Captain Briggs Quotes in Sudden Impact (1983)

Captain Briggs: Don't you lecture me, you son of a bitch! Do you know who I am? Do you know my record?

Harry Callahan: Yeah... you're a legend in your own mind.

Captain Briggs: Think things over, Callahan. Get with it. It's a whole new ball game these days.

Harry Callahan: Funny. I never thought of it as a game.

[Harry, Lt. Donnelly & Capt. Briggs are meeting in the Commissioner's office, after Harry's confrontation with Threlkis the gangster]

Captain Briggs: [shouting] In more than 30 years of police work, this is the single, most OUTRAGEOUS transgression of authority I ever heard about. What the HELL did you think you were doing?

Harry Callahan: My job.

Captain Briggs: Is it your job, to harass & incite an old man into a heart attack?

Harry Callahan: My job is to investigate homicide. That old man happens to be one of the biggest crime lords on the west coast. How the hell was I supposed to know he was gonna vapor-lock?

Captain Briggs: But you hoped he would?

Harry Callahan: The Doker case is mine. It was at a standstill. I was just trying to break it loose.

Captain Briggs: Sure, with threats and intimidation!

Harry Callahan: Any way possible!

Captain Briggs: Are you aware that you have destroyed MONTHS - of intelligence & surveillance work? We're talking thousands of dollar, hundreds of man-hours? Special investigations has been BUSTING ITS ASS preparing a case against Threlkis.

Harry Callahan: He would have just snaked his way out of it. Maybe we saved the taxpayers a little money.

Captain Briggs: [with contempt] I ought to bust your ass down to traffic. Or better yet, kick it off the force! You're a dinosaur, Callahan. Your ideas don't fit today.

Harry Callahan: Just what ideas are these? That murder's a crime? That it shouldn't be punished?

Captain Briggs: [sneering] Hey, don't you lecture me, you son-of-a-bitch. You know who you're talking to, huh? You know MY record?

Harry Callahan: [disgusted] Yeah. You're a legend in your own mind!

Captain Briggs: [angrily] Goddamn you, Callahan!

Police Commissioner: Gentlemen, that's enough! Inspector, your methods are unconventional to say the least. Well, you get results. But often your successes are more costly to this department in terms of publicity & physical destruction than most other men's failures!

Lt. Donnelly: Commissioner, now I...

Police Commissioner: [cuts Donnelly off] Please, Lieutenant! The press will have a field day with this latest escapade. There may be further civil & legal repercussions. As a matter of fact there may even be attempts at retaliation. I think it would be wise if the inspector took some time off.

[Briggs nods approvingly]