- Angel: The world wants me gone.
- Buffy Summers: What about me? I love you so much... And I tried to make you go away... I killed you, and it didn't help... And I hate it! I hate that it's so hard... and that you can hurt me so much... I *know* everything that you did because you did it to me. Oh, God. I wish that I wished you dead... I don't...
- [whispers]
- Buffy Summers: I can't.
- Angel: Buffy, please... Just this once... let me be strong.
- Buffy Summers: Strong is fighting. It's hard and it's painful and it's every day. It's what we have to do. And we can do it together. But if you're too much of a coward for that, then burn. If I can't convince you that you belong in this world then I don't know what can. But do not expect me to watch. And don't expect me to mourn for you, because...
- [it starts snowing, the clouds blocking the sunrise]
- Angel: Look, I'm weak. I've never been anything else. It's not the demon in me that needs killing, Buffy. It's the man.
- Buffy Summers: You're weak. Everybody is. Everybody fails. Maybe this evil did bring you back, but if it did, it's because it needs you. And that means that you can hurt it... Angel, you have the power to do real good, to make amends. But if you die now, then all that you ever were was a monster.
- Jenny Calendar: [as the First] You think you can fight me? I'm not a demon, little girl. I am something that you can't even conceive... The first Evil. Beyond sin, beyond death... I am the thing the darkness fears. You'll never see me, but I am everywhere. Every being, every thought, every drop of hate...
- Buffy Summers: All right, I get it. You're evil. Do we have to chat about it all day?
- Angel: It told me to kill you. You were in the dream. You know. It told me to lose my soul in you and become a monster again.
- Buffy Summers: I know what it told you. What does it matter?
- Angel: Because I wanted to! Because I want you so badly. I wanna take comfort in you and I know it'll cost me my soul and a part of me doesn't care.
- Angel: I need to know... I need to know why I'm here.
- Rupert Giles: Here...? Back on Earth?
- Angel: I should be in a demon dimension suffering an eternity of torture.
- Rupert Giles: I don't feel particularly inclined to argue with that.
- Angel: I... I can't come in unless you invite me.
- [Giles re-enters holding a loaded crossbow]
- Rupert Giles: I'm aware of that.
- Buffy Summers: What are you doing for Christmas?
- Willow Rosenberg: Being Jewish. Remember, people? Not everybody worships Santa.
- Buffy Summers: I Just meant for vacation.
- Willow Rosenberg: Hmm. Nothing fun. Oz and I had planned... But I guess that is off.
- [answering knock on door and finding Angel]
- Rupert Giles: Hello.
- Angel: Um... I'm sorry to bother you.
- Rupert Giles: [begins laughing sourly] Sor... Sorry. Coming from you that phrase strikes me as rather funny. Sorry to bother me.
- Angel: I need your help.
- Rupert Giles: And the funny keeps on coming.
- Buffy Summers: Who are these guys?
- Rupert Giles: Uh, they're known as the, uh, as the Bringers or-or Harbingers. They're high priests of the First. They, uh, they can conjure spirit manifestations and set them on people, influence them, haunt them.
- Buffy Summers: These are the guys working the mojo on Angel.
- Xander Harris: We gotta stop 'em.
- Rupert Giles: You-you-you can't fight the First, Buffy. It's not a-a physical being.
- Buffy Summers: Well, I-I can fight these priest guys.
- [Buffy and Joyce are decorating their tree, Buffy is zoned out]
- Joyce Summers: So, Angel's on top again.
- Buffy Summers: What?
- Joyce Summers: Angel or star?
- Buffy Summers: Oh, uh, star.
- Buffy Summers: So we'll help him?
- Rupert Giles: [pause] Yes.
- Xander Harris: [entering] Where do we start...? Look, I'm aware I haven't been the mostest best friend to you when it comes to the whole Angel thing. And, um... I don't know. Maybe I finally got the Hanukah spirit.
- Angel: What do you want?
- Jenny Calendar: I wanna die in bed surrounded by fat grandchildren but... guess that's off the menu.
- Buffy Summers: Vampires probably not that big on Christmas, now that I think about it.
- Angel: Not as a rule.
- Buffy Summers: And then he just bailed. He didn't say anything. He just took off. It was so weird.
- Xander Harris: Angel? Weird? What are the odds?
- Cordelia Chase: Well, I'll be in Aspen... skiing... with *actual* snow.
- Buffy Summers: I hear that helps.
- Rupert Giles: These letters contain references to an ancient power know as the First.
- Buffy Summers: First what?
- Rupert Giles: Evil. Absolute evil, older than man, than demons. It could have had the power to bring Angel back.
- Angel: I wanted to know why I was back. Now I do.
- Buffy Summers: You don't know. Some great evil takes credit for bringing you back, and you buy it? You just give up?
- [first lines]
- [Dublin, 1838]
- Angel: Daniel... Where were you going?
- Daniel: You... You're not human.
- Angel: Not of late, no.
- Daniel: Wh-What do you want?
- Angel: Well, it happens that I'm hungry Daniel and seeing as that you're somewhat in me debt...
- Daniel: Please, I can't.
- Angel: A man playing at cards should have a natural intelligence or a great deal of money, and you're sadly lacking in both.
- Joyce Summers: You know, honey, I was thinking... maybe we should invite Faith to spend Christmas Eve with us.
- Buffy Summers: I don't know. Faith and I don't really hang out or talk or make eye contact, lately.
- Joyce Summers: Do you really wanna let her spend Christmas Eve all by herself in that dingy little motel room?
- Buffy Summers: You're still number one with the guilt trip, Mom.
- Joyce Summers: I try.
- [doing research on how to help Angel]
- Buffy Summers: Are you sure this is how you wanna spend your Christmas vacation?
- Xander Harris: Yeah, this is actually the most exciting thing I've got planned. Who else can claim that pathetic a social life?
- Willow Rosenberg: [entering] Hey, guys. What are we doing?
- [last lines]
- Weatherman: [on TV] And while most of Southern California is enjoying a balmy Christmas, an extreme cold front has sprung up out of nowhere around Sunnydale, where they are reporting heavy snowfall for the first time in, well, ever. Sunnydale residents shouldn't expect to see the sun at all today. That cold front isn't going anywhere. With temperatures in the high 30s , means you better bundle up if you're planning to go outside and enjoy the change in the weather.
- Willow Rosenberg: [about Oz] He's gonna come over on Christmas Eve 'cause my parents are out of town. We're gonna watch videos. That's good, right?
- Buffy Summers: You guys are back.
- Willow Rosenberg: It's good. It's perfect... in an awkward, uncomfortable sort of way.
- Male Ghost: [as the First, tormenting Angel] The thing I remember most... was thinking how artful it was. In the dark, they looked just like they were sleeping. It wasn't until I bent down and kissed them good night that I felt how cold they were. You grabbed me, and I thought, "Who would go to so much trouble to arrange them like that?"
- [assumes the form of Margaret]
- Margaret: But you see, that's what makes you different than other beasts. They kill to feed, but you took more kinds of pleasure in it than any creature that walks or crawls.
- Angel: Oh, God.
- Margaret: Yeah, cry out. Make a scene.
- Daniel: I was to be married that week. But then, as I recall, you knew that.
- Angel: It wasn't me.
- Jenny Calendar: It wasn't you?
- Angel: A demon isn't a man. I was a man once.
- Jenny Calendar: Oh, yes, and what a man you were.
- [flashback to Angel carousing as a human]
- Margaret: A drunken, whoring layabout, and a terrible disappointment to your parents.