Quotes

[Ohio8]

Bill: "Great colors, Joe. I'm gonna stick with 'em."

Marnie: "Is that the act of a rational man?"

Joe: "Bill..."
Bill: What?"
Joe: "Pay the two dollars."

[KayEn78]

Joe: "Unless you're growin', sit down!"

[MA]

Clayton Fillmore: Sgt. Friday, lead the way. Don't look so hangdog. How old did you say those two were that you say I hit?
Friday: The woman was 67; the man was 73.
Fillmore: Well, I'm sorry, but it isn't as if they were going to live much longer, anyway. Isn't that right?
Lawyer: I'd suggest that you don't say anything more, Clay.
Clayton Fillmore: But it's true. I am sorry.
Friday: Yeah, well sorry won't bring them back, Fillmore.
Fillmore: [sarcastically] The dedicated cop.
Lawyer: Now you have a right to remain silent, Clay. I advise you to do so.
Friday: There's no rule against him listening, is there?
Lawyer: Depends on what you say to him, sergeant.
Friday: Yeah, well, I'll try to be careful. Fillmore, maybe as far as you're concerned, those two people lived all the life you figure they should. But what gives you the right to end it for them? It really doesn't bother you, does it? You were in a 30 mile zone, you were doing 50, maybe 55 miles an hour. Those two people you hit were knocked 77 feet, six inches down the street from the point of impact. We believe you'd been drinking this time, too. This isn't the first time for you. You got a drunk driving record that goes back to your high school days. Every time, you've beaten it, haven't you? Down the hall there is traffic enforcement division. We've got good laws and they try and enforce them, but they have an impossible job. There are 130 miles of freeway in this city, better than six thousand miles of surface streets. Every ten minutes, there's an accident; every ten minutes, somebody like you tries to kill himself or somebody else. You blew 20 minutes of that time all by yourself. Mister, you killed two human beings; two people who were alive and breathing seconds before you ran 'em down, and you've got the monumental gall to stand here and say they wouldn't have lived much longer. You may be out on bail in a couple of hours, and if so, you take this to lunch with you. Two people are lying over there in the county morgue, and you put 'em there. You were in a hurry the night you killed 'em, you're in a hurry now to see how fast you can forget. I want to wish you a lot of luck. I hope it takes the rest of your life.

[storrs19]

Joe: Well it’s gonna be a little bit rough for you now.
Lumis: Why’s that?
Joe: Where you’re going there aren’t any Misters.
Lumis: Is that so?
Joe: That’s right. Just numbers.

From one of my favorite episodes. “Burglary: Mister” and Daniel Lumis is a real creep.

[MA]

Friday: Don't think you have a corner on all the virtue vision in the country or that everyone else is fat and selfish and yours is the first generation to come along that's felt dissatisfied. They all have, you know, about different things; and most of them didn't have the opportunity and freedoms that you have. Let's talk poverty. Most places in the world, that's not the problem; it's a way of life. And rights? They're liable to give you a blank stare because they may not know what you're talking about. The fact is more people are living better right here than anywhere else ever before in history. So don't expect us to roll over and play dead when you say you're dissatisfied. It's not perfect; but it's a great deal better than when we grew up: a hundred men standing in the street hoping for one job, selling apples on the street corner. That's one of the things we were dissatisfied about, and you don't see that much anymore.
Gannon: You're taller, stronger, healthier, and you live longer than the last generation; and we don't think that's altogether bad. You've probably never seen a "Quarantine" sign on a neighbor's door. Diphtheria, scarlet fever, whooping cough; probably none of your classmates are crippled with polio. You don't see many mastoid scars anymore. We've done quite a bit of fighting all around the world. Whether you think it was moral or not a lot of people are free to make their own mistakes today because of it. And that may just include you.
Friday: I don't know, maybe part of it's the fact that you're in a hurry. You've grown up on instant orange juice. Flip a dial - instant entertainment. Dial seven digits - instant communication. Turn a key - push a pedal - instant transportation. Flash a card - instant money. Shove in a problem - push a few buttons - instant answers. But some problems you can't get quick answers for, no matter how much you want them. We took a little boy into Central Receiving Hospital yesterday; he's four years old. He weighs eight-and-a-half pounds. His parents just hadn't bothered to feed him. Now give me a fast answer to that one; one that'll stop that from ever happening again. And if you can't settle that one, how about the 55,000 Americans who'll die on the highway this year? That's nearly six or seven times the number that'll get killed in Vietnam. Why aren't you up in arms about that? Or is dying in a car somehow moral? Show me how to wipe out prejudice. I'll settle for the prejudices you have inside yourselves. Show me how to get rid of the unlimited capacity for human beings to make themselves believe they're somehow right - and justified - in stealing from somebody, or hurting somebody, and you'll just about put this place here out of business!
Gannon: Don't think we're telling you to lose your ideals or your sense of outrage. They're the only way things ever get done. And there's a lot more that still needs doing. And we hope you'll tackle it. You don't have to do anything dramatic like coming up with a better country. You can find enough to keep you busy right here. In the meantime, don't break things up in the name of progress or crack a placard stick over someone's head to make him see the light. Be careful of his rights. Because your property and your person and your rights aren't any better than his. And the next time you may be the one to get it. We remember a man who killed six million people, and called it social improvement.
Friday: Don't try to build a new country. Make this one work. It has for over four hundred years; and by the world's standards, that's hardly more than yesterday.

[Ohio8]

Joe: (v.o.)"It's the lure of easy living that attracts most people to Lo Angeles."

Joe: "I carry a badge."

Joe: "I used to date a librarian."

Bill: ""Oh, you put out a good bowl of chili, Bonnie."

Bonnie: "They ain't all Shirley Temple, you know."

Joe: "...and I never heard of a funeral at night."

Bill: "The Japanese do it all the time."

Bill: "A little? Looks old enough to be my grandfather."

[MA]

Sgt. Friday :''When a man signs on the job, a lot of things come with the badge. The risk, the pay, the hours he works. One thing that isn't regulation issue; his personal feelings. There's no way of regulating an officer's thoughts when he's on an investigation. He becomes hardened at the sight of a dead human being, to the grotesque, the hideous, to man's inhumanity, his almost casual ability to murder. To take another's life. Once in a great while, an officer's knees bend; if they buckle, he's been on the job too long."

[Ohio8]

Opening narration: "The story you are about to see is true. The names were changed to protect the innocent."

[MA]

Sargent Joe Friday: [Friday is explaining what happens in the first second of a head-on collision at 55 MPH] There are people who've taken that first second of impact and they've broken it down into tenths. Now you're driving 55 miles an hour, and you have a head-on; this is what happens.
"In the first tenth of that fatal second, the front bumper and grill collapses.
"During the second tenth your hood rises and strikes the windshield, fenders begin wrapping themselves around the object of collision, you slam on your brakes, but your body is still moving at 55 miles an hour. You stiffen your legs for the jolt, but they both snap at the knee joint.
"During the third tenth of a second, your body catapults from the seat, broken knees ram into the dashboard. The steering wheel begins to collapse, the steering column drives toward your chest.
"In the fourth tenth, two feet of the car's front end are totally demolished, but the rear end is still travelling at 35 miles an hour; your body is moving forward at 55.
"In the fifth tenth, your body's impaled on the steering column, blood rushes into your lungs.
"During the sixth tenth, the force of impact has built up so that your feet are ripped out of their shoes, the brake pedal shears off, the car frame buckles in the middle, your head slams into the windshield.
"In the seventh tenth of a second, the entire car body is distorted, hinges rip off, doors spring open, the seat flails from striking from behind... but it really doesn't matter. You're dead. You aren't around to experience the final three-tenths of this one second. Neither are your passengers. It doesn't take long to die.

[Ohio8]

Friday: (v.o.)"Sometimes people seek employment outside the law. When they do, I try to stop 'em. I carry a badge."

[MA]

Joe Friday: "Now, I'm not going to beat around the bush. We're here to find out what happened to that gun."

[MA]

Camille: [Friday and Gannon are talking to Camille who is not very cooperative] You got a lot of nerve waking me up in the middle of the night like this.
Policewoman Dorothy Miller: These are Los Angeles police officers. They want to ask you some questions.
Officer Bill Gannon: It's our duty to inform you that you have the right to...
Camille: [Interrupting] Answer or not answer, get me a lawyer. I know the whole scam. You got a cigarette?
Officer Bill Gannon: You old enough to smoke?
Camille: I'm old enough to do anything, including clam up. I know my rights, fuzz, and I got a right to not talk to you. You're wasting your time and my beauty sleep cuz I ain't telling you nothing, not a thing about nothing. Now what about that cigarette and let me get back to that fleabag they call a cell.
[Friday gives her a a cigarette and a light]
Camille: You've got nice eyes - for a cop.
[She blows smoke into Friday's face]
Friday: And I bet your mother had a loud bark.

[Ohio8]

Friday: (narrating)"This time, however, I had no choice."

Gannon: (to Friday)"You'll do anything to keep from getting married, won't you?"

Friday: "I wear a badge, Paul, not a swastika."

Frank: "...you ought to understand what we're trying to do!"
FRiday: "We do. That's why we're closing you down."

[Ohio8]

Friday: "All we want are the facts, ma'am."

[MA]

Ambulance Attendant: Hammer, looks like the first two blows did it.
Friday: The last four changed his personality.