: Susan.
Sutekh: The perfect trap. I created an apparition of her universally. Every time we landed, on every single world, I birthed them all. My angels of death, now standing triumphant across the universe. Every living thing is an abomination. I am come to release them into blessed death - and I find that good.
The Doctor: Then I damn you, Sutekh! I damn you in the name of life itself! And I swear to you, with both the hearts of the last of the Time Lords, I will stop you! I will defeat you! And I will turn back death! And why... am I still alive? Killing me is your gift. And believe me, Sutekh, I'm an extinction event. So what is stopping you? Why is the god of death not killing me? What am I missing? I'll tell you a secret, Sutes. This feeling that you have now, this doubt... have you ever felt so alive? And doesn't it feel good?

The Doctor: She's dead. She's dead, Ruby, I'm sorry. I loved you, Mel.
Melanie Bush: [now completely possessed by Sutekh] And what good did love do, Doctor? When did it ever help?

The Doctor: You saw all of time and space with me, Sutekh! So I thought: what if you see it again? What happens if you bring death to death? You bring life!

The Doctor: Sutekh the Destroyer, the lord god of death itself... you win! Because I pride myself! I pride myself that I am better than you! Because if you're death, then I must represent life! Surely that's what I am - life! And that's how you win, Sutekh. Because you turned me into this! I am the one that brings death.

Mrs. Flood: And that's how the story of the Church on Ruby Road comes to an end - with a very happy ending for little Ruby Sunday! But life goes on, doesn't it? Ruthlessly! "And what happens", you might wonder... "oh, what happens to that mysterious traveller in time and space known as the Doctor?" I'm sorry to say his story ends in absolute terror. Night-night!

Series 15 / Season 2

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(25 December 2024)
Trev: Sorry, is that a toilet?
The Doctor: Is it a what?!
Trev: You've got a newspaper.
The Doctor: And a coffee. Who takes a coffee to the loo?
Trev: I d-dunno... Each to their own. Is somebody else in there?
The Doctor: N... Ah, yes. [The Doctor tuts, noting that he has taken two cups.] Habit. Never get used to them leaving. Here. Keep the mug. It's bigger on the inside.

The Doctor: Package deals for all of history's biggest hits? No wonder there's no room at the inn.

Joy: H-How can there be two of you?
The Doctor: There aren't. He's the future. He's me after I get the code.
Future Doctor: I'm not the future - he is the past. The future is this way. Come on.
The Doctor: No, no! How does this work? How do I get to be you?
Future Doctor: The long way 'round.
The Doctor: Yes, but how long?!
Future Doctor: You'll find out.
The Doctor: What do I do, where do I go?!
Future Doctor: You will find out.
The Doctor: Oh, do you see?! That is why nobody likes you! You have to be mysterious all the time! That's why everyone leaves you. That is why you are always alone.

Anita: Who are you not phoning? You keep looking at the phone, it's very obvious.
The Doctor: Nobody.
Anita: Name?
The Doctor: Ruby. Ruby Sunday.
The Doctor: What's the problem with Ruby? No problem. Just... gotta let people get on with their lives.
Anita: Yeah. You and me. Letting people get on with their lives. For Auld Lang Syne.

Joy: When you explain things, do people feel any better?
The Doctor: Not usually, no. [to his past self] Be kind. You'll miss her.

The Doctor: You see, a house, that's a... That's a disguise. It's a fortress. You can... you can hide yourself away with... with pictures and flowers and... and tables, but... a hotel room? That's you without make-up. It's what do you think you need. It's what you're willing to accept. Not a selfie that you posed for, more like catching yourself in the mirror. What's your mirror telling you, Joy?

The Doctor: Wherever there is a corporation, there is PR; they just can't stop themselves. Evil... goes global.

[15.1]

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ER Nurse: There's a doctor looking for you.
Belinda: Tell me about it. See you tomorrow.

Ruby: Everyone, just stay inside, call your friends, your family, and just tell them to stay indoors, alright?
Pub Patron: Sorry, love -- who put you in charge?
Ruby: Or go and get some fresh air, big man, see what happens.
  NODES
Note 1