The Best Harry Guardino Quotes

Kojak: [Benny shows up to work wearing outlandish clothes] What's the gag?
Detective: What do you mean, what's the gag? You told me you wanted me to change my image.
Kojak: Oh yeah, I forgot about that. So if I asked you to lose some weight, what would you do, cut off your left arm? You're three hours late and you show up looking like Zsa Zsa Gabor's Christmas tree!

Dr. Grimaldi: Do you want it straight?
Detective: I don't want it at all. I'd give anything for a ten-foot pole I didn't have to touch it with. It's the big casino, isn't it?
Dr. Grimaldi: Advanced stomach cancer. Malignant and inoperable.

[last lines]
Haskell: I have been offered a big overseas assignment in Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok...
Jessica: Oh.
Haskell: ...by Newmonth, no less.
Jessica: Haskell, that's marvelous. When?
Haskell: Oh, well, um, a-as soon as you hand me my trousers. And by the way, you can tag along if you want to. I figure that, uh, a couple of years of, uh, hard work, who knows, you may turn into a half-decent newspaperman.

Detective: Everything I eat tastes like old towel rolls, you know? These last couple of weeks my stomach feels like something crawled in it and died.

Kojak: Hey, Benny, if it wasn't for you, Eddie Ryan would've had as much razzle-dazzle as a wet firecracker.
[stands up]
Detective: Is that what you think? Is that what you think Eddy Ryan was like? A grandstander? Well let me tell you something: Eddie Ryan had more guts than anyone on this island. What do you think got him killed?
Kojak: Dumb got him killed. Dead is not guts. Dead is dumb.

Ellen: I was going through his closet, looking for something to bury him in.
[pours Benny a drink]
Ellen: You know, he didn't have anything that you could really call a suit, heh. I can't lay him out in, eh, rhinestones and recycled blue jeans, can I?
[hands the drink to Benny]
Ellen: I mean he'd look like David Bowie.
Detective: Why not? I mean, Eddie would dig that. Can you see the commissioner's face?
[starts to laugh but his laughter soon turns to tears]

Eddie: Flora was asking for you. She wants to know how come she hasn't seen you anymore in the deli.
Detective: Oh yeah? Well next time you see her tell her I'm on bivouac with a gorilla.