- Ensign Harry Kim: [of the Vhnori] You think they do have an afterlife? That the energy field is where they exist at a higher level of consciousness, just like they believe?
- Captain Kathryn Janeway: I'm not certain. But I am certain about this: what we don't know about death... is far, far greater than what we do know.
- Captain Kathryn Janeway: This may not make much sense to you now - a young man at the beginning of his career. But one of the things you learn as you move up the ranks and get a little older is that... you wish you had more time in your youth to really... absorb all the things that happen to you. It goes by so fast. It's so easy to become jaded, to treat the extraordinary like just another day at the office. But sometimes... there are experiences which transcend all that. You've just had one, Mr. Kim. And I want you to live with it for a little while. Write about it if you feel like it. Paint. Express yourself in some fashion. The bridge will still be there in two days.
- Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres: [having come across a burial ground, Chakotay, with Janeway's support, has forbidden tricorder scans out of respect for the dead] Well, I think I've found out about all I can with my eyes.
- Commander Chakotay: Really? What have you learned about this culture so far?
- Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres: They like to bury their dead on asteroids. That's about all I can tell without a tricorder. No artifacts, no inscriptions, just some naked dead people.
- [first lines]
- Captain Kathryn Janeway: Captain's log, stardate 48623.5 - There are 246 elements known to Federation science. We believe we have just discovered the 247th, inside the ring system of a class D planet.
- [the Doctor has identified the biopolymer resin as a byproduct of the decomposition process of the dead Vhnori]
- Commander Chakotay: So the other biopolymer fibers we found in the cavern were...
- The Doctor: ...were probably the result of other bodies that had decomposed and left a residual membrane. In essence, Commander, you were strolling through dead bodies.
- Ensign Harry Kim: Do you have any star charts I could look at? I'd like to figure out where I am now in relation to where I was.
- Dr. Neria: Where you are now is in the world of the living. Where you came from was... another dimension.
- Ensign Harry Kim: Another dimension?
- Dr. Neria: Yes. You returned from the Next Emanation - the afterlife.
- Hatil: I have to admit, there is a little voice inside of me that is terrified of dying. And since I've been talking to you, that little voice has started to get... louder.