Thomas Magnum quotes from Magnum, P.I.

Magnum

[narrating] Living alone has some terrific advantages, you can eat, sleep, go in and out, and burp whenever you want. It also has one terrific disadvantage – when you lose something, you've got no one to blame but yourself.

Magnum

[narrating] I remember when I was five years old, I found this little puppy in the street. It had been hit by a car and was in pretty bad shape, so, I brought it home and my dad and I took it to the vet. One hundred twenty bucks. The little puppy grew into a big Saint Bernard; it ate a five hundred dollar couch and my dad's favorite arm-chair. The next day, my dad put it in the back yard, where it dug under the fence and ran away. Ever since then, I've been wary about taking in big, adorable pups, one of life's lessons you just have to keep learning over, and over again.

Magnum

(Discovering Higgins' old war nickname) Punky?!

Magnum

[narrates] When I write my book on how to be a world class private investigator, I'm going to include a chapter on listening to your little voice. Everybody has one, and mine was saying to stop Marcus and find out the real story behind his new car. Of course I didn't, which is another chapter, things I should have done, but didn't...

Magnum

[narrating] I've always felt at home on the ocean, even as a kid. Maybe that's why I spend so much time alone on it, even on the 4th of July. I know, the Fourth should be spent with your buddies drinking beer, or eating hot dogs at the ballpark, or hoping into a potato sack race with your best girl, or barbequing in the back yard with your folks. Maybe for most Americans, but for me it's been a day to spend alone, to remember. So, here I was all alone on the ocean starting my annual Independence Day remembrance. At least I wouldn't get my fingers blown off by a cherry bomb.

Magnum

[narrating] I once had one follow me on my surf ski. He just hung a few meters off my rudder. I know I set a personal speed record getting back to shore that day.

Magnum

[narrating] My dad once told me that life is a trick done with mirrors. You look at something from one direction, it looks like one thing; you turn it over, it looks like something else. I guess he was right. Sometimes it's hard to tell who's a real friend, and who's just an illusion in glass.

Magnum

[narrating] Sure, I know, it's crazy to refer to whatever Higgins and I share as friendship, but it is. We fight and bicker like an old married couple, but somewhere, mixed in with the jibes, is a funny kind of mutual trust.

Magnum

[narrating] In my dad's day it was pool halls. Me? I sometimes hung out in pinball arcades. And these days a lot of kids lose themselves in computer explosions of lights and sounds. But whatever your game, you could always count on one thing in places like these; you could, in the space of a couple of hours, temporarily escape the problems of the outside world.

Magnum

[narrating] In that Army–Navy game, where I went 21-30, one of the passes I missed was intercepted. The fastest man on the Army team caught it, and he got past everybody, until I was the only guy left who had a chance to catch him. The guy was faster than me, and I knew it, but I wasn't going to get beat by my own mistake.

Magnum

[narrating] Ms. Wagner, my 11th grade English teacher, created a scandal in my hometown when she put All the King's Men on our mandatory reading list. She said she wanted us to understand the fatal attraction some men have for the very thing that will destroy them. Her love for the book got her fired and I never quite understood the attraction she was talking about, until the first day I saw Alex Carter and the way T.C. was looking at her.

Magnum

[narrating] Once, when I was a kid, three older guys decided to beat me up for no apparent reason. I held my own until a fourth showed up. And from that day on, I vowed that three was my limit, particularly when I didn't know what I was fighting about.

Magnum

[narrating] One of the best things about living in paradise is that when you get a couple of days off, you don't have to go someplace else to have fun and relax. Instead, you can concentrate on some of the finer things in life, like art. It comes in many shapes and forms and textures. You can find it anywhere, even in the sand. No matter how old or young you are, there's an incredible feeling of pride when you create something with your own two hands.

Magnum

When I write my book on being a first class private investigator, Rule Number 168 is going to be: "If you're getting chased, you should be in a fast car". Postscript to Rule 168: "No matter how fast your car is, there can always be one that's faster".

Magnum

[narrating] It's kind of funny how the years can sometimes creep by on you, two or three at a time, and nothing much changes. You're in a routine, and all that you really get is a little older, until whammo! -- you get a big three hundred and sixty-five that sometimes sets you right on your ear, changes everything. I guess 1979 was that kind of year for me. I resigned from the Navy, and I became a private investigator. Of course, that's a big over-simplification. Actually, there was a little more to it than that. There was Karen Teal, for example. The best woman surfer of 1979, and '8, and '7, and '6. Karen was the best. She always won, no matter who she went up against, and I really think it was that way because her love for life brought out the best in her. I know that because a long time ago, Karen Teal brought out the best in me. It seemed like only yesterday.