Law & Order, Season 1

Dr. Auster:
You solve every case you work on?

Logan:
We can tell a felony from a traffic ticket.

Dr. Auster:
Look, a patient walks in with a headache. She could have a subarachnoid hemorrhage, a berry aneurysm, a retro-orbital tumor...or does she just have a headache? Do you give her an aspirin? Or do you saw open her skull?

Max:
You make this speech at funerals?

Nevins:
Isn't it possible that pneumonia killed Suzanne Morton?

Medical Examiner:
It's possible that death rays from Mars killed her. But I don't think so.

Dr. Auster:
Well, people like to believe that medicine is pure science. Medicine is a science. But doctors know it's also a lottery.

Stone:
We got what we needed from Dr. Simonson.

Dr. Auster:
An intern, Mr. Stone. Are you planning on asking the cleaning lady to testify, too? About the time I threw the tissue into the wastepaper basket and missed?

Stone:
You know the difference between Auster and a serial killer?

Robinette:
The weapon.

Dr. Auster:
When you practice medicine, Mr. Stone, sometimes the patient dies.

Stone:
And when you're a lawyer, Dr. Auster, some of the people you prosecute are convicted.

Dr. Raza:
My children want to stay in this country, my wife wants to stay, and to stay, all I have to do is to be perfect all the time!

Logan:
Well you, uh, fell a little short of perfection on Suzanne Morton's chart.

Stone:
Do you have any other personal views on this subject you'd like to air before we walk into court and Ms. Shambala Green hands us our asses on a platter?

Max:
What do you want?

Stone:
I'd like someone around here to stay on one side of the issue for 10 seconds!

Stone:
You said 'Here's your taste'. Sounds rather cool!

Logan:
We're not talking about 'Squeaky' Fromme here.

Max:
Do you think a lot of cops are gay?

Logan:
No way, man. The department's got a special test. They look you in the eye, and if your left eye blinks before your right eye, they know you're gay. [blinks at Greevey with his left eye]

Curry:
What gives you the right to decide how I should live the rest of my life?

Stone:
Unfortunately, you did. Not once, not twice, but 3 times.

[A defendant has just punched Stone in the jaw]

Stone:
It only hurts when I prosecute.

Max:
How many times would you go out with her before you went to bed with her?

Logan:
Once. [Max looks appalled] Hey, what do you want, a bedtime story? I'd wait until the honeymoon?

Max:
Did you ever hear about a new disease they got, called AIDS?

Logan:
Did you ever hear of a new invention called condoms?

Logan:
Are we 'your kind of people'?

Manager:
Well, you make it in the looks department, but the wardrobe needs a lot of help.

Robinette:
At least we gave them justice.

Stone:
Justice doesn't give you grandchildren.

Max:
And guess who it was registered to?

Stone:
Himes, Gilbert?

Logan:
Nope. And not to Ralston, Janet, either.

Stone:
[surprised] Ralston, Alan?! Great. He was killed with his own gun.

Max:
That's amazing. I know cops who been in shooting cases that can't remember their badge numbers afterwards. Her husband gets shot, she gets shot, victim of a horrible crime, she remembers every second.

Stone:
True love. They'd sell each other out for a nickel.

Stone:
Either she's evil, or she's 2 years old. She wants what she wants when she wants it.

Ralston:
You don't scare me, Mr. Stone.

Stone:
Oh yes I do, Mrs. Ralston. I scare you a great deal. And I should.

Max:
I hate horseback riding. Scares the hell out of me.

Logan:
Scary for the horse, too.

Schell:
It's a crime of passion, Stone. Pure and simple.

Stone:
A crime of passion is never pure, and it's certainly not simple.

Simonize:
You ain't got nothing on me, except what he said. And that's just heresy.

Max:
The word's 'hearsay', Simonize.

Girl:
Are you the man?

Max:
We sure are, honey.

Hotel Worker:
50 cents! I've been working hotels for 40 years, and I ain't seen a 2-bit tip since those Kennedys been in office. You see what I'm getting' at? Then this duke asks me about getting a girl, and I tell him, "A big tipper like you don't need no girl!"

Jasmine:
You should have sent your partner. I don't usually do discipline, but I would love to teach him some manners.

[Max has arrested a prostitute]

Curtis:
You said you weren't a cop.

Max:
I lied.

Curtis:
Isn't there some kind of a legal thing about that?

Max:
What, lying? I'm allowed to lie. They pay me to lie.

Max:
What do you think?

Logan:
Of a hooker who's got a lawyer looks like he spends more on clothes than I make in a year? I think whoever's paying his bill ought to adopt me.

Cookie:
Look, the heart - that's not the part of the anatomy the girls are interested in.

Max:
[on Jasmine being bailed out quickly] Look at that. In and out.

Logan:
Just like work.

Logan:
Somebody heard that shot.

Cop:
In this neighborhood? You couldn't get a witness to a sunrise.

Lt. Gowdy:
We're all one family here, Sergeant.

Max:
You an only child? I got people in my family, I wouldn't believe 'em they told me the sky was blue.

Stone:
The truth will set you free. It won't always make you happy.

Captain Cragen:
If you're wrong, and you go after cops...

Max:
If I'm wrong, I'll go to the grand jury and say I killed the kid.

Reverend Thayer:
Now is the time to remember the real Tommy Richardson, and what he meant to this community. He was a symbol of what every child born into poverty could achieve. He gave back to his people his time, his energy, his love. And he tried to help even more. He tried to help others by giving money. But to get that money, he sold drugs. And he was shot to death in the gutter because of it. What Tommy Richardson wanted to do for his people was right! But he did it the wrong way! And the policeman who shot him, that was wrong, too! But it would not have happened... without drugs!

Schiff:
What does your gut tell you?

Stone:
Put 'em in a dungeon, put 'em on a wheel, and annihilate 'em.

Dr. Lowenstein:
Please. That was therapy.

Logan:
For her or for you?

Dr. Lowenstein:
For her! In Reichian therapy, the patient has to--

Max:
Really get to know the therapist, hmmm?

Stone:
Mrs. Lowenstein, tell the court why you struck your daughter hard enough to kill her.

Carla:
Well, I was loaded, and I really didn't think I had any strength left.

Stone:
Why would you do such a thing?

Carla:
My husband-- He convinced me to.

Dr. Lowenstein:
[jumps out of his seat] She's out of her mind!!

Judge Erdheim:
Dr. Lowenstein! One more outburst, and I'll have you shackled for the remainder of this trial!

Judge Erdheim:
[during the Lowensteins' sentencing hearing] As eloquent as your counsel was in your behalf, you are not the victim here, Mrs. Lowenstein. The victim was an innocent 6-year-old girl who couldn't defend herself. On the count of manslaughter in the first degree, the court sentences you to 7-10 years in a women's correctional facility. [to Dr. Lowenstein] As for you, sir, from this seat, I thought I had witnessed every degradation, every monstrosity possible, but you, Doctor, are beyond contempt. You have helped a woman destroy herself. You engineered the tragedy of a little girl's death. But you took pretty good care of yourself, didn't you?

Dr. Lowenstein:
Your honor, I've lost my family.

Judge Erdheim:
Yes, you have. Jacob Lowenstein, having been found guilty of murder in the second degree by depraved indifference to human life, this court sentences you to 25 years to life in a state penitentiary.

Captain Cragen:
Wow! I can see this leading to a whole new penological outlook -- we will only pursue homicides where the vic died in a state of grace.

Max:
[reading a personal ad] MBBF.

Logan:
Male bisexual bondage freak?

Pardee:
Don't make me testify. It'll ruin my career. I'm perfect for young dad parts in commercials.

Hendrick:
Art would be much more pleasant if we didn't have to deal with artists.

[Spoken as police remove a plethora of bondage equipment]

Hendrick:
It's my hope chest.

Stone:
What were you hoping for?

Stone:
Henry Rothman killed himself an hour ago. Couldn't face the thought of prison, I guess.

Hendrick:
Did anyone take a picture?

Robinette:
You think I sold out?

Stone:
Does it matter what I think? If it does I'll tell you, but it's something you got to decide for yourself.

Robinette:
You got a 'shave yourself in the morning' speech?

Stone:
Maybe. Do you think of yourself as a black lawyer, or a lawyer who's black?

Robinette:
Depends on the context.

Stone:
You make a decision based on something from within. You live with it, you examine it, it's all you got.

Robinette:
You think by morning I'll come to love it?

Stone:
No, but I don't think you'll have any problem with the guy in the mirror. See you tomorrow.

Eaton:
You look me in the eye and you tell me this system is just. This system is equal.

Robinette:
At times the system stinks, Eaton. I know that as well as you do. But don't for one damn minute tell me that your self-aggrandizing polarization is going to solve the problem. Don't tell me that tearing down a 200-year old justice system, no matter how flawed, is going to alter the consciousness of a society. Now, we're past the separate drinking-fountain stage. We're past legal discrimination. We're at the hearts and minds stage. And believe me, there's no quick fix.

Eaton:
Another zombified soul casts his vote for order rather than justice. Negative peace over positive peace.

Robinette:
Paraphrasing Martin Luther King's thoughts won't lend credence to yours. King walked with the angels...you'd slide in slime on your belly to get what you want.

Max:
17-year-olds shouldn't be doing the thing that makes babies.

Logan:
And crooks shouldn't have guns. Get real.

Stone:
Objection, this case is being judged on the temporal plane, your honor.

Kevin:
[about the effect of his sister's death] This morning, my father made himself a cup of coffee. Put in milk, sugar...then he went over to the sink and poured it down the drain. He didn't know what he was doing. I was taking the highway to work, and I forgot to get off. I got to 95th street before I realized. I used to have a sister, and suddenly...I don't.

Schiff:
Amazing. Getting angry. The most emotional issue that the law has dealt with since suffrage. Look at us: 3 men. Talking about what rights women should have over their own bodies. Now doesn't that strike you as a little one-sided?

Mr. Donovan:
Our daughter acted according to her own conscience. We can live with that-

Mrs. Donovan:
[interrupts him, distraught] YOU can live with that! A martyr will never be able to tell me what a wonderful day she had at school. A martyr will never have a wedding. A martyr will never have children!

Stone:
If you're gonna stick your finger in my eye, Mr. Ballard, clean your own nails first.

Stone:
If abortion is murder, then no matter how you feel about Mary Donovan, aren't you guilty of the murder of her unborn child?

Max:
What if it was just you and Walker, alone in an alley, he had no gun, and was willing to surrender?

Det. Profaci:
I'd shoot him in the face.

Cassie:
You know, when I was a little girl, mama used to tell me that you do good? You'll be okay. [pauses] I guess kids got to believe that. 'Else they'd never grow up.

Landlord:
I never got the fuss when a cop gets killed. You guys get paid to deal with scum- Whatcha think's gonna happen, you do that? 2 weeks, 3 weeks... you'll be gone. But I'll still be here, and so will the company that pays my salary.

Stone:
Do you know what this is?

Convict:
It's a gun.

Stone:
[sarcastically] Very good, can you spell gun?

Convict:
Sure. D-E-A-L.

Stone:
I see you've passed the spelling test.

Schiff:
I don't photograph well with egg on my face, how about you?

Hoover:
There is no fire like passion. There is no shark like hatred. There is no snare like folly. There is no torrent like greed.

Captain Cragen:
This is New York, remember? Sometimes people get beat up just for the hell of it. Sometimes they even get dead, it's a fact of life.

Logan:
Hey, they don't play by the rules, why should we?

Stone:
Because that's our job.

Stone:
'Big Frankie', ha, 'Dandy Don.'

Schiff:
You too can have monogrammed socks.

Logan:
Let me ask you something. If you liked Isaac so much, why'd you clean his register?

Hoover:
Didn't look like he was gonna need it.

Max:
Did you see anything unusual in the neighborhood this morning?

Delivery Worker:
It's Greenwich Village, man. You tell me.

McGinty:
I inspect 5 buildings a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year. So I missed a couple of violations, I'm human. You never lost a case, Mr. Stone?

Stone:
Well, one mistake is human. 2 is perhaps a lapse in concentration. 3 is stupid, but the same mistake consistently over a period of 2 years indicates another form of human fallibility here.

McGinty:
Such as what?

Stone:
Greed?

Judge Fishbein:
You lost, Mr. Robinette. This is America. One strike and you're out.

Robinette:
That's why we need a warrant.

Judge Fishbein:
[laughs] A warrant. Sounds like a fishing license to me.

Max:
[in a lot filled with exhumed corpses] What have we got so far?

Logan:
Masucci's greatest hits.

Stone:
Call Cragen and tell him to pick up Masucci.

Robinette:
For what?

Stone:
I don't give a damn. For spitting on the sidewalk.

Pilefsky:
You're bluffing.

Logan:
Yeah, you're right. We'd be real upset if something happened to a piece of crap like you.

Max:
From '80 to '88, Beigal made The Post's 50 Worst Landlords list. Last 2 years, he's spotless.

Captain Cragen:
Maybe he got religion.

Max:
You ever hear of Don Quixote?

Stone:
Did you ever hear about David and Goliath? And we have God on our side.

Logan:
[about Katherine] She did in 10 seconds what we couldn't do in 10 years: Put Masucci out of business. Permanently.

Stone:
Justice is blind, detective. Nobody said it was fair.

Captain Cragen:
Nobody has a "verbal altercation" anymore, you notice that?

Logan:
Ronald, stupid and tough is a bad combination.

Ronnie:
Yeah, well, it works for you, man, right?

Mrs. Griggs:
Maybe if we knew exactly what you were looking for-

Logan:
We wanna know who pulled the damn trigger! Because it sure as hell looks like your boy did it.

Mrs. Griggs:
[turns slowly to her son] Tell them, Ronnie.

Ronnie:
No.

[Mrs. Griggs raises her hand and slaps Ronnie]

Mrs. Griggs:
You think you can play this fool game with me?!!

[Logan and Max interrogate Dizz Williams, a suspect in the murder]

Mr. Williams:
My boy's 13. You can't do nothin' like this! You gotta go to juvie, you gotta...

Max:
We can do plenty when it comes to felony homicide, Mr. Williams! And if you don't wanna blow parole, just SHUT UP!!

Robinette:
We need motive.

Max:
Who says the little son of a bitch needs motive?

Captain Cragen:
Max...

Max:
What the hell's his motive for this anyway?! "He took my seat." BAM! "He looked at my girlfriend." BAM! "I need dem shoes." BAM!

Captain Cragen:
Max has been busting his chops on this case.

Robinette:
I understand...

Max:
Hey, I can apologize for myself, alright? Only I don't feel very apologetic! I'm fed up!

Kay's Attorney:
You haven't mentioned any incentives for cooperation.

Stone:
No? Well, how is this: if your client doesn't start talking now, I'll tear his life apart.

Stone:
The Commandment says: 'Thou shalt not kill.' It does not say 'Thou shalt not kill nice people.'

Shambala:
I'm going for temporary insanity.

Stone:
Yours or your client's?

Osinski:
[on the witness stand] Some of my money in bank, yeah.

Stone:
Some? Now, the bank records show that there was, last month, $6,011,301.26.

Osinski:
If you say so.

Stone:
And the month before that, $9,615.

Osinski:
Sounds right.

Stone:
A $6,000,000 difference, uh…good month at the discount store, sir?

Schiff:
A prosecution based on debt re-financing. That's going to get you real far with the jury.

Stone:
I'll lay it out for them. I'll draw them a Monopoly board.

Schiff:
Yeah, I'd like to see them get from 'Park Place' to 'Go.'

Logan:
 :[They look through a Lebanese restaurant's garbage ] How could somebody eat something that could even get to smell that bad?!

Agent Axelrod:
What's the matter with you guys in the D.A.'s office? Got no peripheral vision? Can't you see the big picture?

Robinette:
We're just not blinded by it.

Robinette:
Its a whole new concept: crime without punishment

McCarter:
I'm no terrorist. I'm a soldier.

Mallahan:
What he means is, he is a man of conscience.

Stone:
What he means is, he is the misguided, romantic dupe of those who consider him completely expendable.

Logan:
You know, it's weird. 2 of our grandparents come from the same town. We've both got uncles that's priests.

Max:
And you're both Libras. That's destiny for you.

Logan:
[reading faxes written in Arabic] Looks like a breakdancing chicken wrote this.

Max:
O'Connell will have you believing there's no snakes in Ireland.

Logan:
There aren't.

Max:
Uh, touché.

O'Connell:
May I ask you a question, sir? How with the map of Donegal on your mug did you ever end up with a name like Stone?

Stone:
Happenstance, sir. Same way you ended up with the name of a real Irish patriot.

[After O'Connell has dismissed lethal IRA operations as 'human error'; following the testimony of a woman whose family was killed by a bomb O'Connell himself planted]

Stone:
[to O'Connell] Take a good look. There's your "human error".

Logan:
[about McDaniel having his kidney stolen] Whoa! Talk about getting your pocket picked!

Cragen:
Grand theft kidney. Terrific.

Surgeon:
Kidney, kidney, never leave home without one.

Logan:
You didn't think it odd that she had an anaesthesia machine delivered right to her apartment?

Medical supplier:
Last week, I had a guy order 100 bedpans. For jello molds.

McDaniel:
[testifies in court about his kidney being taken] People talk about feeling violated when some punk breaks into their apartment and steals a TV set. I felt raped.

O.T.N. Executive:
The public must understand that the Organ Transplant Network is the one true democracy. One of the few instances where money doesn't talk. At all.

Woodleigh:
If you prosecute him, he'll die. I know he will. And for what? Mr. MacDaniel is going to be a very wealthy man.

Stone:
With only one kidney.

Woodleigh:
Just like I have, Mr. Stone. The hope is we'll both live long and happy lives.

Stone:
Please believe me, I'm glad you're healthy again. I know how close to death you were. But, Ms. Woodleigh, do you really think your father would have acted any differently if you had needed a heart instead of a kidney?

Max:
It's easier to bust out of Attica than to leave a hospital without paying.

Reberty's Attorney:
What's it going to take to make you happy, Stone?

Stone:
The Mets in the Series, peace on Earth, and Dr. Reberty in Dannemora.

Robinette:
Plane lands, 2:45. Doorman says Detective Shearer and his wife got home at 4. He went upstairs, dropped his bags, left again 10 minutes later.

Det. Shearer:
To get the drycleaning.

Benjamin Stone:
After your honeymoon? That's very romantic. Paul?

Robinette:
According to the doorman, Detective Shearer was gone for 3 hours.

Stone:
Your drycleaner in Philadelphia?

O'Farrell:
If there's any crookedness, I'll buy the whole department dinner.

Logan:
At these prices, you'll have to take out a second mortgage.

O'Farrell:
Only if I'm wrong.

Cragen:
This is freakin' amazing. I don't know a computer disk from a slipped disk.

Judge:
Before we adjourn, I want to note for the record that I am appalled. We often say that our public officials are not above the law, but that's not enough. They represent it; if they don't obey it, who will?

Logan:
Why are we bustin' her chops?

Max:
That the way you see it?

Logan:
Looks, 2 kids jump her on the subway, she defends herself, okay? We're not talking about 'Squeaky' Fromme here.

Shambala:
[to Di Biasi] You haven't said anything, I trust?

Logan:
Trust and lawyer, that's a pair of words that don't match.

Shambala:
How about cop and I.Q. over 90.

Maltese:
She was attacked down in the subway by 3... youthful offenders. After she recovered, she came to work here.

Robinette:
What was her reaction to the attack?

Maltese:
Same as anybody's. She was fearful, resentful of all the little...

Robinette:
Little what? Little Black bastards? You see some Black teenagers on the train, are you automatically afraid of them, Ms. Maltese?

Maltese:
Aren't you?

[Stone is forced to make a lenient plea deal for Di Biasi]

Robinette:
It's not a perfect world, but at least we can walk away from this knowing we did the right thing.

Stone:
Did we? Seems to me all we did was make 2 wrongs look like a right.

Curry:
This wasn't a prosecution, it was a warning, wasn't it? To anyone else thinking about a mercy killing. What gave you the right to use me?

Stone:
Unfortunately, you did. Not once, not twice, but three times.

Polly:
If you grew up where we did ... Ever hear of Norris, Pennsylvania? [Max shakes his head] It's the Greenwich of Scranton. It's a good life, but it can be a straitjacket.

Max:
With a mink lining.

Polly:
If you've worn mink all your life, you start to wonder what denim feels like.

Stone:
It's the last one, no more cops, it's too hard.

Max:
Know why I wouldn't let go? Because there but for the grace of God go I, or any cop. You get caught, you get prosecuted.

Stone:
Didn't know you were a philosopher, Max.

Max:
Just an ex-altar boy with a gun.

Logan:
[about Carla Lowenstein] Everything’s a mirror to her. She holds a dying kid up to it, and all she can see is herself and how it affects her. Now you give her sympathy, she’s gonna want to fight. You give her a fight, she’s gonna want a kiss. You give her a kiss and I swear to God she’ll bite your tongue out.

Max:
You, uh, saw this on Oprah, or what?

Logan:
My mother. Yeah. She always said she was cut out for something greater than being the wife of a cop from the Lower East side. God, she was a bottomless pit. Everything was, "Give me your undivided attention." When the old man couldn't take it anymore, he'd give her a whack, and then she'd turn around and whack me. She always got this look in her eye, y'know, and I saw it coming. Now, that witch in there, she's got that same look.

Stone:
I didn't hear you knock.

Shambala:
That's because I didn't. If I'd have knocked, you would have heard me.

Max:
Take me off this one.

Captain Cragen:
Max, you know I can't...

Max:
I'm burned out. This thing disgusts me. This guy's pictures? Porn. If that's art, Hugh Hefner's Michelangelo.

Captain Cragen:
Max, a man is dead here. You're the one saying it's not a suicide.

Max:
What do you want me to do, lie? There was someone else there. Chances are, living that life, he'll be dead in a couple of years anyway. As far as I'm concerned, he's going to the same place.

Captain Cragen:
What-what are you talking about?

Max:
I'm a Catholic. Call me old-fashioned, but I still believe in sin. Remember sin? Right and wrong? I don't know if it's harps or pearly gates, but whatever it is, these freaks are not going to the same place you and I are, okay?

Captain Cragen:
Wow! I can see this leading to a whole new penological outlook -- we will only pursue homicides where the vic died in a state of grace!

Stone:
I'm going to show you something that may belong to your ex-cellmate, Mr. Walker. Do you recognize it?

Cistal:
It's a gun.

Stone:
[sarcastically] Very good, Cistal, can you spell gun?

Cistal:
Sure. D-E-A-L.

DeVries:
One drug arrest five years ago? That's like another lifetime. But now, because it's on Page Six, I can be raped without penalty.

Schiff:
She's what, a reporter?

Stone:
Reporter? She does exploitive crap. All sizzle and no steak.

Stone:
I can't prosecute on instinct.

Robinette:
Aren't you always giving me the "You can't win every case" speech?

Stone:
I don't mind losing, Paul.

Robinette:
You could have fooled me.

Stone:
What bothers me is 12 law-abiding citizens knowing a defendant is guilty and acquitting him anyway.

Robinette:
They were flim-flammed by the angle of self-defense.

Stone:
They knew they were being flim-flammed, and they still acquitted. That is frightening.

Logan:
If you had given me a shotgun while my mother was shoving me against a wall, I'd have blown her head off. But my dad? Not even if he caught me killing the old lady.

Robinette:
You never answered Woodleigh's question, the one we had stricken from the record.

Stone:
You mean would I do the same as him if it were my daughter? God, I hope not.

Logan:
You know why cops hate IAD? Because you idiots couldn't convict a 10-year-old of selling watered-down lemonade.