Nichols quotes from Law & Order: Criminal Intent

Nothing like a 5-hour German opera to make you really appreciate a murder scene.

Sometimes we hate the innocent and like the guilty.

Manhattan has the Empire State Building, the Bronx has Yankee Stadium, Brooklyn, the Bridge, Queens has the U.S. Open, and Staten Island has a gigantic landfill. Can't you smell it yet?

"Engaged to be engaged". The last refuge of the commitment-challenged.

How does the Web always find out everything before we do?

My parents are atheists. If they ever found out I'd gone to a church, they'd set up an intervention.

You wanna make it, right? I mean, really, really make it.

Doesn't everyone?

Well, exactly. How many people come to New York every week trying to be rock stars?

I dunno.

Well, 100, easy. If they're poor enough, at the buses at Port Authority. You probably get nearly that many at that rat's nest where you live.

Okay...

So, 100 a week. That's 5,000 a year. Another 5,000 go out to L.A. Another 5, stick around, you know, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, working out there. That's 15,000 a year. That's conservative, it's probably more like 50.

What's your point?

My point is, how many are going to to make it? 45,000 never get anywhere. They don't get a break, knock up some girl, take a job driving a bakery truck. Maybe 4,000 become professional musicians, playing the hotel lounge at the airport. The cream of the top, the top 1,000, get to be in a Zeppelin tribute band or 18th runner up on American Idol, but really make it, be a star? 10 people. 10 people yearly. Worldwide. 10 out of 50,000.

So there's 10.

Will you be one of them?

Why not? I can play, I'm willing to work.

Still gotta get those breaks.

Some people make their own breaks.

People like you?

People willing to do whatever it takes.

[listening to a suspect's band] Just listening to some Speckled Stallion. Man, did those guys suck.

Wheeler

You told Phillip they were great.

No, I said they were something.

Wheeler

It's the little things, isn't it?

[smiles] Always.

You actually think Sue's your girlfriend.

She is my girlfriend.

No. She isn't. You're the rent. Uh, little reality check: women actually like sleeping with guys about, oh, thirty years younger. But, deep down, way inside... you know that.

No. That rule don't apply when you're famous.

Famous. Oh. Right. You played the third longest set at Woodstock. Because you wouldn't get off the damn stage. Speckled Stallion always left its audience wanting less!

I have a Grammy.

Milli Vanilli has a Grammy. You're a has-been! Nobody remembers! Nobody cares. Viva Viagra!

Witnesses to the armed truck robbery describe a white Econoline van, and three men, one of them in a red leather jacket.

Capt. Ross

Mr. Carlyle, who just got blown up. So, one's dead and we have to look for the other two. So, either they split the money...

Or one of them has it, and he's looking to get rid of the third guy. Meaning whichever one didn't set the bomb is wondering if he's next.

Capt. Ross

[to Wheeler] See what I mean? He insists on finishing my sentences.

[about Helen] Bet she always picks the wrong guy. Probably insufficiently praised as a child. Gives you attachment problems.

Wheeler

Were you insufficiently praised as a child?

Me? No, they praised me all the time, which backfired, made me think too much of myself.

Wheeler

You over that?

I'm working on it.

So Laura was arrested as a call girl... You know that 90% of all prostitutes were sexually abused as children?

Wheeler

What does that have to do with this?

Nothing... yet.

[absently] I'm going to, I'm going to-

Wheeler

Wander aimlessly?

Keeps me from getting lost.

Mr. Dunbar, did you enjoy the poetry reading?

I was working late.

Hmm. That means that the Knicks were on.

It was a great game.

Poetry in motion. The best kind.

Nothing like a good love poem to, uh, get the emotions flowing.

Wheeler

So you're not gonna tell her you wrote it?

That'd be cruel.