Murder, She Wrote quotes

Edward Hale: [after Jessica exposes him as the murderer] This show was my last chance! If word got out that I was on pills again, I'd be finished!

Lt. Martin Kinicki: And nobody knew. Except Lily.

Edward Hale: She started pushing me to get Claudia's role. And I did it! And then, when I saw her with Geoffrey, I figured she was going to dump me just like she dumped Barry. I couldn't let that happen. I just wanted one thing in my life to go right.

Eve Simpson: I don't suppose I could play with this a little? You know, make it mine, update it a bit? It's just that, well, I'm much better at modern drama. I could do a Blanche DuBois that'll curl your hair.

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: Of that, I have every confidence.

Willy Montego: [after Jessica exposes him as the murderer] It was an accident. I never meant to ... I stuck with him through all the years he couldn't get a job, putting off my own retirement, waiting for the big break. And when it came, he was ready to throw me away. Why should he pay me, or any agent, ten percent of what he had coming when he can hire a lawyer to do the paperwork for a fraction of that amount? A man pays his dues and sticks with a client through good days and bad, he deserves more than a kick in the pants. It wasn't fair, Mrs. Fletcher. Damn it, it just wasn't fair.

Jessica Fletcher: No. No, Willy, it wasn't.

Willy Montego: Ever since it happened, I can't eat, can't sleep, waiting for a knock on the door, terrified of being caught, frightened by every sound. I can't live that way.

Jessica Fletcher: You don't have to, Willy. Not anymore. It's over.

Daisy Collins: [after being exposed as the murderer] That money was gonna get me out of here. It was gonna set me up in a better flat. Better class of clientele, you know what I mean? How else was I gonna get that money away from him without him going to the police?

Devon Lane: [after Jessica reveals how the murder was committed] All right. I took the gun out of the closet. But I didn't set it up. His loving wife did that.

Sheriff Beals: Why did she put the shotgun in her closet and not his?

Jessica Fletcher: Because Walter might have opened his closet any time. She wanted it to happen during the period when they both had their carefully planned alibis, so she set it up in her closet. When she called him from my apartment, she must have asked him to get something for her.

Devon Lane: A credit card she said she left in the pocket of a jacket.

Joanna Rollins: No. This whole sick plan was his idea! He said he'd be a decoy so no one would suspect me! Really! He's mentally deranged! He's violently ill! I've taken the abuse. I've taken it day after day and month after month. But he said to me ... He said if I didn't cooperate, he'd kill me! And I knew he would; I did! I knew he would! I knew it.

Devon Lane: Bravo, darling. How about trying it again? Only this time, with conviction.

Ian O'Connor: [after Jessica exposes the murderer] I don't believe it. That doesn't make any sense.

Jessica Fletcher: I'm afraid it makes perfect sense. Michael O'Connor blamed Sean for all of his problems, and hated him for taking the woman that he loved. When Michael left Ireland, he was in such a hurry that he sold his property for a fraction of its value. Something extraordinary must have happened to make him cash in everything and leave like that.

Lt. Parnell: It's as if he knew he wouldn't be coming back. It's the kind of thing you do when you know you're gonna die. Close everything out, put your affairs in order, make sure the money goes to your next of kin.

Jessica Fletcher: Which hardly fits the picture of a man who never thought ahead.

Ian O'Connor: But why? Why would he do all this?

Jessica Fletcher: Because he was already dying, Ian. This evening, I spoke to his doctor in Ireland. A few months ago, Michael was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and given six months to live. I noticed when he spoke, he sometimes stammered, and he repeated his words at unnatural intervals, both indicators of a possible tumor. It must have come as a double blow to know his own life was ending just as Sean was beginning a new life in the United States.

Lt. Parnell: So, he decided a quick death was preferable over a slow and painful one.

Jessica Fletcher: And why not take Sean with him? It would be his final revenge. To frame Sean for his own death. Michael went out of his way to provoke Sean into threatening him to start a paper trail with the police. Taunted him so that Sean would get his fingerprints on the card you would later find beside the body, establishing his presence. He was carefully building a body of circumstantial evidence, knowing that the word of a dead man is admissible in court. And, of course, the videotape was the final touch.

Lt. Parnell: What about the gun?

Jessica Fletcher: Well, that was the ingenious part. But it was also the part that betrayed him. He cut into a high wall, ostensibly for a window, but mainly to get access to the hollow space within the wall. He then slipped a heavy steel weight into the gap and attached the other end of the long rope to the gun, knowing that as soon as he released the gun, it would be yanked up into the wall. But when he released the gun, it was pulled back with enough force to cause this scrape and the rope itself to cut into the wall at the edge of the opening.

Lt. Parnell: "To the last will I grapple with thee."

Ian O'Connor: What's that?

Jessica Fletcher: Melville. Captain Ahab lashing out at the great whale even as he died. "For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee." Yes. Obsession has always extracted a terrible price, Lieutenant. A terrible price indeed.

Sheriff Mort Metzger: I'm telling you, Doc, I feel like I've had this cough about half my life. I mean, shouldn't I be taking some kind of a pill or a shot or test or something?

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: Pills or tests or something cost money. I don't figure you're all that anxious to spend unnecessarily. Not on what you get paid and, frankly, I don't think you need them, anyway. Sheriff, if I could help you, I would. As I said, chances are you're tired. Your resistance is down. Nothing that a week in the Bahamas wouldn't fix just fine.

Sheriff Mort Metzger: That's just wonderful! If I can't afford medical care, how can I afford a trip to the tropics?

Dr. Jonas Beckwith: Look, I know you're angry; I know you're upset. You have every right to be. Death is worst when it comes to someone we care about. But don't take your anger out on me. I don't deserve it, and I don't need it. And we have to find some way to work together in the same world.

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: Dr. Beckwith, I'm afraid that you and I will never work together in the same anything. And I, for one, would like to keep it that way.

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: [after Jessica exposes the murderers] All this so that you and this woman could be involved?

Allan Wooster: That, and because I was sick-and-tired of playing second banana to that damned computer nonsense. The day Harriet started that business was the day our marriage ended. And then, Doug introduced me to Gretchen on one of my trips into Boston, and it was like the clouds parted. I was being offered a new life.

Cyrus Ramsey: [after Jessica exposes him as the murderer] Jason died two days before his 21st birthday. He had so much energy. He was interested in everything. He had his whole life in front of him until he met Enrico Montejano. That man corrupted him. He was a cancer. He had to be cut out before he infected one more innocent person. You understand that, Jessica, don't you?

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: [to Lawrence Jarvis, after Jessica reveals his role in the murder] For a while I was disappointed that Ben didn't let you roast. But now it sounds as if you're going to spend quite a long time in prison. Every night, just before I go to sleep, I'm gonna remember that and smile.

Sylvia Moffett: [after Jessica exposes her as the murderer] Mr. Greenstreet thinks I did it for him. But I did it for myself. Boss Lady had teeth and claws, and I didn't. She worked nights and made keys to all the offices. She copied people's ideas and claimed them as her own. She made love to the men who could help her. And when she couldn't use them anymore, she fired them. The day she became more powerful than you could handle, Mr. Greenstreet, that's the day you came to me, and I became your mole. I've got to thank you. It's the only thing that made it bearable over the years. That, and knowing that someday, I'd have my own kind of revenge.

Edgar Greenstreet: Moffett, I don't know what to say.

Sylvia Moffett: Then stop calling me Moffett. My name is Sylvia.

Janet Weymouth: [after Jessica exposes her as the murderer] I just wanted to talk some sense into him. But he wouldn't listen. Every dime I have is from the Babbington side of the family. If word got out that Margaret had a child, we'd have lost the entire inheritance. We'd be ruined. I offered him everything, anything.

Sheriff Mort Metzger: But he refused.

Janet Weymouth: Yes.

Jessica Fletcher: And then?

Janet Weymouth: And then I ... And then I ... It was as if I'd lost touch with reality. My head was swimming. All I could feel was a terrible hatred for him and for what he was doing to me and to my family. I didn't know what I was doing. I just knew I was terrified of losing everything and I couldn't let that happen. I just couldn't.

Louis Paloma: [to Brynie Sullivan, after Jessica exposes the murderer] Sullivan, about that exclusive. I'm prepared to fill you in on any details, open my files up to you, if that's worth anything. As a matter of fact, I have some free time first thing in the morning.

Brynie Sullivan: Well, thanks, Louis. But this one's kind of writing itself. My lead's going to be how Lieutenant Artie Gelber cracked the murder case ten days before his retirement, and found in the killer's possession evidence that's going to allow the New York DA to put Max Hagen away for almost 200 years.

Lt. Artie Gelber: Yeah, Mr. Paloma, can you believe he was just carrying those computer disks around in his pocket?

Brynie Sullivan: But don't sweat it, Louis. After the DA has finished with Hagen, you can go after him in the federal courts. It might even get you nominated for dog catcher. Elected, I don't know.

Sean Culhane: What's an old retired cop like me gonna do otherwise? Sit at home and watch those infernal Australian soap operas?

Jessica Fletcher: You're still going on about them.

Sean Culhane: We sent them convicts, now they're sending us soap operas. If you ask me, we still owe them a few convicts.