- Detective Olivia Benson: Did you ever try medication?
- Bernie Stabler: Once. I got into a fight with my husband and his gun went off, he had me committed. They tied me down and forced pills down my throat. I felt like a shell, like somebody had reached inside of me and scooped out my soul. I would rather die than ever go back there.
- Kathleen Stabler: Grams, do you think I'm crazy?
- Bernie Stabler: Do you feel crazy?
- Kathleen Stabler: I don't know. It's like the world is full of all these ding-a-ling force fields and every time I touch one, I shimmer.
- Bernie Stabler: Yeah, and sometimes just the thought of getting out of bed makes you so tired, you feel like you need a 12 hour nap?
- Kathleen Stabler: Yeah. How did you know?
- Bernie Stabler: [smiles] That's the price we pay for greatness.
- Detective Elliot Stabler: What the hell just happened?
- Detective Olivia Benson: Maybe God just remembered how cute you were as a carrot.
- Bernie Stabler: My mother used to call me a flibberty jibbit. I've been accused of being impulsive, irresponsible, flighty, and those are just the G-rated words.
- Detective Olivia Benson: Did you ever see a doctor?
- Bernie Stabler: You have to understand, in my day, eccentricity was tolerated, today they give you pills for everything.
- Kathleen Stabler: Dad hates me.
- Bernie Stabler: No he doesn't. Trust me. If he did he'd just walk out of your life.
- Kathleen Stabler: I'm in jail! He put me here!
- Bernie Stabler: No, you put yourself here.
- Detective Olivia Benson: The earliest picture I saw of Elliot was when he graduated the police academy.
- Bernie Stabler: Oh yeah, he tried to erase his childhood. He tries to pretend I never existed. He would've preferred a more conventional mother.
- Detective Olivia Benson: He turned into a fine man and I know him well enough to know he didn't get that from his father.
- Bernie Stabler: Thank you, dear.
- Bernie Stabler: [meeting Olivia] I can see why you scare the pants off of Kathy. I was always grateful there were no women cops in my day, but Joe made do with chasing nurses.
- Detective Elliot Stabler: The minute Dad dies, you sell the house and move here.
- Bernie Stabler: What was I supposed to do, get on my knees and say my rosary and pray for his immortal soul?
- Detective Elliot Stabler: He sure as hell needed it.
- Bernie Stabler: [laughs] And then some.
- Detective Olivia Benson: Elliot, I know that bottling it up doesn't work for you, and neither has beating up perps, or walls, or garbage cans.
- Bernie Stabler: [telling Kathleen about driving she and Elliot through a blizzard in 1969] We were the only car on the road. I felt like I was driving this magical sleigh. I started going faster. I felt like I was chasing the snowflakes. Your daddy was yelling 'stop mommy, stop!', but I was chasing snowflakes, and I chased them right into a lamp post. I totaled the car, and I broke your daddy's arm.
- Kathleen Stabler: He never told me about that.
- Bernie Stabler: No, he never told anybody what really happened. You see, Kathleen, there's no shame in making mistakes, we all have, but do you do have to take responsibility for what you've done.
- Detective Elliot Stabler: What were you thinking breaking into that place?
- Kathleen Stabler: I didn't break in, the window was open.
- Bernie Stabler: Remember the time we took your grandfather's fedora to put on the snowman, and his last Cuban cigar?
- Kathleen Stabler: Gramps was pretty pissed. I remember you told him to get stuffed.
- Bernie Stabler: Well, I tried not to curse in front of you.
- Kathleen Stabler: As if the F-bomb doesn't get dropped at my house a lot, especially at me.