Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Season 8

[Goren wants Stacey to help him catch her sexually abusive stepfather]

Stacey:
I can't do it. I'm too ashamed.

Goren:
No, no. The shame will be all his.

[Camille has just admitted having Stacey's boyfriend killed to protect Neil]

Neil:
I honestly have no idea what she's talking about!

Camille:
Of course not. You think you just got lucky. One more time that everything just seemed to work out for you.

Hank:
Some people make their own breaks.

Nichols:
People like you?

Hank:
People willing to do whatever it takes.

Wheeler:
It's the little things, isn't it?

Nichols:
[smiles] Always.

Burris:
You've got the wrong guy.

Goren:
Your fingerprints will prove you wrong.

Burris:
That's all they'll prove.

Goren:
You found a solution in your mother's illness.

Burris:
My mother was, uh... she was a schizophrenic. There's no solutions in that.

Beuliss:
That kid's a prick

Hatcher:
I know.

Beuliss:
We should hire him.

Capt. Ross:
How'd things go with the shrink?

Wheeler:
I'm pregnant.

Capt. Ross:
That well, huh?

Goren:
Lace teddy, makeup...

Eames:
And perfume. Either she was planning a matinee with the doctor or she was entertaining, as my mother might say.

Alison:
We have to fight this together. We love each other. We've built something. Don't let them destroy it.

Dan:
I want it destroyed. All of it. I'll start over.

Alison:
Without me?

Dan:
With God. If He'll forgive me.

Nichols:
So Laura was arrested as a call girl... You know that 90% of all prostitutes were sexually abused as children?

Wheeler:
What does that have to do with this?

Nichols:
Nothing... yet.

[Paul is about to kill his daughter while in a religious frenzy]

Paul:
I am giving you eternal life.

Kathy:
[crying, horrified] You really... you really believe that?

Paul:
I know it.

Paul:
I've served evil.

Goren:
Then break your servitude and put your God above all else.

Nichols:
[absently] I'm going to, I'm going to-

Wheeler:
Wander aimlessly?

Nichols:
Keeps me from getting lost.

Goren:
I think you screwed up, Kev. A little too much rouge, y'know, scent...

Eames:
There's nothing worse than having your makeup not right. I bet you can't wait to look in a mirror.

Goren:
[looking at an attractive redhead in a suit] She looks a little intimidating. Does she intimidate you?

Mulrooney:
It's the Versace. Beneath that is a scared little girl with fake breasts, a skinny bottom... a nothing.

Dunbar:
Thank God for pre-nups. She's taking out of this marriage what she brought in - a nice rack and a hundred bucks.

Beck:
[about Garrety and Dunbar's relationship] "Rocky" doesn't do it justice... is "bouldery" a word?

Josh:
The guy pissed himself!

Angela:
You are intense, Josh.

Josh:
I tell ya, Lou was right. Blanks really put the scare in people.

Angela:
Lou shoots nothin' except blanks.

Goren:
You've been talking to the DA.

Josh:
Did I hurt your feelings? Don't be offended. I told my lawyer you'd be harder to play.

Goren:
Well, if that's true, then what's the play?

Josh:
[chuckles] You're good. I almost miss seeing you. But something's always in play. The game is endless.

Muller:
It can be so darn easy to kill someone when you really know what you're doing.

Wheeler:
Sorry!

Nichols:
What for?

Wheeler:
I'm late.

Nichols:
That's understandable.

Wheeler:
What's that supposed to mean? Being pregnant is not an excuse!

Nichols:
[placating] You're right, it's not understandable.

Dr. Rodgers:
Once again, Detective Goren has an irritating habit of being right.

Capt. Ross:
Is this someone you've been watching?

Martino:
No, we have data-miners crawling through credit card transactions.

Eames:
Whose credit card transactions?

Nichols:
Uh, I think she means everybody's.

Martino:
You didn't hear that from me.

Capt. Ross:
Thank you Dick Cheney...

Eames:
[to Nichols, who is acting like Goren] You're starting to remind me of someone.

Capt. Ross:
This one's taller.

Nichols:
You wanna make it, right? I mean, really, really make it.

Hank:
Doesn't everyone?

Nichols:
Well, exactly. How many people come to New York every week trying to be rock stars?

Hank:
I dunno.

Nichols:
Well, 100, easy. If they're poor enough, at the buses at Port Authority. You probably get nearly that many at that rat's nest where you live.

Hank:
Okay...

Nichols:
So, 100 a week. That's 5,000 a year. Another 5,000 go out to L.A. Another 5, stick around, you know, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, working out there. That's 15,000 a year. That's conservative, it's probably more like 50.

Hank:
What's your point?

Nichols:
My point is, how many are going to to make it? 45,000 never get anywhere. They don't get a break, knock up some girl, take a job driving a bakery truck. Maybe 4,000 become professional musicians, playing the hotel lounge at the airport. The cream of the top, the top 1,000, get to be in a Zeppelin tribute band or 18th runner up on American Idol, but really make it, be a star? 10 people. 10 people yearly. Worldwide. 10 out of 50,000.

Hank:
So there's 10.

Nichols:
Will you be one of them?

Hank:
Why not? I can play, I'm willing to work.

Nichols:
Still gotta get those breaks.

Hank:
Some people make their own breaks.

Nichols:
People like you?

Hank:
People willing to do whatever it takes.

Nichols:
[listening to a suspect's band] Just listening to some Speckled Stallion. Man, did those guys suck.

Wheeler:
You told Phillip they were great.

Nichols:
No, I said they were something.

[pause]

Wheeler:
It's the little things, isn't it?

Nichols:
[smiles] Always.

Nichols:
You actually think Sue's your girlfriend.

Phillip:
She is my girlfriend.

Nichols:
No. She isn't. You're the rent. Uh, little reality check: women actually like sleeping with guys about, oh, thirty years younger. But, deep down, way inside... you know that.

Phillip:
No. That rule don't apply when you're famous.

Nichols:
Famous. Oh. Right. You played the third longest set at Woodstock. Because you wouldn't get off the damn stage. Speckled Stallion always left its audience wanting less!

Phillip:
I have a Grammy.

Nichols:
Milli Vanilli has a Grammy. You're a has-been! Nobody remembers! Nobody cares. Viva Viagra!

Nichols:
Witnesses to the armed truck robbery describe a white Econoline van, and three men, one of them in a red leather jacket.

Capt. Ross:
Mr. Carlyle, who just got blown up. So, one's dead and we have to look for the other two. So, either they split the money...

Nichols:
Or one of them has it, and he's looking to get rid of the third guy. Meaning whichever one didn't set the bomb is wondering if he's next.

Capt. Ross:
[to Wheeler] See what I mean? He insists on finishing my sentences.

Nichols:
[about Helen] Bet she always picks the wrong guy. Probably insufficiently praised as a child. Gives you attachment problems.

Wheeler:
Were you insufficiently praised as a child?

Nichols:
Me? No, they praised me all the time, which backfired, made me think too much of myself.

Wheeler:
You over that?

Nichols:
I'm working on it.

Andre:
I've read The Iliad in the original Attic Greek, detective. If you want to trip me up, you're gonna have to try a little harder than that.

Goren:
[shrugs] It's actually Homeric Greek...

Emily:
Do you have any idea what it's like to have everything taken away from you? My husband had a stroke at his desk 10 years ago. I'll be gone in a matter of months. What good did all his money do me?

Nichols:
Nothing like a 5-hour German opera to make you really appreciate a murder scene.

Goren:
[looking in Mulrooney's bedroom closet] Is this a closet? It's like two different people live here.

Nichols:
Mr. Dunbar, did you enjoy the poetry reading?

Dunbar:
I was working late.

Shannon:
Hmm. That means that the Knicks were on.

Nichols:
It was a great game.

Dunbar:
Poetry in motion. The best kind.

Wheeler:
If my daughter ever tells me she wants to be a poet, I'm going to tell her to join the Mafia instead. Nicer people.

[Nichols has used an unfinished poem, ostensibly by the murder victim about Shannon, to make Shannon confess to the murders.]

Nichols:
Nothing like a good love poem to, uh, get the emotions flowing.

Wheeler:
So you're not gonna tell her you wrote it?

Nichols:
That'd be cruel.

Nichols:
[looking at Grace's keepsake photo] Grace kept this on her pillow, like it was a dream - some place to get away from all this.

Eames:
I heard you got away for a few years. You feeling some kind of kindred spirit?

Nichols:
Nah, I try to avoid transferrential relationships with dead people - it's always so one-sided.

Goren:
[about the murder victim] He embraced good causes.

Eames:
He also embraced any woman who got close enough for a smell test.

[Nichols discovers a booby-trap for the police and has warned everyone away.]

Eames:
[walking back to the car with Nichols] Did you just save all our lives?

Nichols:
You can buy breakfast.