- DI Fred Thursday: [of the killer] It won't be any stroke of genius that finds him. Long hours and shoe leather will see this one right.
- Sergeant Endeavour Morse: [explaining his presence as a uniformed officer in a rural station] The CID closed a month after I arrived in Woodstock. Budget. It was uniform or nothing.
- Reverend Postill: Six months and you've not darkened my transept, except on official business. Or perhaps you've lost your faith?
- Sergeant Endeavour Morse: There was never much to lose.
- Sergeant Endeavour Morse: [about the dead girl] What do you think happened to her?
- Dr. Max DeBryn: I think, if I spent my days in contemplation of such questions, I should drink rather more than I do.
- Viv Wall: [complaining about police treatment of Stanley Clemence on the telephone] Don't give me that old bollocks. He's still a minor and he's got rights. Oh, is that right? Well, tell him Viv Wall's coming. Wall. As in Berlin. As in brick. As in about to come down on your round head like a ton of.
- DS Jim Strange: [affably] You should come out to Banbury some time.
- Sergeant Endeavour Morse: I've been to Banbury.
- DS Jim Strange: Have a few beers. On me. Few beers, curry...
- Sergeant Endeavour Morse: [knowing Strange's real reason] ... talk about George.
- DS Jim Strange: He's still on the books.
- Sergeant Endeavour Morse: Only for us.
- DS Jim Strange: Oh, there is an "us" still, then, is there?
- Sergeant Endeavour Morse: You're doing well. You've friends at the Lodge. You're going places. Just let it go.
- DS Jim Strange: I can't. I can't.
- Joan Thursday: [finding Morse in uniform and with a mustache] What's all this? In disguise or hiding from someone? You don't look like you.
- Sergeant Endeavour Morse: [grimly] What do I look like?
- Sergeant Endeavour Morse: [overcoming objections to his wanting to search Stanley Clemence's room] You've got a couple skinning up on the mattress over there and the place reeks of Red Leb. Now, do you want me to call the Drug Squad or do you want to show me his room?
- Sergeant Endeavour Morse: [visiting Dr. DeBryn's cottage for the first time] It's nice.
- Dr. Max DeBryn: I am fighting a war of attrition with the greenfly over the tea-roses - not very successfully, it must be said - but, yes, as a spot, I am rather fond.
- Dr. Max DeBryn: [appearing at his front door with a large knife in his hand] Oh, it's nothing sinister. I'm just getting a seed-cake out of the oven.
- DI Fred Thursday: [returning home] You want tea?
- Win Thursday: [listlessly watching television] You're back, are you?
- DI Fred Thursday: Yeah. I'm making tea.
- Win Thursday: Not for me.
- DI Fred Thursday: [noticing the television] Right-oh. "Gunsmoke", is it?
- Win Thursday: I don't know. Something. What've you done to your hand?
- DI Fred Thursday: [he has beaten up a suspect] Oh. I don't remember. Caught in a door, probably. Doesn't hurt. I'll put the kettle on.
- DS Jim Strange: We shouldn't let it go, what happened to George. Well, don't you care?
- Sergeant Endeavour Morse: [cynical] Would it make a difference?
- Reverend Postill: I trust in the forgiveness of a merciful father.
- Sergeant Endeavour Morse: I can't imagine there's much in a vicar's life warrants forgiving.
- Reverend Postill: No? Ah, well. God be with you, sergeant.
- DI Fred Thursday: [recalling his first meeting with Stanley Clemence, years earlier] I carried a little boy out of a bloodbath. That's got to mean something. Guilty or innocent, I can't give up on him.
- Joan Thursday: I can't sit by the window, waiting for someone to tell me my life can start. I can't do that any more.
- Sergeant Endeavour Morse: [unimpressed by DCI Box's approach] Is he up to it - Box?
- DI Fred Thursday: A sergeant doesn't question a Detective Chief Inspector's fitness to lead an enquiry.
- Sergeant Endeavour Morse: [recalling Thursday's own dismissive remark about Box from a year earlier] "Robbery? I've shit 'em" - wasn't that it?
- DI Fred Thursday: [grimly] Things change.
- DCI Ronnie Box: [concerning the forthcoming interrogation of Gilbert Sipkin] Look, this ain't gonna be Geneva Convention. So, if you've got reservations, now would be the time to say.
- DI Fred Thursday: Whatever it takes.
- DCI Ronnie Box: I mean it. Can I count on you?
- DI Fred Thursday: Always.
- Dr. Max DeBryn: [examining the corpse of heroin addict Stanley Clemence, the latest of several drug-related deaths] If he's like the others, it's what the heroin's being adulterated with - to make it go further - that's the problem. Quinine. Not a happy combination. And if someone doesn't cut off the supply, he won't be the last.
- DCI Ronnie Box: [about Phil Clemence] He was a wrong 'un. So's his boy. Bad stock.
- DI Fred Thursday: We don't know he did it.
- DI Fred Thursday: We never know. It's the balance of probabilities. You go with your gut. What's important is, types like that get put away.
- DI Fred Thursday: And if we have to give the jukebox a nudge to get the penny to fall?
- DCI Ronnie Box: [he doesn't like the way this is going] What are you saying, Fred?
- DI Fred Thursday: Not sure I'm saying anything. We're just talking.
- DCI Ronnie Box: [as Max DeBryn concludes his initial examination of the dead body] Pervert?
- Dr. Max DeBryn: Are you asking me if there's evidence of sexual assault?
- DCI Ronnie Box: Is there?
- Dr. Max DeBryn: Not at first glance, no. Be able to tell you more after the post-mortem. Shall we say four o'clock?
- DCI Ronnie Box: You can say what you like. I'm not one for seeing kiddies carved up. You can liaise with DI Thursday.
- DCI Ronnie Box: I'll brief upstairs. Can you take the parents?
- DI Fred Thursday: If that's what you want.
- DCI Ronnie Box: See you back at the factory.
- DI Fred Thursday: He's come from robbery.
- Dr. Max DeBryn: Not the Lucy Clayton?