- Chief Superintendent Reginald Bright: [to Morse, on his return to the station] What happened... I can't change yesterday. But... a better tomorrow, yes?
- Kay Belborough: Why does Bruce call you "Pagan"?
- DC Endeavour Morse: Long story. It's a joke - at my expense. It's because I don't have a Christian name.
- Kay Belborough: [laughing] You must!
- DC Endeavour Morse: Not one that I care to use.
- Kay Belborough: What does it start with? I bet I can guess.
- DC Endeavour Morse: [realizing she means it] Kay?
- Kay Belborough: Hold out your hands. Now look into my eyes. A? B? C? D? E? F? It's E, isn't it?
- DC Endeavour Morse: [intrigued] Quite a trick. Where did you pick that up?
- Kay Belborough: A misspent youth. Don't change the subject. E for what?
- DC Endeavour Morse: Embarrassment, mostly.
- DC Endeavour Morse: How'd you find me?
- DI Fred Thursday: It's my lung's got a hole in it, not my brain.
- Joss Bixby: Luck of the draw old man. One was damned and one was saved. The toss of a single coin. God called it, not me.
- DC Endeavour Morse: Zambezi was right. There's no real magic in this world. Only love. The rest is just smoke and mirrors.
- DC Endeavour Morse: [undecided about returning to the police] Why would you go back - after everything?
- DI Fred Thursday: There's a town needs looking to. That hasn't changed just because I've dropped a suit-size. Throw the towel in now and it was all for nothing and the bastards won.
- [first lines]
- Chief Constable: The finding of this Board, is that the tragic events of last December, which led to the shooting of DI Thursday and the arrest of DS Morse, were due solely to a mental breakdown suffered by ACC Clive Deare. We are also of a view that further investigation into other extraneous matters would not be in the national interest. To which end, all investigative materials relating to Blenheim Vale Boys Home are to be sealed... for 50 years.
- [a container is stamped CASE CLOSED]
- DC Endeavour Morse: Bixby didn't belong in their world any more than I do. Did. I wanted to tell him that the last night I saw him. That he was better than that.
- DI Fred Thursday: Nobody gets to choose. The further a man runs away from his nature, the sooner it'll find him out.
- Dr. Max DeBryn: [on being told that the dead body with no face isn't who they thought it was] This is the body of Roddy Farthingale, then? Not Joss Bixby. The coroner does tend to get picky about that sort of thing.
- DI Fred Thursday: [asked about Harry Rose's criminal connections] Slots. Drugs. Racketeering. You name it. Harry Rose has been at it since the Devil was in short trousers.
- Elva Piper: What do you do, Mr Morse?
- DC Endeavour Morse: Nothing. At present.
- Elva Piper: Are you one of the idle rich?
- DC Endeavour Morse: Idle, certainly.
- DI Fred Thursday: Sometimes you've to put all you are against all they've got. It was my decision. I'd do it again without a second thought.
- Joss Bixby: [Morse has mentioned Jeannie Hearne] That's twice I've heard that name tonight. The first person to ask was a policeman.
- DC Endeavour Morse: [With a solemn look] So's the second.
- Joss Bixby: Do you remember? We always used to go around the attractions, when the fair had closed and the punters had gone home... It was just you and me in the whole world.
- Kay Belborough: It was never just you and me, though, was it?
- Joss Bixby: No. But it is now.
- DI Fred Thursday: You didn't call me out here because she'd been hit by a car.
- Dr. Max DeBryn: No I called you out because she was hit by the same car... several times.
- DC Endeavour Morse: I thought... It doesn't matter how far you run, or how hard you scrub. It's there. The stench of it. Everything we touch.
- DI Fred Thursday: It gets so you don't notice.
- DC Endeavour Morse: That's what worries me.
- Joss Bixby: I'm afraid there are things to which I must attend. Do you have everything you want?
- DC Endeavour Morse: Which of us can answer yes to that? Present company, obviously.
- DI Fred Thursday: [asking Monica about Morse] Any message if I find him? I'll leave you to get on, miss.
- Monica Hicks: Mr. Thursday - he doesn't want to be found.
- Bruce Belborough: [insulting Kay] Darling, I know I married a model, but you don't have to fulfil everyone's expectations of vacuity.
- DS Peter Jakes: [after interviewing Potter about Jeannie Hearne's night out at the fair] They went out on a few rides. Took in a magic show. Shooting gallery. Potter says he won her a monkey.
- Chief Superintendent Reginald Bright: [misunderstanding] Five hundred pounds?
- DI Fred Thursday: Stuffed, sir.
- Chief Superintendent Reginald Bright: What?
- DI Fred Thursday: Soft toy.
- Chief Superintendent Reginald Bright: [realizing his mistake] Ah.
- The Great Zambezi: Years of preparation and rehearsal come down to a single heartbeat, in which one makes the impossible a reality.
- Joss Bixby: [shortly before his planned attempt on the world water-speed record] On a night like this, a man might believe that anything's possible. Will you come and watch tomorrow, when I go for the run?
- DC Endeavour Morse: [emphatically disapproving] I've seen enough death.
- Joss Bixby: What's your line? If you don't mind me asking.
- DC Endeavour Morse: Didn't Anthony say?
- Joss Bixby: He said you'd had a bit of trouble somewhere. He didn't say what kind. I didn't press him. He's discreet.
- DC Endeavour Morse: Let's just say I'm reviewing my options.
- Joss Bixby: Well, I could use a good corner-man. Why don't you come and work for me, while you make your mind up.
- DC Endeavour Morse: Doing what, exactly?
- Joss Bixby: Keeping me out of trouble, in the main.
- DC Endeavour Morse: Why, do you get much of that?
- Joss Bixby: Anyone who ever made a deal made an enemy.
- Bruce Belborough: [to Morse] You were never the clubbable type. Thought too much - that was your problem.
- Joss Bixby: I was at Harvard myself. But all the important things in life, I learned at the tables. You a betting man?
- DC Endeavour Morse: My father played the horses. One gambler in the family's quite enough.
- Joss Bixby: You get to know the truth of a man at cards.
- DC Endeavour Morse: And what's the truth of you? Who's the real Joss Bixby?
- Joss Bixby: I wonder myself, old man. I wonder myself.
- Dr. Max DeBryn: [discussing the death of a student with Thursday] Blood results on your "sudden" - undergrad, Gerald Ashborne. Chinese heroin, number three variety. New for these parts and rather worrying.
- DI Fred Thursday: How's that?
- Dr. Max DeBryn: This Chinese stuff varies in strength enormously. Results are somewhat hit, and in the case of the late Gerald Ashborne, a rather resounding miss.
- DI Fred Thursday: Right. Thank you, doctor.
- Joss Bixby: Well unless there's anything else, Inspector... It's a poor host neglects his guests.
- DI Fred Thursday: Sir.
- DS Peter Jakes: What about Thursday? Play any golf, my lord?
- Bruce Belborough: I'm afraid I side with those that think it's a good walk spoiled.