- [after Ed had an informal discussion with a suspect that led to a partial confession]
- Lt. Anita Van Buren: Five hours? I hope the hell he called you in the morning.
- Det. Ed Green: Hey, the best way to get a drunk to open his mouth is to let him drink, isn't that right, Lennie?
- Det. Lennie Briscoe: [looking up from his desk] Hear, hear!
- Clay Warner: We're discussing Anna Karenina. Join us.
- Det. Lennie Briscoe: You've got to read Crime and Punishment.
- Ira Simpkis: Weren't you in my first year criminal law class? Back row, on the left. "A" minus, if I remember correctly.
- A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn: "A".
- Ira Simpkis: And you know, I was always surprised, I have to admit, that you never took my trial advocacy seminar, because we handled real cases and you might have benefited a little from the work.
- A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn: No offense, but I didn't care for your clients.
- Jack McCoy: [the defendant has asked for the death penalty] I don't know who was more shocked, Simpkis or me.
- D.A. Arthur Branch: Yup, what fun is it hitting someone who won't hit back?
- Jack McCoy: I never really thought of this as an exercise in fun, Arthur.
- A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn: [approaching] Brace yourself for professor Simpkins' motions.
- Jack McCoy: A motion to quash the agreed-upon sentence.
- A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn: On the grounds that Warner isn't competent to negotiate on his own behalf.
- Jack McCoy: He wants to die, so he's got to be crazy.
- A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn: I've arranged for Skoda to examine him.
- D.A. Arthur Branch: [to Jack] And you say this isn't fun.
- D.A. Arthur Branch: It would've been easier if Warner had taken a chainsaw to a family of four.
- Jack McCoy: Why?
- D.A. Arthur Branch: Because you're a human. And humans can't help but judge other humans.
- Jack McCoy: That would be just as wrong as treating Warner differently because he can string together sentences better than the rest of us. The quality of the victim should not matter any more than the quality of his killer.
- D.A. Arthur Branch: I said it'd be easier, not more just.
- Jack McCoy: It's good, Arthur. He can write.
- D.A. Arthur Branch: You want the easy answer? Just words on a page.
- Jack McCoy: And the more difficult one?
- D.A. Arthur Branch: [holding up a copy of the penal code] So are these.
- Jack McCoy: The death penalty is the most severe punishment the law allows. I got to admit, it's disconcerting that Warner thinks it's less severe than going to prison.
- Det. Lennie Briscoe: Well, how much macho does it take to stab a woman?
- Helen: With Nelson, fiction has a funny way of becoming fact. The three of us were sitting over there. He and Natalie were arguing about Finnegans Wake or some such nonsense. Nelson tossed his soup spoon, it hit the wall over there. Natalie was hit with a glob of minestrone. That's not what it said in the police report. He tells the story 10 times, the soup spoon becomes a steak knife. He tells it 20 times, the wall becomes Natalie's shoulder. In ten years, it'll be a decapitation with a samurai sword. Writers, they lie for a living, Detective.
- Judge Alan Berman: Clayton Warner. Are you the guy who wrote that book?
- Clay Warner: Yes I am.
- Judge Alan Berman: I started it. Hmmph.