Burn Notice (TV Series)

Turn and Burn (2008)

Jeffrey Donovan: Michael Westen

Photos 

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  Michael Westen : [voice-over]  In the world of intelligence, if an operative hands you a crossword puzzle, chances are, you just received a coded message. It's the art of steganography: sending coded messages that don't look like messages, unless you have the key.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  Most assassinations involve the firing of a single well-placed bullet. The trick to selling an assassination attempt is to use a lot more fire power... and an explosion or two doesn't hurt.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  Most people think distracting a group of guys is best done by a beautiful woman. The problem with beautiful women is people want them to stick around, which can cause a lot of problems. Obnoxious guys, they just want to get rid of.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  People don't trust information they get for free. If you wanna sell someone on a lie, you have to make them drag it out of you. It's effective, but often painful.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  If you wanna make a friend, solve a problem for them. No problem to solve? Create one.

• Madeline Westen : Michael? You still haven't fixed my coffee maker and I can't find the warranty.

  Michael Westen : Warranty? That thing was built in 1967.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  Inexperienced operatives abandon a cover ID under pressure; experienced ones just play their roles harder.

• Sophia : Campos is in a turf war with the Mexicans. They put a hit out on him last week. It's pretty ugly.

  Michael Westen : Ugly's good. We can work with ugly.

• Michael Westen : Fi, get me a sniper rifle and some C4.

  Fiona Glenanne : Oh, I like where this is going.

• Michael Westen : [voiceover]  In covert ops, you always want to be the one setting the meeting. When you're following someone else's instructions, they set the agenda, they control the security, and they get to make you jump through hoops to remind you - they are in charge.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  Check fraud is more about technique than high-tech equipment. Get some old checks, a roll of scotch tape, some nail-polish remover, and you're in business. Nail-polish remover is mostly acetone, which dissolves ink. Get your hands on a check that's been filled out by the account holder, dissolve everything but the signature, and you've got yourself a blank check. Counterfeiters call it 'check washing'.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  In intelligence, a good adversary lets you think you're winning. They know the best attack is the one you don't see coming. So you learn to be vigilant when you think you've got the upper hand. Because that's when they'll strike.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  If you walk in on a corpse and can't catch your breath, you might be suffering from a panic attack, or someone might be pumping nitrogen gas into the room to displace all the oxygen. It's not a bad way to kill someone. They suffocate before they've realized there's a problem. It won't show up on a tox screen, and there's no trail left behind... unless you know where to look.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  There are a lot of disadvantages to being at the scene of a crime: you can get arrested, you can get yourself killed, and no matter how many times you've done it, it's never fun hanging out with a dead body. But the advantage is, there's no one around to object to a little intelligence gathering.

• [last lines] 

  Sam Axe : [Michael called Sam on the phone]  Hey Mike, what's up?

  Michael Westen : Yeah, Sam. I think I got something. Carla speaks Arabic with a Kurdish accent.

  Sam Axe : Huh, you think she was stationed there?

  Michael Westen : I was hoping you could ask around?

  Sam Axe : Will do, buddy, but I gotta tell you, it's not much to go on.

  Michael Westen : I know, Sam, but it's more than we had.

• Michael Westen : [fixing his mother's coffee maker]  You know, they stopped making parts for this when Nixon was president.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  There may be no honor among thieves, but there's a certain amount of respect. Establishing you're in the same racket is a great way to make an introduction.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  Relationships are about trust. People trust you when they have something on you. Like, say, the name and address of a mistress in Orlando, or information about a secret gambling habit. It's all about making them feel secure.