- Margaret: So someone finally shot you.
- Dr. John Becker: I always thought it would be you, Margaret.
- Margaret: So did I.
- Dr. John Becker: Why do women always scream when they're surprised? Can't you just clutch your heart and drop dead like a man?
- Dr. John Becker: Look, someone in your department shut down a residential care facility in my neighborhood and threw everyone out into the street. Now I'm here because I want something done about it!
- Deputy Secretary: Wow. You sound pretty upset.
- Dr. John Becker: Well, I am. You know, I've been on the phone all afternoon calling every city agency I can think of, and all I got was the typical beureaucratic runaround.
- Deputy Secretary: Well that's terrible, you shouldn't have been treated like that.
- Dr. John Becker: At least you see that.
- Deputy Secretary: Well of course I do!
- Dr. John Becker: Then you'll help me?
- Deputy Secretary: Oh dear no.
- Dr. John Becker: ...Well, maybe you didn't understand me...
- Deputy Secretary: No, I understood you perfectly. You've discovered a social injustice, and as a concerned citizen you've come to your government to demand some action.
- Dr. John Becker: Exactly!
- Deputy Secretary: It's not gonna happen. But that look on your face, oh, that took me back! What was that, righteous indignation? I used to feel like that when I first started working here forty-two years ago.
- Dr. John Becker: Yeah, well - you've been in this office forty-two years?
- Deputy Secretary: Yeah. Same desk, same fake plant, same window. Doesn't open. None of them do. Otherwise we'd all jump out. But you were saying?
- Dr. John Becker: Look, I told you! Either reopen the facility, or make some arrangements to take care of these people!
- Deputy Secretary: And I told you, I can't help.
- Dr. John Becker: But you're the deputy secretary of social services!
- Deputy Secretary: It's just a title.
- Dr. John Becker: Dammit! Look, listen - you're in charge here, you're responsible, you work for the city!
- Deputy Secretary: You're not listening! I can't help. Nobody can help. That facility is not going to reopen, and I'll tell you why: there is no money! There's no money because the federal government cut taxes, which is all anybody seems to care about anymore. That means less money for the state, which means less money for the city, which means we had to cut services, which means fewer cops, fewer firemen, bad air, bad water and crappy schools which will turn out another generation of voters too stupid and greedy to care about anything else besides cutting taxes! So don't you come in here and tell me to fix your problem, because there's not a DAMN THING I CAN DO ABOUT IT!... Where did that come from?
- Linda: Are you okay?
- Dr. John Becker: Yeah, I'm just really pissed off.
- Linda: So you're okay.
- Dr. John Becker: No! Linda come here and sit down for a second, will ya? The other day Reggie pulled a stunt on me and I want to get even with her. I was just thinking
- [pauses]
- Dr. John Becker: You're sneaky.
- Linda: Yeah.
- Dr. John Becker: So how can I get back at her?
- Linda: Okay, this is what you do. Open the hood of her car.
- Dr. John Becker: [chuckles] Yeah?
- Linda: Find the distributor cap. Below that is the master cylinder. Underneath that is the brake line. Cut that. Next thing you know she's doing 70 on the highway without a care in the world and, BAM!
- Dr. John Becker: [looks at Linda in fear] You know, Linda. I'm going to think about that tonight and probably every night for the rest of my life.
- [exits his office]
- Dr. John Becker: Just when I think God couldn't screw me any further, he gets out the old Black & Decker and twists a little harder!
- Margaret: Interesting; you're being persecuted by a God you don't believe in.
- Dr. John Becker: That's why he's after me, Margaret.
- Linda: What do you have against the New York City Marathon?
- Dr. John Becker: The Marathon just gets my hopes up. At first it seems like 20,000 idiots are leaving the city, but then they just make a big loop and come right back.
- [Bob is trying to get reparations for being 1/64th Native American]
- Bob: You people have no idea what it's like to be discriminated against!
- Jake Malinak: Yeah, I'm a blind black man, we just SAIL through life.
- Bob: I was doing some research on the internet...
- Dr. John Becker: Must have come as a surprise that it's not all porn, huh?
- Bob: One shock at a time.
- Patient: [guest star Mary Steenburgen] You arrogant bastard, if I say I know the Roosevelts, I know the Roosevelts.
- [leaves the office]
- Dr. John Becker: I pity the poor bastard who's married to her.
- [Mary Steenburgen is Ted Danson's real-life wife]
- Dr. John Becker: Romance is like the cheese in the mousetrap - it baits you into position, so the cold, metal bar of reality can come down and snap your neck.
- Dr. John Becker: I have this friend... well, we aren't really friends - we just share custody of an ex-wife.
- Dr. John Becker: Jake, you watch the news this morning?
- Jake Malinak: How many times do I have to tell you - -?
- Dr. John Becker: Rhetorical question, stay with me, Jake. They're doing a story about violence in America. And while they are interviewing a bloated senator from one of our great trailer park states, instead of making guns harder to get, he blames the violence on television. What about all the violence that happened before television? I suppose the Spanish Inquisition came off a bad episode of "Gilligan's Island". Oh great, no cigarettes, the perfect cherry on this crap sundae of a morning.
- Jake Malinak: Just quit, John, they're taking years off your life.
- Dr. John Becker: Yeah, but those are the crusty old fart years that you spend just bitching at the world.
- Jake Malinak: As opposed to this whole high-on-life Gandhi thing you've got going on now?
- [Answering machine voice over message]
- Jake Malinak: Hi, this is Jake. Please look outside and then into the mirror. If it's dark outside and you're Becker, do me a favor, and go to hell.
- [doing a word association test]
- Regina 'Reggie' Kostas: Dog.
- Dr. John Becker: Leave.
- Regina 'Reggie' Kostas: Tree.
- Dr. John Becker: Me.
- Regina 'Reggie' Kostas: Man.
- Dr. John Becker: Alone.
- Regina 'Reggie' Kostas: Hey!
- Dr. John Becker: I never told you to shut up.
- Mr. Humphries: You hung up on me once.
- Dr. John Becker: So I didn't have to tell you to shut up.
- Dr. John Becker: [Becker is walking out a patient who has frostbite] Look, writing your name in the snow with your pee is good drunken fun when your name is something like Joe Smith. But, when your name is Stanislav Kasacinski and its ten below out, you're just frostbite waiting to happen.
- Margaret: [Referring to a gift to Linda from Bob] Aren't you going to open it?
- Linda: I'm afraid to.
- Regina 'Reggie' Kostas: Don't bother. It's a leopard thong.
- Linda: How do you know?
- Regina 'Reggie' Kostas: First gift?
- Linda: Yeah.
- Regina 'Reggie' Kostas: Leopard thong.
- Linda: Oh, come on. Do you really think he would...
- [pauses to peek inside of the box]
- Linda: Ok, let's say he did.
- Dr. John Becker: [walks into the diner to find Linda and Margaret sitting at a table] Oh, I'm glad you're here. I was in here last night had an experience that made me realize I might have a small problem with anger.
- Margaret: [interrupts] Hah!
- Dr. John Becker: I thought about it a lot and I realized that the anger class may have some merit. I'm going to use its techniques to try to change my life completely.
- Margaret: [interrupts again] Hah!
- Dr. John Becker: Are you going to keep doing that?
- Margaret: I don't know yet.
- Dr. John Becker: The first step is to call upon my support network, that's all of you
- [points to Linda, Margaret, and Jake]
- Dr. John Becker: , for your assistance...
- [stops and pauses]
- Dr. John Becker: The hell with it. I'll try to control myself and you try not to piss me off.
- Linda: [pauses] Hah!
- Margaret: Well put!
- [laughs and leaves the diner with Linda]
- Linda: [Stops looking through the trash can as Dr. Becker walks by] Morning doctor!
- Dr. John Becker: Oh yeah, good morning... um.
- Linda: Linda.
- Dr. John Becker: Right. I knew it was something weird like that.
- Linda: I know you said not to talk to you unless it was absolutely necessary, but I just want to say thanks a lot for making me a nurse's aide. I never thought I would be a professional anything! And this is way better than sweeping up hair at a beauty salon. Although the fumes from those hair dyes can give you a pretty good buzz! You know, this one time I...
- Dr. John Becker: [interrupts] You know if you shut your mouth it keeps the words from just falling out like that.
- Linda: I know! I know I talk too much and I'm working on that, but you just don't know what it's like in here!
- [pounds on forehead]
- Linda: All these thoughts keep flying around and... and I'm sensing a little hostility.
- Dr. John Becker: Go with that.
- Linda: You mean?
- Dr. John Becker: I mean go.
- Linda: [after John and Linda get in trouble for giving a sex talk to children] Look, you may think your kids are too young for this stuff but, believe me, they're just one Britney Spears video away from a whole new world.
- Linda: [after getting caught sleeping at the front desk] Ok, here's the thing! I was up all night with my friend who got dumped by her boyfriend.
- Dr. John Becker: Yeah, and how's that my problem?
- Linda: Well I didn't get any sleep. All night long she was crying and sobbing and moaning. The only way I could calm her down was to make her a coffee surprise. That's 2 parts coffee, 1 part Jack Daniels.
- Dr. John Becker: What's the surprise?
- Linda: It's really 5 parts Jack Daniels.
- Linda: Dr. Becker, do you have a minute?
- Dr. John Becker: No, I definitely don't.
- Linda: Well this won't take but a minute. This friend of mine got a tattoo of her boyfriend's name and since they broke up she was wondering if you knew anyone who could remove it for her.
- Dr. John Becker: Yeah I have a name for you, but what kind of idiot meets a guy in a bar and two minutes later tattoos his name on her ass?
- Linda: Well, technically it's my lower back.
- [Gasps and quickly walks away from John]
- [On the series finale]
- Dr. John Becker: I have to check on Mr. Nielsen. You know, I don't see what the problem is. These numbers aren't that bad.
- Dr. John Becker: The world is full of idiots, and someone needs to point it out to them or they will never know.
- Dr. John Becker: Since when do you wear glasses?
- Linda: I don't.
- Dr. John Becker: Then what are those?
- Linda: They just look good, they don't do anything.
- Dr. John Becker: Yeah, well, you'd be the expert on that.
- Bob: I was having that dream we all have, you know? The one where you're making love to a beautiful woman and all of a sudden her legs turn into scissors?
- Dr. John Becker: That's the problem with the world, everybody says "Everybody does it," so everybody does it!
- Dr. John Becker: Oh, I'm so glad to see you!
- Bob: That's nice, John.
- Dr. John Becker: I was talking to the cigarettes.
- [he's getting a ticket for jay-walking]
- Bob: What? You want to see my "walker's license?" What are you going to do? Impound my shoes?
- Linda: You had motive, you had opportunity, and let's not forget yesterday you said you wanted to kill him.
- Dr. John Becker: If I was capable of killing someone would you still be alive?
- [Becker walks into the back]
- Linda: [to Margaret] He didn't do it.
- Margaret: Just for today, you are Beth.
- Lynda: I don't like the name Beth.
- Linda: I do, can I be Beth?
- Lynda: I want to be Beth too.
- Margaret: You can't both be Beth.
- Linda: Why? We're both Linda.
- Lynda: Let's pick our own names.
- Linda: I want to be Margaret.
- Lynda: No, I want to be Margaret.
- Margaret: I want to be dead.
- Dr. John Becker: Uh-Linda?
- Linda, Lynda: Yes?
- Dr. John Becker: I meant Linda.
- Linda, Lynda: Yes?
- Margaret: You're both named Linda?
- Linda, Lynda: Yes.
- Dr. John Becker: I just had that creepy feeling I had in medical school watching the cell divide.
- [Linda stands up with a post-it note stuck on her forehead]
- Linda: I had a message for Margaret but I can't find it.
- Dr. John Becker: Was it to tell her Mrs. Cooper called?
- Linda: Wow, it's like you read my mind.
- Dr. John Becker: Some are easier than others.
- [Becker walks away and Margaret comes in]
- Linda: I have a message for you.
- Margaret: Was it to tell me Mrs. Cooper called?
- Linda: Wow, you people are freaky.
- [Linda goes in the back]
- Dr. John Becker: I won't tell her if you won't tell her.
- Regina 'Reggie' Kostas: Doesn't what she did piss you off?
- Dr. John Becker: Yeah, it just doesn't surprise me because I happen to feel that most people are cruel, small-minded and shallow.
- Regina 'Reggie' Kostas: Oh, come on, Becker, if I believed that then I'd have to believe that the entire world just sucks.
- Dr. John Becker: Thank you! That's what I've been trying to tell you every single morning for the past two years! Thank you.
- [Linda wants to rename the exam rooms A, B and C and put the patients in them according to the letter of their ailment]
- Dr. John Becker: There are three exams rooms, that's only A, B and C. What if someone comes in with, oh, I don't know, "M" for "migraine"?
- Linda: Headache, "A" for ache.
- Dr. John Becker: Pregnancy?
- Dr. John Becker: "B" for baby.
- Dr. John Becker: X-ray?
- Linda: "C" for see-through.
- Regina 'Reggie' Kostas: Do you think it would be silly for me to go back to college, now?
- Dr. John Becker: No, I think it would silly for us to have this conversation again, ten years from now.
- Annette Johnson: You just may go to Heaven whether you like it or not.
- Dr. John Becker: Thanks. It's the first time someone suggested I go in that direction.
- [to Jake]
- Bob: You're blind! You can't even enjoy the best parts of sex! You can't see the mirror over the bed, you can't adjust the camcorder... you can't even see your friends cheering you on!
- Dr. John Becker: Well, I went to my first anger class and it worked... I'm pissed as hell. I'm in a room with a bunch of psychos, they hand out pamphlets and get this: Its an anger symptom early warning device.
- Regina 'Reggie' Kostas: Its a rubber band.
- Dr. John Becker: Oh! College girl! Anyway, I'm supposed to snap it everytime I feel angry.
- Jake Malinak: Won't that make you more angry?
- Dr. John Becker: Shut up.
- Regina 'Reggie' Kostas: Behavior modification works very well to help break behavioral patterns.
- Dr. John Becker: Yeah, look Reg, a couple of classes at the institute of psychology and air conditioner repair doesn't qualify you to pepper me with dime-store generalities.
- Dr. John Becker: I woke up to the fact that as a healthcare professional, it's insane for me to go on smoking.
- Regina 'Reggie' Kostas: They raise the price of cigarettes again?
- Dr. John Becker: Yeah. $4.50 a pack!
- Jake Malinak: Wait a minute, this guy's really good-looking, isn't he?
- Regina 'Reggie' Kostas: I could lick his face like a Dove bar.
- Mr. Stoler: I don't need these pills. This test confirms everything I believe in.
- Dr. John Becker: Damn it, this is what pisses me off about you people. You people find religion and think that you have all the answers!
- Mr. Stoler: Don't doctors think they have all the answers?
- Dr. John Becker: I *do* have all the answers!
- Dr. John Becker: [walking with a pregnant patient to the door] Don't worry about your baby, in a few months you'll be on your back with your legs up in the air, screaming like a banshee.
- [turns to go to his office]
- Dr. John Becker: Pretty much what got you there in the first place.
- Dr. John Becker: [after standing up from witness chair in courtroom] I will not sit here and be accused of being a bad doctor. I am a damn good doctor.
- Judge Reinhold: Doctor Becker, you are out of order!
- Dr. John Becker: [turning to judge] No! You know something: You're out of order! This whole system is out of order!
- Judge Reinhold: [bangs gavel] All right, Pacino. You have no idea how much I hate that damn movie!