Barney Miller quotes from Barney Miller

Barney

[on the phone] Liz, this is ridiculous! I cannot make the choice between the prevention of a major crime and the correction of my son's overbite! Particularly when the overbite runs on your side of the family.

Liz

Would you consider not going to work today and taking me for a drive in the country?

Barney

Liz, you heard the radio: shootings, bombings. It's my busy season.

Barney

Hello? Hello?

Wojo

Hello?

Barney

Hello, bomb disposal?

Wojo

No, this is Wojciehowicz.

Barney

Get off the line. I'm trying to reach Bomb Disposal.

Wojo

Who's this?

Barney

Barney!

Wojo

Oh, hey, Barn, how's it going?

Barney

GET OFF THE LINE!

Barney

I think of you as experienced. In an emergency, you would be the first one that I'd call.

Fish

You should call me first. I need time to put my teeth in.

Barney

[to former Det. Kelly] Hello, Kelly. What are you doing here?

Fish

Making friends.

Barney

How do you like Narcotics?

Yemana

They haven't helped him a bit.

Wojo

Hey, Barney? If a police officer loses his badge, does he report it to his superior or just wait til somebody turns it in?

Barney

He reports it to his superior officer.

Wojo

I lost my badge.

Fish

What did she say?

Wojo

She wants to know if it's true they don't let Polish cops carry guns.

Barney

Tell her you got a gun.

Wojo

I got a gun.

Fish

Of course, it keeps us on our toes.

Captain Miller, this was not my collar.

Barney

I'm aware of that.

Then why do I have to type it up?

Barney

Because, Wentworth, we make no distinction here between male and female. You're just another cop. Who happens to be a good typist.

It also happens, Captain, that I fired "expert" at the Police Academy.

Barney

Good! Then don't type them. Shoot them.

Barney

Anything happening I should know about?

Harris is writing a book.

Barney

A capella. Pretty good. I had in mind something more in the nature of a crime.

Yemana

The coffee.

Barney

I would hesitate to call our coffee a crime. A shame maybe... [takes a sip of the coffee] Oh, that's a crime.

"Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men."

Harris

This cat is dynamite. I'm going to write that down.

Barney

It seems you found an admirer.

Do me a favor—don't tell him it's from Aldous Huxley until after I leave.

Yemana

You know those cute little Japanese dolls that you rub on the belly for luck?

Barney

Yeah.

Yemana

I'm taking one out to dinner tonight.

Barney

Nick, where do we keep the office supply vouchers?

Yemana

Look in the file under O. Or S. Or V. If not, then M, for miscellaneous. And if you don't find it in M, they're lost.

Barney

Then I look under L?

Yemana

Good a place as any.

Barney

Did you ever wonder why the sperm whale, which is the largest mammal on the face of the earth, has a throat about that size? [forms a circle with his thumb and fingers]

Chano

Yeah. You know, I always did wonder. Why is that?

Barney

Because that's the way it is. And there ain't anything you can do about it.

Corruption. Treachery. Fighting in the streets. Pollution. There's nowhere to hide.

Barney

You're not supposed to hide. You're supposed to try and make it better.

Barney

Fish, what did the doctor say?

Fish

He said I was at-- at the time of my life when my body is going through changes.

Barney

Sounds like menopause.

Fish

It is menopause. I caught it from Bernice.