Spencer Reid quotes from Criminal Minds

Morgan

Easy there, tough guy. Have some coffee with your sugar.

Reid

I need something to wake me up.

Morgan

Ooh, late night?

Reid

Very.

Morgan

My man!

Reid

Not that kind of late night.

Morgan

[laughs] Okay, so tell me, what does keep young Dr. Reid awake at night? Wait, let me guess. Memorizing some obscure textbook? No, no, no. Working on cold fusion? No, I got it, I got it, I got it. Watching Star Trek and laughing at the physics mistakes.

Reid

Actually, there aren't that many scientific errors in Star Trek. Especially considering how long ago it was made. There are certain improbabilities, but not that many outright errors.

Morgan

Right.

Reid

Melted wax?

JJ

Candle wax?

Reid

Candles are used in rituals.

Gideon

They're also used on birthday cakes.

Reid

Actually, they were originally used to protect the birthday celebrant from demons for the coming year. As a matter of fact, down to the fourth century, Christianity rejected the birthday celebration as a pagan ritual.

What kind of a doctor are you?

Gideon

We all have bad dreams. Everyone on the plane, who wouldn't? We hunt the worst of humanity, we see the depths of depravity, we dream of monsters.

Reid

In my dream, there's a baby, in the middle of a circle, and there's someone on the other side, and I can't get to her before I...

Gideon

Every night I look at Debra, helps me. Helps me go to sleep thinking of the victims we save. Don't always beat the monsters to the babies, but we do enough to make the job worth it. Keep the nightmares bearable.

Gideon

Do you know what program did the most harm to this country in terms of crimes like this? Child abduction.

No.

Reid

"Stranger Danger".

Gideon

Flooded the schools with it.

Reid

I remember them coming to my classroom. It was "Officer Friendly" with "Stranger Danger" coloring books.

Gideon

Taught a whole generation about a scary man in a trench coat hiding behind a tree. Then we learnt that strangers are only a fraction of the offenders out there. Most are people you see every day. Your family, your neighbors, your school teachers. You know the rest. Prepared our children for 1% of the danger and made them more vulnerable to 99%.

Morgan

[regarding Max Ryan] I heard he was forced into early retirement.

Hotchner

No, he chose to retire.

Reid

He's written a new book on the Keystone Killer case.

Hotchner

He moved to Philadelphia to be closer to the crime scenes.

Greenaway

That's retirement?

Morgan

BAU style.

Reid

What do you think of Ryan?

Hotchner

He hasn't changed much.

Reid

I think we can learn a lot from him.

Hotchner

What could you possibly learn that you don't already know?

Reid

Hotch, repetitive thinking is a death mill for the brain. For complete brain usage, diverse stimulation is the key.

John Blackwolf

Inside 21 feet, I win. Outside 21, I have other options besides shooting a man.

Reid

Like negotiating.

John Blackwolf

Like running.

Gideon

Children?

Hotchner

They're fine. We got them out before they got here. We took down these four.

Reid

Without firing a shot?

John Blackwolf

Captain America here shot number five.

Hotchner

You're welcome. Number six is cut up pretty bad. I don't think he's gonna make it.

John Blackwolf

At least I didn't shoot him.

Morgan

I think I'd rather be shot.

Hotchner

There's an old Apache saying: "You can take many paths to get to the same place."

Reid

[to the waitress after having difficulty with his chopsticks] Excuse me, could I get a fork perhaps? [everyone laughs] Did you know that experts credit Confucius with the advent of the chopstick. He equated knives with acts of aggression.

Morgan

You don't know how to use them, do ya?

Reid

It's like trying to forage for dinner with a pair of number two pencils.

Gideon

[discussing the unsub and how he is perceived by the public] He's a hero.

Reid

The exact same thing happened with the Goetz New York subway shootings in the early eighties.

Gideon

You weren't even born.

Reid

I read a lot.

Reid

[trying to coax Lila out of her swimming pool] Lila, I'm begging of you. Will you please get out of the pool?

Really, Spence, you should live a little.

Reid

Live a little? I've known you 48 hours. I feel like I've already aged 10 years!

I wish, um, things had been... more normal when we had met.

Reid

Lila, believe me when I say this, I've never known a normal day in my entire life.

Morgan

What's all this?

Día de los Muertos.

Reid

Day of the Dead. A three-day Latin holiday where souls of dead relatives are said to return to earth to enjoy the pleasures that they once knew of.

It sounds like he was reading that out of a book.

Morgan

No, trust me. He always sounds like that.

Reid

Actually, I was reading. I picked this pamphlet up at the airport.

Ask the question, I'll be healed and you may take the grail. Just ask the question, Sir Knight.

Reid

I can't.

Heal me.

Reid

Mr. Garner, a fisher king wound cannot be healed by somebody else. It's... it's not a wound of the body. It's a wound of the memory, a wound of the mind. It's... it's a wound that only you can find, and a wound that only you can heal.

Just ask the question.

Reid

There's only one question that matters, Mr. Garner. There's only one really important question. Can you forgive yourself?

Reid

Wow. She obviously did nothing to protect Amber from the abuse. She... she feels betrayed by her mother and now receives extreme sadistic pleasure in watching the same thing that happened to her. Strange. In this case, the abused actually became the abuser.

Garcia

That doesn't happen a lot?

Reid

One in eight.

Garcia

We found the one.