Magnum, P.I. (season 8)

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Magnum, P.I. (1980–1988) was an American television show, airing on CBS, that followed the adventures of Thomas Magnum (played by Tom Selleck), a private investigator living in Hawaii.

Pleasure Principle [8.02]

Magnum: [narrating] There's a funny thing about paradise—every day is pretty much the same as every other day. One slides into another; weeks become months. And before you know it, you could lose several years without really noticing where you were going. That's why, there are hurricanes. To shake everything up; to give you chance to take stock of what you have left, after the winds have died down.

Innocence, a Broad [8.03]

Magnum: How come every time there's a crummy job to be done, I'm in charge of security, but every time there's big money to be spent, or credit to be taken, you're in charge?

Higgins: Because that is the order of the universe.

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Magnum: One of the pleasanter aftereffects of nearly meeting your maker is a renewed sense of the value of all life; of every creature's right to realize its full potential. In fact, I was quite pleased recently when I managed to avoid stepping on an ordinary garden snail. Pleased that it could crawl on to fulfill its full garden snail potential.

Tigers Fan [8.04]

Magnum: [narrating] I've always loved baseball. I think it has more of the American character than any other sport. It's competitive without being cutthroat. It's basically simple, but capable of incredible complexity. Baseball is played in parks. It has no clock except for the eternal rhythm of each individual game. This gives it thrilling bursts of action and moments of leisurely tranquility. All-in-all, I'm convinced that baseball represents one of man's noblest endeavors.

A Girl Named Sue [8.07]

Susan: [narrating] I know what you're thinking, and you're right. I felt bad about ending up in a competition with a stand-up guy like Thomas. I'd always liked his style. Hmph, in fact, he had a lot to do with my deciding to join the flat-foot fraternity. But the first thing I learned at "Lucky Steele's Detective School" was that a savy P.I. doesn't think much about the human condition. We always suspect everyone. And that's why we are so rarely disappointed. I wasn't ready to panic, but the palm on my shifting hand was starting to itch. And since my heap had the horses, I decided to use them. I had to hope the gumshoe gods were watching over me.

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Magnum: [narrating] I know what you're thinking, and you're right. There are few things more dangerous than getting in the middle of a family quarrel, especially a family quarrel over a large fortune. Ask any cop and he'll tell you; more policeman are injured answering family disturbance calls than any other kind. It's like that old love song says, "you always hurt the one you love", and anyone else who happens to be in the line of fire. Well, I wasn't planning to make the 10 o'clock news the hard way.

Transitions [8.11]

Magnum: [narrating] I guess the earliest memory I have of my grandfather Sullivan is the kind of heart-to-heart talk we had while walking by the Rappahannock River when I was six years old. We used to hunt for wild asparagus down by the river to take home to my mom to cook for dinner. Anyway, on this particular walk my grandfather confided in me that probably the only thing you can count on in life is change… that no matter how much you wanted things to stay the same they never did, and that change itself wasn't bad. It's just that, the transitions were sometimes tricky. Well, I'm not sure what he was talking about at the time. I was more interested in the asparagus than transition, but I never forgot it. And I guess if there is one thing that I could in some way pass on, it would be my grandfather's advice—don't be afraid of "transitions", they make you strong.

Resolutions [8.12/13]

Jonathan Quayle Higgins III: Magnum, remember what I told you about Robin Masters?

Thomas Sullivan Magnum, IV: Yeah?

Jonathan Quayle Higgins III: I lied. [smiles]

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[Last lines]

Magnum: [at the end of the episode, to his TV audience] Good night. [pushes a button on the remote and the screen goes black]