Nicole Wallace quotes from Law & Order: Criminal Intent

Wallace

Everyone knows academics are all talk and no action.

Wallace

It wouldn't butter your parsnips.

Wallace

Hello, Bobby. I would call you Detective Goren, but given your press coverage lately, you'd probably want a low profile. Keep your hands on deck. We don't want you playing with your pistol under the table.

Wallace

Don't think for a second that this is the end of us, Bobby.

Wallace

[reading a plaque on the station wall] "The Greatest Detectives in the World". You have to wonder about people who need such positive reinforcement.

Wallace

[to Goren] You of all people - mistrusting a librarian.

Wallace

In American literature, the descent into madness is usually preceded by obsession. A consuming obsession. Example, anyone?

Wallace

Alright, I'll get you started. Moby Dick. What characterizes Ahab's obsession?

Wallace

Yes. In the back.

Goren

The dogged, unrelenting pursuit of evil.

Wallace

Interesting. Evil. I always fancied it was man's unrelenting pursuit of his own potency.

Wallace

How old were you when you first realized your mommy wasn't like all the other mommies?

Goren

Seven.

Wallace

Were you ashamed?

Goren

And frightened. It's my turn. How old were you when your father first molested you? [Wallace grows quiet] It's the only explanation for your intense hatred of men. The murders in Thailand were an attempt to correct the tragedy of your childhood. To punish your abuser. Absolving yourself of guilt by using a man to kill other men. Not that you think much of women either. Your mother, she was - what? Too scared, too drunk, too self-absorbed to protect you?

Wallace

[shaky] No. No. None of those things ever happened. None of those things are true.

Goren

That's why you can't form connections. That's why you use sex - it's an exercise in self-hatred. It's why when you came back from Thailand, you supported yourself with prostitution, didn't you, Nicole?

Wallace

[voice breaking] I am Elizabeth Hitchens, I am a professor in literature...

Goren

[pounding his fist in the table] No! No. When I met you, you wanted me to know who you truly were; how smart, how funny, how charming you are. You wanted me to know you, Nicole Wallace, a sparkling, little girl who survived horrible abuse with her wits intact.

Goren

Give me your hand.

Wallace

If you just wanted to hold my hand, Bobby, you really didn't have to go through such measures. Is it everything you imagined?

Goren

Don't flatter yourself. I see in you what your other conquests don't.

Wallace

Ah, yes, the famous Goren vision. A little short-sighted lately, though, with one glaring blind spot.

Goren

We all have our off days.

Goren

You've become the abuser of that sparkling little girl. You pimp her out, you make her sleep with men and women she doesn't want to, what, to serve your pathological needs and theirs?

Wallace

Well, this will come as news to Gavin. We've fooled ourselves into thinking we're in love. Thank God Detective Goren is here to save us.

Goren

No, you just listen to me! You just listen to me now!

Wallace

My, how you hate being contradicted!

Goren

I believe there is a part of you that loves Gavin - the decent part of Nicole that's hidden inside that bunker you call a heart. You know, the last time you sat here, you confronted the truth. It hurt. So you had to shoot the messenger. Hmm? If I could be wrong about Dan Croydon, how could I be right about you? Well, you blew it, Nicole, your one chance for happiness, with Gavin. One chance, and you had to come back to me? You couldn't leave well enough alone. That's the price of denial.

Wallace

I came here for a truce, Bobby.

Goren

A truce?

Wallace

Notwithstanding your "unrelenting pursuit of evil".

Goren

Evil, Nicole, is also unrelenting in its pursuits.

Wallace

You're both so transparent, using Ella to get at me.

Goren

That's Nicole's maternal instinct rearing its little head.

Eames

You can't deny those feelings even if you can't have kids of your own.

Wallace

Yes, thank you. We can't all be blessed with eggs ripe and ready for hire. Tell me, detective, did your sister at least let you keep the sonogram so you could have something to cuddle up with at night?

Eames

[angry but controlled] I see my nephew at least three times a week. Being pregnant was a great experience. Consider yourself robbed.

Wallace

Who helped you concoct this theory, your mother?

Goren

In her wildest delusions, she never spawned anything like you, Nicole.

Daddy doesn`t love me, does he?

Wallace

Sometimes daddies can love too much...you wouldn`t want that...

Wallace

You're insane to think I'd be willing to go back to prison. I have a child to care for.

Goren

You can't possibly think you can have anything to do with Gwen's life. You think about your own child, Nicole.

Wallace

That was an accident... I never meant for her to die, I didn't. I loved her.

Goren

You couldn't stop yourself.

Wallace

[crying] She was just a little girl.

Goren

You couldn't control yourself, and you can't guarantee that that won't happen again.

Wallace

Gwen is a good girl with a good heart. She wouldn't love me if there wasn't anything good about me.

Goren

What about your own child? Wasn't she a good little girl? Didn't she love you, even more than Gwen? One day Gwen will do something, or maybe she`ll do nothing, and you`ll snap.

Wallace

No...no...that won`t happen.

Goren

You`re not safe to be around, Nicole...too much damage has been done.

Wallace

No, with her it`ll be healed ...it will be all right.

Goren

No. If you want to save yourself, you have to face up to who you are.

Wallace

That`s it? That`s all you have for me? Confess...go to prison?