- DS Endeavour Morse: [commiserating with Thursday after the latter has been beaten up] What did happen?
- DI Fred Thursday: [laconic] They had a pick-handle. I didn't.
- DS Endeavour Morse: [reading the title of Adam Drake's book] "How To Lead A Happier Life".
- DI Fred Thursday: Maybe he never finished it.
- Chief Superintendent Reginald Bright: A sobering thing to discover, so late in life, that one is considered a fool. I'm a figure of ridicule to be openly mocked and scorned.
- DS Endeavour Morse: [to Strange] I hope you're a more convincing liar when it matters. Your life may depend on it.
- Gabriel Van Horne: What do you want?
- DS Endeavour Morse: Straight answers, quickly given.
- Gabriel Van Horne: I was speaking philosophically.
- DI Fred Thursday: [reacting without amusement to a witticism of Morse's] Funny. There's a compere spot going, down the Legion - but I wouldn't hold your breath.
- Joan Thursday: [exasperated by Morse] I know you're smart. We all know you're smart. You don't have to prove it all the time. Take a day off.
- DS Endeavour Morse: [sarcastic] Well, thank you very much for all your help!
- [exits angrily]
- DS Endeavour Morse: .
- Viv Wall: Boyfriend?
- Joan Thursday: Another one of Dad's.
- Viv Wall: Doesn't look much like a copper.
- Joan Thursday: [with finality] No.
- Flora Humbolt: [to Morse, after he and Joan Thursday have found her and Matthew] I've been reading. According to Cherokee myth, there was a race called the Moon-Eyed People...
- Joan Thursday: [to Matthew, whilst Flora is speaking] Let's get your stuff.
- Flora Humbolt: [continuing] They called them that because they didn't see well in the daylight. Their eyes were more suited to the night. Maybe you're one of them.
- Isobel Humbolt: [on a tape-recording] Everyone thinks I have the perfect life. I suppose, looking at it from the outside, I do. Perfect marriage, perfect husband, perfect children, perfect house. But, every morning I wake up, I just want to scream.
- Isobel Humbolt: [interviewed at the Single Way Institute] The worst thing I've ever done? Life's too short. Guilt is for the religious.
- Isobel Humbolt: [questioned about the party] It was an academic wine-and-cheese, not the Masque of the Red Death!
- DS Endeavour Morse: [confronted by the open hostility of DCI Box] I didn't ask for a transfer. I don't know why I'm here any more than you do.
- Dorothea Frazil: Word is, Jim Strange is chasing up these heroin deaths. That was Eddie Nero's game, wasn't it?
- DS Endeavour Morse: He's dead.
- Dorothea Frazil: Yes. George Fancy, too. If I didn't know better, I'd say you had unfinished business.
- Dr. Larry Humbolt: [to Elliot Wingvist, after the latter has praised the departing Adam Drake] You know, if you really applied yourself, you could get the whole of your tongue up his exhaust.
- DS Endeavour Morse: [after Thursday has been beaten up] I hear there's been some excitement.
- DI Fred Thursday: Yeah. Just a bit of rough-and-tumble. Only, upstairs has stuck me on "light duties". You?
- DS Endeavour Morse: Car crash, supposedly. But looks more like a murder-suicide.
- [Thursday shows interest - Morse smiles]
- DS Endeavour Morse: If you've nothing on...
- DI Fred Thursday: Well, I could help you out, I suppose. If you want it.
- Dr. Larry Humbolt: [finding his wife drinking a stiff whisky mid-morning] I don't suppose that's the first of those? Or the last.
- Isobel Humbolt: [spiteful after the death of her lover] I wish it had been you!
- Dr. Larry Humbolt: [forlornly] So do I...
- DS Jim Strange: [discussing Flora Humboldt with Joan] Some of 'em are born under a bad sign. All the welfare in the world won't save 'em.
- Joan Thursday: Maybe, but thirteen's a bit young to be written off, don't you think?
- Dr. Max DeBryn: [to Morse, whilst examining Adam Drake's corpse] I wouldn't get too close - exsanguination.
- DS Endeavour Morse: [Flora and Matthew have disappeared, following Morse's interview with them] Sometimes, you've got to throw a stone into the pool, stir the silt.
- Joan Thursday: [angry with him] And never mind who gets hurt? They're children! If something happens...
- DS Endeavour Morse: They've not been taken by anyone. They're not in any danger. It's not the first time a child has run away from home. We'll circulate some photos and a description. They can't have got far. We will find them.
- Joan Thursday: You'd better!
- DS Endeavour Morse: [angrily, to Thursday] The only thing I'm trying to prove is who's behind this. Now, maybe that doesn't matter to you any more, but it still does matter to me!