You know, Higgins, there's something that I always wanted to tell you. I mean, deep down, you're really an okay guy.
How reassuring.
S4 E10Operation: Silent Night
[after Magnum and Rick complain about his piloting] You get what you pay for, and none of you paid!
Where is your holiday spirit?
Back home in New Orleans, which is where I'm gonna be as soon as Captain Calvin's Charity Chopper dumps all you freeloaders off!
S4 E11Jororo Farewell
[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.
S4 E12The Case of the Red Faced Thespian
[Magnum is at a fancy dress party in his normal trademark look]
MMarge
Great costume!
Oh, this isn't a costume.
NNolan
Really?! You wear that shirt in public?
Magnum, I'm very busy placating the guests. Now, will you please send Rick and T.C., away and assume the character of a reasonably competent security person? Only you and I will know you're acting.
S4 E13No More Mr. Nice Guy
[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, stop living in the past.
Me? Me?! Higgins, you've enshrined yours. You quote every boring war story like it was carved in stone.
Boring?
Don't worry, Higgins, I like your stories.
Yeah, me too.
I do think I tell them with a certain panache.
S4 E15Paradise Blues
[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.
S4 E16The Return of Luther Gillis
Higgins, I can explain.
I knew I could count on hearing that pathetic phrase once again, it is as regular as the rising and setting of the-
Do you wanna know why or not?
Not.
This was done by dot matrix.
Who's Dot Matrix, and what's she got to do with this?
She's a computer, Luther!
[narrating] I was beginning to get the feeling that I was stuck with the big guy for the duration. The only thing more depressing than that was this case, because we'd run out of leads. You try being a detective with no leads. It's like a tailor without a needle, or Godzilla without Tokyo, or...
[narrating] A bad guy without a motive.
Did you say something?
What?...Nope.
S4 E17Let the Punishment Fit the Crime
[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.
S4 E19On Face Value
[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.
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".
S4 E20Dream a Little Dream
[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.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's Magnum, P.I. pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.