Murder, She Wrote

Ben Oliver:
[explaining his stay in the VA hospital and his later nomadic behavior] OK then, I'll give it to you in one quick swallow. You see, Corporal, when a mortar round hits close enough it not only explodes, it implodes at the very same time. This causes a vacuum, a force that sucks part of your being out through the top of your skull. For lack of a better word, let's call it your soul. But what most people don't know is souls are a hell of a lot more fragile than human flesh. Sometimes they just never seem to heal.

Jessica Fletcher:
I've got the name of a very good lawyer, and is there anything else you need?

Howard Griffin:
How about a pair of pants?

Sheriff Amos Tupper:
He's got an arrest sheet as long as a chorus girl's legs.

Jessica Fletcher:
There are three things you can never have enough of in life, Lieutenant: chocolate, friends and the theatre.

Jessica Fletcher:
Didn't even notice that the thorns were real?

Damien Bolo:
I was so nervous, I could've been handling a porcupine and not known it.

Jessica Fletcher:
She appears to have sustained a puncture wound on the palms of her hands. Probably from the thorns on rose, you'll probably want to test the rose for poison.

SFPD Lt. Martin Kinicki:
And you are?

Jessica Fletcher:
Jessica Fletcher.

SFPD Lt. Martin Kinicki:
[smiles] I thought that was you, my wife's read all your books.

Jessica Fletcher:
There's just something that doesn't seem right.

SFPD Lt. Martin Kinicki:
Yeah, it's these grown men running around in their long underwear flapping their arms, which they do a lot of in ballet.

Jessica Fletcher:
You made such a point that you wanted to reconstruct the ballet exactly as it had happened, but the film showed the ballerina never touching the skull. You arranged for it so that Lily would *clutch* the skull.

SFPD Lt. Martin Kinicki:
The one with the needles laced with Thallium.

Jessica Fletcher:
Puncturing her palms and killing her within a matter of seconds.

Capt. Ethan Cragg:
Amos, you've been reading too many of Jessica's books.

Sheriff Amos Tupper:
Well, that's how much you know, Ethan. I haven't read any of 'em.

Nettie Harper:
Mark my words, Jessie. There's going to be fireworks in this hotel tonight, and I love it.

Marcus Boswell:
Let me tell you something, Spencer. You are talking about a perfectly-normal dog as if he's possessed. You've been seeing too many Stephen King movies.

Margo Perry:
I'm a scientist, not a waitress.

Jessica Fletcher:
Preserves are terribly difficult to get out of a suede purse, aren't they?

Jessica Fletcher:
So if I finish a chapter of my new book in Cabot Cove, I can send it through the PHONE lines to my publisher in New York?

Sheriff Mort Metzger:
Mrs Fletcher! Can I see you for a minute? [pause] I said, do me a favor, please, and tell me what goes on in this town!

Jessica Fletcher:
I'm sorry, but...

Sheriff Mort Metzger:
I've been here one year, this is my fifth murder. What is this, the death capitol of Maine? On a per capita basis this place makes the south Bronx look like Sunny Brooke farms!

Jessica Fletcher:
But I assure you Sheriff...

Sheriff Mort Metzger:
I mean, is that why Tupper quit? He couldn't take it anymore? Somebody really should've warned me, Mrs. Fletcher. Now, perfect strangers are coming to Cabot Cove to die! I mean look at this guy! You don't know him, I don't know him. He has no ID, we don't know the first thing about this guy.

Dr. Aubrey Benton:
Archeology is a harsh mistress, Mrs. Fletcher.

Chad Singer:
I want you hangin' on him like wallpaper.

Lt. Faraday:
Oh, I think writing is a real good hobby for a woman. You can cook up some supper, you can chat on the phone, then pop over to the old typewriter now and then for a few minutes.

Jessica Fletcher:
Yes, when I am not too busy beating laundry against the rocks in the river.

Earl:
[as Sheriff Keeyani walks up] Well, if it ain't Tonto!

Sheriff Sam Keeyani:
That's Sheriff Tonto to you.

Charlotte Newcastle:
I want you to stay away from Edwin's daughter. Satisfy your needs elsewhere.

Nate Findley:
Is that an order? Or an offer?

Lt. Casey:
[to Jessica Fletcher] If murder were a disease, you'd be contagious.

Jessica Fletcher:
[to Cheryl Lodge] I don't want to alarm you but something very sinister is going on here.

Daphne Clover:
You want the story on Nick? I'll give it to you in one word. Stud.

Sheriff Amos Tupper:
What am I going to do about the fact that Irene Rutledge has no legal claim to Tommy?

Jessica Fletcher:
Amos, if I were you, I would develop amnesia.

Sheriff Amos Tupper:
Save a lot of paperwork, too.

Danny Briggs:
I've got people to answer to. People who'll peel away my hide if I don't deliver.

Retired Lt. Richard Webb:
I thought she was playing bedsheet bingo with the boss.

Maxwell Hagen:
Robert, you are absolutely right to assume that there are few things in this life that cannot be fixed, but killing a prominent novelist is simply not an acceptable option. [pause] Not for the moment, at least.

Brynie Sullivan:
Jess! You're becoming almost cynical enough to survive in this town!

[Police Chief Gunderson questions Preston Giles and his house guests]

Chief Roy Gunderson:
Suppose you tell me what happened here last night, Mr. Giles. Folks don't go 'round gettin' half their heads blown off for no reason. I'm lookin' for motive.

Peter Brill:
For killing Caleb McCallum? Surely you jest. Half the country had reason to kill him. The other half didn't know him.

Chief Roy Gunderson:
Not funny, friend.

Ashley Vickers:
But accurate. The Captain wasn't particularly well loved. Though I doubt that any of us despised him enough to kill him.

Louise McCallum:
Except for me. That's what you're all thinking, isn't it? I didn't kill my husband. At least... I don't think I did.

Roger Philby:
Slander can be an expensive indulgence.

Donna Mayberry Fletcher:
I feel marvelous... for an egg-shaped person.

Harry Dial:
Now look, lady. If you're so interested in male anatomy, I can give you a good look at mine - all of it.

Sheriff Mort Metzger:
The job doesn't pay enough to buy hair curlers for a skin head.

Horatio Baldwin:
Don't you go to the movies?

Jessica Fletcher:
When Cary Grant bowed out, so did I.

Woman:
I don't understand how you could do it. I mean you said yourself he was your friend. The guy he murdered was probably a killer several times over, a lot worse than your friend. So why do it?

Jessica Fletcher:
Yes, well uh, it was, it, it was the hardest thing that I've ever done. But, popular culture not withstanding there is such a thing as right and wrong. The taking of a human life for any reason is wrong. You can never nudge the moral compass far from its true North without losing something vital. A compass is essential for everyone, writers in particular. Yuri Malenkovich asked why I investigate murders. He said that I had to have a personal agenda. Well he was quite right. It's important to me to pursue those who cross the line, and take another human life. In my investigating murders, I've seen some terrible things. So many of them it would take the wind out of anybody's sails.