Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (TV Series)

Victims (2001)

Christopher Meloni: Detective Elliot Stabler

Photos 

Quotes 

• Elliot Stabler : Thomas Marchek kidnapped Corrine Branson, tortured her at knifepoint and left her for dead.

  Donald Cragen : I read the file.

  Elliot Stabler : I was ready to cap that dirtbag myself. Now you expect me to work his homicide?

  Donald Cragen : One Police Plaza does. They asked me to take it, I said yes.

  Elliot Stabler : To polish your political apple?

• Elliot Stabler : I don't want this case.

  Donald Cragen : I'm through explaining myself to you. You caught it, you make it.

• Donald Cragen : Elliot? How far you gonna push this?

  Elliot Stabler : Captain?

  Donald Cragen : No, since I assigned this case you have questioned my orders and disrespected my command. Now, I've cut you some slack because of our relationship, but this well is running pretty dry. Are we clear?

  Elliot Stabler : Yes, sir.

  Donald Cragen : I get enough crap from the politicians. I don't need any from my own detectives. I need a break, Elliot. Find me one.

• Sam Winfield : You know, we're only protecting ourselves against these rapists because you won't. The system puts them in our neighborhoods and then turns its back.

  Elliot Stabler : And where exactly would you like them to go?

  Sam Winfield : Hell's good and hot.

• Corrine Wilson : [to Stabler]  You caught that man.

  Elliot Stabler : Yes.

  Corrine Wilson : Thank you.

  Elliot Stabler : You never have to thank me for that.

• Alexandra Cabot : We've twisted suspects in the wind for a lot less than what we've got on paper right now.

  Elliot Stabler : Those suspects didn't have a daughter who was raped and had her face sliced up.

• Donald Cragen : Now the remaining two parolees on the list, Trent Wills and James Campbell are to get round-the-clock protection.

  Elliot Stabler : Captain, what are we supposed to do about the honest, hard-working people who actually need us?

• Elliot Stabler : [to Winfield]  Give up your 9MM for testing.

  Sam Winfield : No.

  Elliot Stabler : Then why do we have to go through this, then? You gonna play us, we'll just keep right on digging.

  Sam Winfield : Then grab a shovel, brother.

• Sam Winfield : [to Stabler]  Just another day on the thin blue line, Detective? You better watch out.

  Elliot Stabler : Yeah.

  Sam Winfield : Or you'll wind up just like me.

  Elliot Stabler : Well, thanks for the advice.

• Elliot Stabler : [about Winfield]  So we pad our win column at the expense of a good cop because he made a judgment call?

  Donald Cragen : If he killed those men, I don't give a damn how many commendations he had. He's a murderer and we're going to nail his ass. Now do you have a problem with that?

• Elliot Stabler : [to Winfield]  I had my own Alan Cryter. Insurance salesman. Ran his business out of a converted garage in Queens. Well liked. Would invite the neighborhood kids up for ice cream and stories. One day, a six-year-old girl goes missing from a playground in Soho. Actually long story short, we find her underneath the floorboards of his office, along with three other children. All of them in various stages of decomposition,but he is gone and I'm left with a cold case. And two years nothing but silence and headaches. I developed these debilitating headaches. I wasn't sleeping a lot. I kept having these recurring nightmares where my own children would be underneath these floorboards that I couldn't pry up. And then one day I'm just gassing up my car in Chelsea and there he is. and before I know it, I've got his face sandwiched between his windshield and the muzzle of my gun and I'm yelling, "Freeze." And I realize that I'm yelling at myself because I can't stop my finger from pulling the trigger. And I'm praying for him to blink. I'm praying for him to twitch. Just do something to give me an excuse. And then I see a face inside of his car. It's a girl, this beautiful, little six-year-old girl. These big eyes. I figured she'd seen enough.

• Elliot Stabler : [to Winfield]  The problem is anyone you don't like, they wind up dead.