Jonathan Creek Quotes

Madeline Magellan: Enough with the pedanticism and let us eat.
Jonathan Creek: The word is pedantry.

Movie: Jonathan Creek
Maddy Magellan: I wonder what it was in the end that drove her to it: the thought of what she did to her daughter, or what she had done to her sister. What did she really want us to forgive her for?

Movie: Jonathan Creek
[to Carla Borrega, having learned that her husband used to be married to a man]
Jonathan Creek: I was just wondering what the technical term for that was - not so much bigamy as bugger-me.

Movie: Jonathan Creek
Jonathan is posing as a camera operator
Maddie: It's called a Steadicam. It eliminates jerks.
Jonathan: So does Clint Eastwood, I wouldn't want him strapped to my chest.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Maddie: You know Jack Holliday died?
Jonathan: Yeah, it's the only thing he ever did that made me laugh.
Maddie: Oh, that's great! The poor man's dead!
Jonathan: I bet that won't stop him overacting, though.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Jonathan: I nearly rang you. I'd get as far as the last digit, but something would always stop me. I suppose it was the thought of getting sucked into another one of your grisly murder investigations. You know how you always fear the worst
Maddie: [Laughs]
Jonathan: Stop this car.
Maddie: Jonathan.
Jonathan: 'Flush out the carbon monoxide with some sea air.'

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Shelford: That was unfortunate. I completely misjudged the water pressure on those taps and, of course, it went everywhere. Fortunately it's not urine, so it won't stain.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Maddy: Come on, I've admitted defeat. Let's get on with it; the bit you enjoy, treating me like a moron.
Jonathan: No. The bit where you enjoy making me feel like I'm treating you like a moron. When you're perfectly capable of reasoning it out for yourself if only you'd stop taking things at face value.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Maddy: I'm sorry, Jonathan, what level of surrealism are we operating on here?
Jonathan: Y'see, this is where you and everyone else give up. You're making the big mistake of sticking to what's likely rather than what's logical.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Woman: You're saying there's actually a real person called Jonathan Creek, he's not just a narrative conceived for story telling purposes?
Man: All that stuff, he invents all those tricks.
Madeline Magellan: And he lives in a windmill, it's all for real.
Woman: Right. Isn't that funny?
Madeline: What?
Woman: Suddenly I find him less believable.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Jonathan: She made all of the moves and now I'm boxed in. We've got nothing whatsoever in common and if I try and break it off she'll think it's because of you know what [her baldness]. Which she's obviously very sensitive about.
Madeline: I'm not surprised! Didn't you get suspicious when you were running your fingers through her hair and she wasn't even in the room?!

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
[Jonathan has refused to reveal the solution]
Maddy: It's no sweat, y'know. I'll work it out for myself. I've seen everything you've seen. I'm not a complete and utter moron.
[Jonathan starts to leave]
Maddy: Yes?
Jonathan: I never said anything.
Maddy: Look, just give me a leg-up to get me started. Please? Just one tiny hint?
Jonathan: Look to Eric's Spam sandwich. It contains the key to the whole affair.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Jonthan: Did it ever occur to you that someone could have cut it without actually being in the room? Using a high-powered laser through the glass in the cieling.
Maddy: You are Kidding!
Jonathan: Of course I am, the idea's ridiculous. In fact the way this was worked was so sublimely simple, when I tell you, you'll wonder why you didn't get it in five seconds flat.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Jonathan: You mean Pot Pourri? One of the biggest cons of the Twentieth Century. People pick it up in a shop, what's the first thing they do? [Mimes sniffing a bowl of Pot Pourri] "mmm, smell this one! That's sensational! I'll have some of that!" Of course it is if you shove your face in it. Put some in a bowl in the middle of the room, you can't smell a bloody thing. There should be a label on the packet "only effective when inserted up nostril"

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Adam Klaus: [On the phone to Jonathan] If you could choose the manner of your own death, would it be (A) Peacefully in your sleep? (B) Breathlessly with Nicole Kidman? or (C) Being dismembered by a homicidal illusionist? If 'c', simply hang up now.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Jonathan: How come when I stay at your place you get the bed and I get the sofa, but when you stay at my place you still get the bed and I get the sofa?
Maddy: Because you were being terribly chivalrous and gentlemanly and very solicitous of my welfare [Pause] Don't I get anything to eat?

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Maddy: Where do you keep your salt?
Jonathan: See that cupboard just above you? Top Shelf. Right at the back... there's a leaflet from the hospital explaining why it's bad for your arteries.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Jonathan: I'm trying to achieve a level of abstract thought here. Trying to prise this whatever-it-is out of my memory.
Maddy: Well what is it? Let me have a go.
Jonathan: I told you, I can't put it into words. It's purely intuitive. It's just a feeling. It won't come into focus until it's ready.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Jonathan: But what you see isn't always what's happening. And what you all saw that night, I've got a horrible feeling, was a very brilliantly concieved hoax.
Maddy: Here we go, he's gonna tell us how it was done.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Investigator: Ever since the man who owned and ran this place died, it was 1969 - a man named William Amberghast, the old Mother Redcap pub in Edmonton has been property market poison. Whether it's superstition or what, I don't know. Would you buy a hundred year-old building where seven men have been quite literally terrified to death?
[Pause]
Investigator: The way it's told: the first one, Mr Clifford Jennings, managing director of a big clothing firm, was staying overnight with a lady friend in a special guest room that was kept for visitors. Round about midnight he was preparing for bed. The death certificate said it was his heart. The truth was, no-one knew what had killed him. The girl was convinced he'd seen something... outside. "Something so utterly horrible it set off a fatal siezure". Between 1947 and '51 there were five other cases, deaths that which have never been explained from that day to this. All in the same room. All after they'd looked out of the window in the middle of the night.Not a mark or scratch on any of the bodies. No evidence they'd been poisoned or suffocated. Four of them were found on the floor the next morning. Three were actually seen at the moment of death, collapsing in what appeared to be a fit of mortal terror.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
[Jonathan has been abducted and brought to a police station]
DCI Ken Speed: I'm sorry about the neanderthal tactics of my two constables. They were under the impression they were bringing a suspect in.
Jonathan: So I gather. I confessed to two armed robberies before we reached the first set of traffic lights.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Jonathan: So the deal, as I see it, is this: If I come up with a solution that leads to the killer's arrest, by next week I'm highest new entry on the Tong's UK death list. Not much of an incentive really.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Maddy: What's that theory? That absolutely everything that happens in the world is connected to everything else. I read an article once. If a man breaks wind in Houndslow, it can affect a hurricane in Java. I think I know the man they're talking about, he travels on the Circle Line.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Jonathan: What was it Sherlock Holmes said to Watson?
Maddy: Get your kit off and give us a kiss?

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Adam Klaus: [To Jonathan] I always thought your love life would make a great play by Samuel Beckett, a great nihilistic quality it has.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
[Jonathan and Maddy are driving through a snowstorm]
Jonathan: How anyone can drive a car at this time of year without a windscreen washer.
Maddy: It's got a windscreen washer!
Jonathan: Yeah, but it's not much use on the back seat is it?
Maddy: The guy who was gonna fit it did a runner, it's not my fault. A bit of fresh air won't harm you.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
DI Gideon Pryke: I can smell guilt on a man like dung on a donkey.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
[Maddy's interrupted Jonathan's evening]
Maddy: I thought I might be useful.
Jonathan: What as? A contraceptive!

TV Show: Jonathan Creek
Carla Borrego: Have you ever slept in a castle with a moat before?
Jonathan: I once passed out in front of a block urinal.

TV Show: Jonathan Creek