- Lt. Tom Quincy: Are you Ah Sing? Understand? You understandee English?
- Ah Sing: [nodding and speaking in perfect English] Also French, Italian, and Hebrew.
- Walter Williams: Doing the right thing never works out. I know. In this world, you turn the other cheek, and you get hit with a lug wrench.
- Mrs. King: When you trust folks, you trust 'em, and you give 'em a chance to work out things the way that seems right to them.
- Walter Williams: How can one little woman be so big?
- Mrs. King: Don't forget, it's easier to be tolerant and understanding at fifty than it is to be at twenty-five.
- Marsha Peters: It's wonderful the way tools seem to come alive in your hands. You seem to sort of come alive, too, as though you got real pleasure out of working with them.
- Walter Williams: I do. When you're doing a job with them, you can't think of anything else.
- Marsha Peters: Bill, if somethings bothering you, why don't you get rid of it?
- Walter Williams: What would you prescribe, doctor?
- Marsha Peters: Amputation for that stupid chip on your shoulder.
- Walter Williams: Life? A barren frustrated boyhood. A marriage to a woman who accepted my love and despised me so thoroughly she resorted to murder?
- Hotel Clerk: [looking at a photograph] I was on night duty then, all right; but, I sure don't remember a looker like this. Quite a dish, eh?
- Lt. Tom Quincy: A little too highly seasoned for my digestion, thanks.
- [last lines]
- Narrator: [voice over] Yes, impact: the force with which two lives can come together... sometimes for evil... sometimes for good.
- [first lines]
- Narrator: [voice over as a dictionary is opened] Impact: the force with which two lives come together... sometimes for good... sometimes for evil.
- Irene Williams: What really happened this morning? All I got out of Della was that you stomped out of the office with blood in your eye and were back in no time with canary feathers in your mouth.
- Walter Williams: Oh, I clipped those bird's wings, but short.
- Irene Williams: Now, seriously, darling. You run along and buy your little factories and hurry home.
- Walter Williams: Nothing in the whole world smells as sweet as you do, Duchess.
- Irene Williams: I certainly don't feel sweet. I'm as grouchy as an old bear.
- Walter Williams: To quote my wife, "I like monograms on things. It shows they belong to me." Unquote.
- Lt. Tom Quincy: You seem to have been very fond of Mr. Williams.
- Su Lin Chung: Su Lin honored to serve him five years.
- Lt. Tom Quincy: Last known address, care of his sister, Mrs. Joseph Rosetti, Irving Apartments, Berkeley. Well, what are you waiting for Quincy, let's go.
- Lt. Tom Quincy: Who do you think she beat a path to the telegraph office to wire to? The League of Decency?
- Irene's Attorney: Underestimating the enemy's ammunition would scarcely be wise. Now, if we can get to trial before Torrance is found, they'll never get a conviction. But...
- Irene Williams: But what?
- Irene's Attorney: If he shows up, we may have to - fry him.
- Irene Williams: Oh, no.
- Irene's Attorney: Let's not cross that bridge until we have to. But, if it comes to a choice, we're not going to burn, are we?
- Capt. Callahan: That ought to be enough to get an indictment out of the Grand Jury. Go pick her up.
- Lt. Tom Quincy: I'd like to play a long shot, first. It might give us two for one.
- Capt. Callahan: Well, take 'em one at a time. A bird in the hand...
- Lt. Tom Quincy: Is not going to lead us to its mate. I'd like to give the lady a little more rope.
- Walter Williams: This is no kind of work for a girl.
- Marsha Peters: Somebody has to do it, if I want to stay in business. And I want to.
- Irene's Attorney: Perhaps you don't realize the spot you're in. Torrance's fingerprints were found not only on your husband's briefcase; but, in a manner of speaking, on your reputation as well.
- Marsha Peters: The sorry part is you're not big enough to take a hard jolt to your pride and to your ego. Sure. It hurts to be tricked and cheated by someone you loved and believed in. But that doesn't give you the right to take justice into your own hands, to travel on the hearts of others, and walk out on life.
- Marsha Peters: Bitterness and hatred hurt everyone. Can't you see, Bill? They're like a wall that shuts out all the sunshine from a garden and lets everything wither. Make room in your heart for something else, can't you?
- Marsha Peters: As they say, you can take the boy out of the country, but...
- Walter Williams: A rolling stone gathers no moss.
- Marsha Peters: It has to stop rolling sometime, doesn't it?
- Marsha Peters: What have I done to you? If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be here.
- Walter Williams: If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be.
- Marsha Peters: The maid seems to be our only hope now. We've got to keep looking until we find her, that's all.
- Lt. Tom Quincy: That's all?
- Marsha Peters: Wait! She was naturalized, wasn't she?
- Lt. Tom Quincy: Shuffling chopsticks. Quincy, you dumb flatfoot. This - this Su - Su what's-her-name was Chinese born. If her Port of Entry was San Francisco, there'd still be a file on her.
- Ah Sing: Untruth is not good for soul - and not wisdom when told to policeman.
- Su Lin Chung: Better for the soul to be kind than to be wise. Su Lin must keep silent to help in this matter.
- Walter Williams: Our last chance for chow for a while. How about it?
- Jim Torrance: No thanks. I grabbed a hamburger while I was waiting for you. Can still taste the harness.