Robert Goren quotes from Law & Order: Criminal Intent

Goren

[To Bishop] Croydon. McVee is another Croydon.

Bishop

Who's-- Who's Croydon?

Goren

He ran out on his wife. Hitchens used him to get at me. And the pattern. One, one, two-- it's Wally Stevens.

Bishop

I don't know what you're talking about.

Goren

He was an actuary. He had a pattern of five. Five-- five notes. Five ... pins. [Pauses.] Eames would have known.

Carver

He killed her to drive his partner back into his arms? That's almost juvenile.

Goren

It's primitive. Panic is a primitive emotion. That's how he felt without his partner.

[To Neil] I told you, I didn't even know her name. She was just a gamer.

Goren

[To Neil] Just a gamer? Your partner let a gamer get between you two. If my partner was putting me through that -- abandoning me, leaving me vulnerable, impotent, for a nobody -- That's unforgivable.

Goren

Seven pounds, eight ounces.

Carver

[smiling] Excellent.

Bishop

It's great. You-- You should call her. I'll handle the booking.

Goren

[Regarding the dead P.I.] He taught social sciences at I.S. 44, 15 years ago.

Bishop

In the Bronx. Should have been enough excitement for two lifetimes.

Marv, check out her dibs. [To Bishop] What do you got on, P. Diddy drapes? What you all, fashion police? [All laugh.]

Goren

Obviously, they don't know we're the hoops police, 'cause-- [to Marv] --we ought to lock you up for wearin' those kicks. Where'd you find those? on a telephone line?

Wooo! [All laugh. The players throw the ball to Goren.]

You played?

Goren

Yeah. High school.

In the city? Maybe I saw you play.

Goren

No. I didn't stick with it.

Ah. Maybe with the right encouragement.

I didn't actually see him selling weed. But everybody knows he was doin' it.

Goren

Well, then it must be true.

[To Bishop] Does he always beat around the bush?

Goren

I can be direct. You're divorced. You got no kids. And basketball is pretty much it for you, Coach. You haven't won a championship in the last seven years. You might be hungry for a big win to cap your career. Hungry enough to go into business with Curtis Romney?

I can be direct, too. I see a problem with authority figures. You defy them. You disrespect them. But the truth is, you're intimidated by them. It's the mark of a boy with an indifferent father. His absence took the joy out of playing basketball.

Goren

Picket-fence play. Four players in a row, fifth dribbles behind. It's old school.

Bishop

Everything about Powell's old school. I think he stopped buying jackets when Wilt Chamberlain retired.

Goren

[Picks up a plant in a pot on the Coach's counter.] Cranberry seedling. With my dad, it was avocado pits in a glass of water.

Goren

TV. He stood over the sink and he ate while he watched TV.

Bishop

Something you do?

Goren

No. No, I found the same arrangement when I cleaned out my dad's apartment.

Goren

You know how to pick 'em, Coach.

Now, you go ahead, Goren. You get it all out, all that defiance.

Goren

You see that? His understanding of what makes a young man tick -- it's like a gift.

You really beat the old man good, didn't you?

Goren

Well, that's how I beat all my men on the court, Coach-- head fake.

The way you talk about the game, it's just as well you stopped playing. You got no love for it.

Bishop

Well, he's hardly one to talk.

Goren

No, he's right. I stopped loving the game, when I saw it-- it wasn't getting me what I wanted.

You're interrupting a very important evening.

Goren

We could come back tomorrow....

That would be so much better.

Goren

Yeah. But since we're here--

What the hell are you imagining? I'm interested in her acting. I signed her own as a student four weeks ago.

Goren

[Copying a mime taking place in the other room] Do you have a lot of students in their 60s?

No.

Goren

50s, 40s--

Eames

I'm guessing 25 is the cutoff for actresses. 26 if they're pretty.