Seasons: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Law & Order (1990–2010) is a long-running police procedural and courtroom drama television series, created by Dick Wolf.

Bodies [14.01]

Green: You know, I can't help but wonder - and this may just be the cop in me, but I'm a little curious - I'd really like to know why you knocked this girl out before you raped her. I mean, how much fun could that be?

Bruner: Wasn't me.

Green: I mean, she's just layin' there, in the cab or wherever, almost like she's dead. I mean, the only thing I can think of is you didn't want her to see...

Bruner: See what?

Green: Come on, man. Both of us have been in locker rooms. Some dudes got it, some don't. And girls these days, they been around, some of 'em. They know the difference. Yeah, I guess if a teenage girl were laughing at you, it would be a whole lot easier to just smack her first.

[Bruner starts laughing]

Green: What?

Bruner: Oh, I like you.

Serena: You didn't ask for bail, Jessica. You must know...

Sheets: I know a lot of things. I know I defended a father who raped and murdered his 11-year-old daughter. I've defended a guy who, for no apparent reason, walked into a grocery store, shot 12 innocent people with an Uzi. Right now, I've got a kid who decapitated his mom, hung her head on a stick outside his church. All the scum of the Earth, they send them my way. I do my best for them. But this guy... So you're turning down my offer?

McCoy: You know I have no choice.

Sheets: Damn it.

McCoy: All you have to do is...

Sheets: I can't! Mark Bruner scares the socks off of me, Jack. How am I supposed to represent someone that I'm scared to death to be in the same room with?

McCoy: Did he threaten you?

[Sheets is silent for a moment, then hands McCoy a document]

Sheets: My motion to be relieved. I know you have to oppose it, but do you really have to win?

[discussing Bruner's defense attorney]

Branch: Yeah, who is that stupid S.O.B. anyway?

Serena: Tim Schwimmer, legal aid, and he isn't exactly stupid.

Branch: He listened to his client when he told him about 15 other bodies?

Serena: Yes.

Branch: He then confirmed his client was telling the truth by taking a peek at those bodies?

Serena: Yes.

Branch: Fine. What's dumber than stupid?

Bounty [14.02]

Briscoe: There's no such thing as hooker-client confidentiality.

Mr. Dworkin: I still think I coulda won, Denise notwithstanding.

McCoy: The minute she walked into that courtroom, all the sympathy you'd managed to work up for him would have backfired in his face. Turns out, he was in the unique position to know that, better than either of us.

Mr. Dworkin: Lawyer to lawyer: you didn't actually talk to Denise, did you?

McCoy: No.

Mr. Dworkin: Then how did you know?

McCoy: I didn't. But I do know that I'm barely white enough to live in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Patient Zero [14.03]

Uniform Cop: He jumped into the car and took off like a bat out of h-e-double-hockey-sticks.

Briscoe: What precinct are you from? Sesame Street?

Lt. Van Buren: [about a woman murdered during a car-jacking] When are people gonna learn a car just isn't worth it?

Briscoe: Well, it was a Cadillac.

Shrunk [14.04]

Briscoe: My ex made me see a shrink.

Green: Now that was money well spent.

Briscoe: Twice a week I used to get on the couch, tell him how the head of the orphanage used to get a kick out of beating me with his shoe.

Green: [laughs] That sounds like Oliver Twist.

Briscoe: [laughs] It is!

Cutler: Cole Porter's lucky he's gone, what with the dearth of respect you show men of the theater.

McCoy: Cole Porter didn't have a dead woman in his townhouse, Lisa.

Cutler: John Myers? Please. He's as likely to have killed somebody as...

Serena: Sweeney Todd?

Myers: I got 6 Tonys, 2 Pulitzers and a mom who killed my dad. That's some resume. They let my mom go to my dad's funeral. She had chains on her wrists. And she turned to me and said, "That's the last ball game he'll ever watch."

Blaze [14.05]

Lt. Van Buren: 23 people are dead because of an opera?

Briscoe: The Germans. Whaddaya gonna do?

Serena: My father. The only one of my tennis matches he actually came to, he spent doing paperwork. It didn't make me love him less, it just made me try that much harder to make him love me more.

Branch: Were you successful?

Serena: You should see my backhand.

Identity [14.06]

Briscoe: We've been trying to figure out what to arrest you for: harboring a fugitive, obstruction of justice, or just being a general pain in the ass.

Branch: Got a call from my granddaughter last week. She said, "Grandpa, I think you're getting too old to drive." I said, "Really, sweetie? You think I oughta pack in the 'ol Chevy?" She said, "No, the Chevy's okay. It's the Porsche I worry about."

Lonnie: [about the murder victim, who stole his identity and robbed him] Do you why I didn't report this to the police? Because my loving son, who sends me a card on Christmas and maybe a call on my birthday, would have had me put away in some kind of home.

Paul: At least we'd still own the house.

Lonnie: It's not what you own, son; it's what you are. I'm just an old man who deserves to die in the bed he worked to pay for. Do you realize what it's like to wake up one day, and everything is gone? That I'm invisible? I've been erased? I worked my whole life. I bought that house. I had no debt. And this man, this monster, pushes a few buttons and poof! It's over. I'm gone. That Hitchens robbed me of me. He stole my soul!

Floater [14.07]

Briscoe: [of the Latin crest on the victim's prep school blazer] Loosely translated, it means, "Tuition starts at 20 grand."

McCoy: "The best interests of the child." Does that phrase mean anything to you?

Judge Alexander: Of course it does. I never made a ruling that harmed a child.

McCoy: You decided custody cases for money. People at their most vulnerable and desperate. You sold your judgment on the most precious thing in their lives. That kind of corruption is unspeakable.

Judge Alexander: I never decided any custody case except on its own merits.

McCoy: You took Lena Marchetti's mother from her. What about that child?

Branch: Even the wicked get worse than they deserve.

Embedded [14.08]

Briscoe: Always a dime short and a nickel late.

Green: What the hell does that mean?

Briscoe: What do you want from me - it's 2:00 in the morning.

[McCoy and Serena have just figured out that Elliott arranged his own shooting for publicity]

Elliott: What do they say? Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Serena: If you're writing fiction.

Elliott: Oh, grow up.

Serena: I'm not the one who staged a shooting for self-promotion.

Elliott: And if I did, how is that any more fictitious than what they expect the media to do over there?

McCoy: No one is on trial over there.

Elliott: Maybe they should be. America deserves the truth, and that's what I try to report. But what happens when I do? They slam the lid down, ship me out and stick me in a room with 12 guys in uniforms who tell me that if I open my mouth again, I can kiss my career goodbye. We're entitled to a free press, but the government won't allow it.

McCoy: That doesn't make what you did any less despicable.

Elliott: You want despicable? Despicable is the Pentagon using some fake patriotism to eviscerate the First Amendment, and then using the media to spread that fake patriotism like manure in a garden! Look, you can arrest me, you can charge me with having myself shot, but we both know you can't prove any of it!

McCoy: Or we can go to the press and expose you as a self-important fraud.

Elliott: Sure you could. But without 3 confirmations, their lawyers won't let them print any of it. 3 cheers for American democracy.

Compassion [14.09]

Briscoe: [pointing to a sign that reads "Pedatric Oncology"] There's 2 words that should never go together.

Green: Hey, are you a doctor?

Male Nurse: No, but you should see my mom smile every time somebody asks that.

[McCoy has just arranged a lenient plea bargain for Allison]

Markus: It's not a bad thing, Jack

McCoy: What?

Markus: Having a heart.

Ill-Conceived [14.10]

Green: So, how is this compared to other factories?

Bettina: So you wanna know if this is a sweatshop?

Green: Is it?

Bettina: We have air conditioning, soda machines with ice, good heat in the winter and we get paid what everyone else gets paid for an 8-hour shift. How's that?

Green: You got any openings?

McCoy: I'll consider Man-1. He serves the maximum.

Galiano: You'll shove it, is what you'll do.

Miguel: I didn't mean to...

Galiano: Stay cool, Miguel. Once you get to know Mr. McCoy a little better, you'll see as far as he's concerned, smoke in the bedroom doesn't always mean there's fire on the mattress.

McCoy: Vanessa...

Galiano: We're talking different cultures here, Jack. The Latins, you know? It's a macho thing. Humiliation in the community, it's a powerful force.

McCoy: You're not going to argue that...

Galiano: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm crude, I'm disgusting - and I win cases.

McCoy: Can I please finish a sentence here?

Galiano: Why? I'm not listening to you anyway.

Darwinian [14.11]

Branch: Lady Justice may be blind, but nobody ever said the old broad was fair.

McCoy: So you admit assaulting another man because he refused to share an orange.

Edgars: It's not that simple.

McCoy: The law of the jungle.

Edgars: That's right.

McCoy: And your lawyer suggested that you live like an animal in that jungle.

Edgars: Yeah, well, maybe she's right.

McCoy: Then what are we doing here? We don't put animals on trial, Mr. Edgars. We put them down.

Edgars: Fine. Put me down. You'll be doing me a favor.

McCoy: Tired of living in the street, are you?

Edgars: You think I chose this for my life?

McCoy: I think you had more choices than Alan Fisher did, don't you? He was held hostage to his own delusions, but you could control yourself. You could have looked for a job.

Edgars: I had a job. I told you.

McCoy: And a house?

Edgars: Yeah.

McCoy: And a car?!

Edgars: That's right.

McCoy: Friends! Family! Possessions!

Edgars: AND I LOST THEM!! I lost it all! You don't know what that feels like. To be a failure. To go to bed on a piece of wet cardboard every freakin' night, wondering, "How did this happen to me?"! I didn't want this. I didn't choose this life. This is something that happened to me, and it's like this thing in my chest that's killing me! [pounds chest] It gets me right here!

McCoy: Sounds human to me, Mr. Edgars.

Payback [14.12]

Briscoe: You're in luck. It's opera week at Rikers.

Branch: I think you're giving the Feds way too much credit - they ain't that clever.

McCoy: Still, lucky break for them...now they roll up the whole crew, starting with Peter Righetti for the murder of his uncle...

Branch: Good riddance.

Married With Children [14.13]

McCoy: Should Renee Bishop be able to adopt a child with her lover, get married and raise a family? That question is for another court on another day, Mr. Hobart.

Hobart: That day is coming soon.

McCoy: Offer stands, she can shave 10 years off her sentence.

Hobart: She won't go for it. She'll try anything to stay in in her daughter's life.

McCoy: You're banking on the hope that there's a gay person on that jury.

Hobart: I'm banking there's a parent.

McCoy: [about gay people] I say let 'em marry. Why shouldn't they be as miserable as the rest of us?

City Hall [14.14]

Serena: Did anyone find any type of weapon in Peter Rubin's home?

Briscoe: Not unless you count the world's most boring record collection.

Melnick: If all they think about is getting the conviction, nothing's to stop them from kicking in our doors in the middle of the night.

McCoy: That's not happening, Danielle, and you know it.

Melnick: Yet.

Veteran's Day [14.15]

Tina: Look, fellas, I'm in enough trouble already. I mean, vodka makes me a lot chattier than I oughtta be, you know?

Briscoe: Really. I thought it was our good looks and charming demeanor.

Branch: Your problem was too many blue-collar jurors. They identified with Kenneth Silva.

Serena: How do you know who the holdouts were?

Branch: The people who escape jury duty? Same people who escape active duty.

Can I Get a Witness? [14.16]

Briscoe: [comparing bike tracks] These don't look at all alike. How can you be sure they're from the same bike?

CSU Technician: You know, I thought the same thing, too. But, after comparing mold offsets, site pattern and center ridge appearance...

Green: You passed out from boredom?

Green: Your PO told us you'd be crashing at your grandma's crib.

Rivers: Yeah, she ain't here right now.

Briscoe: You know, you haven't talked to your PO in quite a while. That's a parole violation. You oughtta give him a call.

Rivers: I've been busy.

Briscoe: Yeah, murder has a way of screwing up your whole schedule, doesn't it?

Hands Free [14.17]

Woman: You're in luck. Jen's been here all day. She's on a creative jag.

Briscoe: I used to have those, except I called them benders.

Madison: The police are out to get me!

McCoy: With 3 dead bodies, can you blame them?

Evil Breeds [14.18]

Briscoe: [handcuffing a suspect] You've heard of the 3 rings of Saturn? These are the 2 rings of Rikers.

[A Nazi war criminal has been found guilty of a Holocaust victim's murder]

Serena: You think Anders is telling the truth...that he didn't have anything to do with Leah Glaser's murder?

McCoy: They knew a guilty man when they saw one.

Nowhere Man [14.19]

Green: We could check his email.

Briscoe: What do you wanna bet it's all spam?

Green: I'm surprised you even know what that is.

Briscoe: I used to think it was lunch meat.

Wachtler: You want me to testify against these guys?

McCoy: Libretti, Biscotti and Tortomassi.

Wachtler: I'll need to go into witness protection.

McCoy: You'll testify and go to jail, and if I'm in a good mood I'll consider arranging segregation from the general population.

Everybody Loves Raimondo's [14.20]

[At the scene of a double homicide]

Briscoe: I knew being Chief of Detectives had its benefits. I didn't know they included a table at Raimondo's.

Green: I hear the food here is really good.

Briscoe: Oh, it's to die for.

Branch: So I suppose Sonny Keane will have plenty of time to work on his next book.

McCoy: A few years in prison should provide him with many interesting real-life experiences.

Vendetta [14.21]

[A man who accidentally cost the Yankees the World Series has been murdered]

Santoro: You're telling me, this guy got killed because he reached for a foul ball?

Briscoe: And the suspect list is the Greater New York phone book.

Green: I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I'm actually starting to feel real sorry for this dude...

Briscoe: Hey, we were one out away from the World Series!

Gaijin [14.22]

Briscoe: Hey look, Ed - a .22.

Bobby: That's not mine! You guys planted that there!

Briscoe: That's really original. I've never heard that one before.

Reporter: Mr. Yoshida, what was your reaction when you heard police had apprehended a suspect in your wife's death?

Mr. Yoshida: Relief. And also sadness. Nothing can bring Tamiko back, but I'm glad the man who did this will pay for his crime...

Briscoe: Yeah, so are we.

Mr. Yoshida: Detectives.

Green: We wanted to welcome you back personally.

Briscoe: We brought you a gift from the city of New York.

Mr. Yoshida: I don't understand.

Briscoe: You like jewelry? [cuffs Mr. Yoshida] Bracelets.

Green: Hiroshi Yoshida, you're under arrest for the murder of Tamiko Yoshida.

Caviar Emptor [14.23]

Green: Young wife, old groom, wedding night - maybe he died of a heart attack.

Briscoe: Like my mother used to say, play with kids your own age.

Branch: The covenant the father broke was with both of them.

Serena: Even after everything he did to her, she forgave him. Asher didn't.

McCoy: He felt more betrayed than she did.

Branch: He may have married into the family, but he'll never be blood.

C.O.D. [14.24]

Green: We're gettin' BlackBerries next year.

Briscoe: Yeah. Next year.

Green: What is up with you?

Briscoe: [sighs] I'm puttin' in my papers, Ed.

Green: What?

Briscoe: It's time.

Green: Really? What are you gonna do?

Briscoe: I don't know. Play golf, shoot pool, lay around in the sun. If I get bored, maybe I'll try the DA's office. Pick up an investigation here and there.

Green: Aw. Damn, Lennie!

[a parcel deliveryman has been murdered moments after completing a delivery]

Briscoe: When you absolutely, positively have to kill somebody overnight.

Briscoe: [final line before leaving] It's nice to go out on a win.

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