Most-quoted character in Magnum, P.I.: in 141 of its 180 quotes Most scenes with: Jonathan Higgins (36), T.C (13), Rick (13)
Lines by Thomas Magnum 80
Magnum
[narrating] I must've seen a hundred rainbows since I've been in the islands, but each one just seems to take my breath away, despite the best efforts of Mr. Corkall, my high school science teacher. He used to lecture our class on light reflections and refraction, polarization and prisms, but I knew, I knew that that really wasn't what rainbows were all about. So when I got a "C" on my midterm, Mr. Corkall told me that he was really worried that I would go through life not understanding the importance of geometric optics. But to tell you the truth, I was a lot more worried Mr. Corkall might go through life not understanding the importance of a rainbow.
[in jail with T.C.] My Aunt Maggie used to say that friendship was something like a sponge; it could soak up a lot of garbage and gunk, but when you rang it out, you still had a sponge. Now I'm not quite sure what all that meant, but I did know as far Rick was concerned, there was a whole lot of ringing out to be done before that sponge could be used again.
S6 E20 A Little Bit of Luck, a Little Bit of Grief
[narrating] I always thought of L.A. as the "City of Dreams", a place where you go when you want your fantasies to come true. Apparently, ten million other people agreed with me. Some of those dreams must have come true, but I couldn't help but notice that too many others had been buried beneath the smog and congested freeways that had sprawled out of control.
[narrating] There's something I've noticed over the years about movie bad guys. They're always bad; the henchman, the hitmen, the big bosses. They all have that "one dimensional evil". We don't like to think about the fact that they might have families, or about what their families have to go through because of them. I could see that Jack Wilkins was just that scary enigma and I was counting on the possibility that he would have the same universal household problems we all have.
[narrating] I once had a paper route in Tidewater, the Daily Sentinel. It was my first major job. I made $12 dollars a week and a penny for every delivered paper, and I never got nervous at income tax time, because I knew the IRS always gave me my money back, reluctantly. Sending in your 1040 form has always been as much a part of the American way of life as hot dogs at the ballpark on the Fourth of July, only now I've found myself having to file a lot more than a 1040. I wasn't getting my money back anymore, and I hadn't been to the ballpark since, well... before the paper route. I told myself not to feel persecuted. I told myself that people who get audited are chosen at random. I told myself it was nothing personal.
[narrating] Saigon. April 30, 1975. No matter how hard I tried, I could never put that day completely out of my mind. A chaotic ending to a chaotic time. A war that kept changing, even in retrospect. And every time I thought I'd put it behind me, it crept up and tapped me on the shoulder.
[narrating] Everybody, deep down inside thinks he, or she, is a private investigator. Jessica Fletcher was no exception. Despite her denials, I was sure she fancied herself as the consummate crime solver.
[narrating] When I was six years old, I was convinced that monsters lived under my bed, just waiting for nighttime to come out and grab me. I laid awake all night for weeks, on guard against my own fear, until my Dad told me to call the monsters out and see if they came. They never did. Unfortunately, my Dad never had a solution for the real monsters, the ones that reach out and grab you in broad daylight, and neither did I.
[narrating] Failure is one of life's few absolutes. Success, on the other hand, is relative. For instance, there's this story of a guy who spent his entire childhood dreaming of becoming a fighter pilot. He joined up at 18, came out of flight school number one in his class, soloed like a pro, and was assigned to a top combat wing. A week before he was to fly his first mission there was a fire in his barracks. He pulled two guys from the flames and suffered third-degree burns to his hands in the process. He was a hero, and he wound up a General. But he was never able to fly again. Relative success and absolute failure.
[narrating] My grandfather was one of the world's great collectors. He collected souvenirs, stamps, and friends, but his prized collection was a stack of uncirculated currency: all silver certificates, all two-dollar bills. On my 13th birthday, he gave me one of them and told me to read the serial number. It was my birth date, and in time it became my "Lucky Two". I'd carried it with me ever since... until last night.
[narrating] Did you ever commit to something you knew you weren't really committed to? Well, take my last game at Navy. We were playing Michigan, and we all knew there would be pro scouts there. Not that that mattered much to the Navy guys, because we were already "drafted" in a manner of speaking, and I guess I really knew that they wouldn't be scouting me, even if I was available. But that's the point. See, I was having one of those really good days--over 200 yards passing, two touchdowns, maybe one of my best games ever--and I started thinking, why shouldn't they be interested in me? You know, for the future. That's what happened to Staubach. Well, that was stupid, because I wasn't Staubach. I mean, there comes a time when you know how good you really are and I wasn't Staubach. So, time's running out, fourth down, we're trailing by 3 points, and my wide receivers are wide open in the end zone, and I missed him ... by 20 yards. Now, I hadn't missed anybody all day, so I don't know how I missed him by that much, but I think I know why. What if I'd had the best day a quarterback could ever have and nobody wanted to talk to me? That says something about commitment.
[narrating] My Aunt Phoebe was the smartest woman I ever knew. She also had a tendency to see things bigger than life, which meant that when you were with her you got to see more vibrant colors, hear more intriging sounds, feel things more fully than when she was gone. But, it also meant that sometimes you had to translate her view of the world into a more mundane reality.
[narrating] A cogent note about Walter Pidgeon, not the actor, my cousin Rainy's pet bird. One summer, Walter got out of the house, onto the deck. He would have flown away except there was a glass partition he couldn't get through. He kept trying and trying, but he kept hitting up against the glass. Now, two feet to the left, and two feet to the right, the partition ended, but he couldn't see the obvious, that there was a glass wall in front of him. The difference between me and Walter Pidgeon was I had finally seen the wall that Frank Foley had thrown up in front of me and I was taking two steps to the left to get around it ... [short time later] ... One last thought about Walter Pidgeon and the "glass wall". I'd always wondered what would have happened if "Old Walter" had gone around the partition and found his freedom. What would he have done with it? Maybe it was better that he never knew what was beyond the wall?
[narrating] There's a funny thing about paradise--every day is pretty much the same as every other day. One slides into another; weeks become months. And before you know it, you could lose several years without really noticing where you were going. That's why, there are hurricanes. To shake everything up; to give you chance to take stock of what you have left, after the winds have died down.
Magnum, P.I. · 180 quotes
Magnum
