DUCKY: May I trouble you for the left ear, Mister Palmer?
PALMER: Ah, one left ear coming right up.

MCGEE: Is it a common occurrence, Ducky, dismembered bodies in barrels of alcohol?
DUCKY: Well, now that you mention it, I did have a great uncle who drowned in a vat of alcohol.
MCGEE: Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.
DUCKY: Of course he reportedly climbed out three times to go to the bathroom.

DUCKY: This actually reminds me of my days at Edinburgh Medical College.
TONY: You used to go through a tunnel to get to school, Ducky?
DUCKY: No, the morgue was tiny. Yea, we had a fellow student who suffered terribly from claustrophobia. Constantly hyperventilating. Yes, one day he decided to overcome his fear. Yeah, he shut himself in one of the morgue drawers. Well, the ventilation was awful, of course. He asked us not to disturb him for twenty four hours. We were very impressed with his gumption.
TONY: Did it work?
DUCKY: Unfortunately not, no. He died of a massive coronary. So you see, people can be frightened to death.

ABBY: I sent a copy to an expert I met at a forensics conference in the Greenbrier. It’s such a sweet place. They have golf, tennis, falconry…
DUCKY: Falconry!? I hunted with a falcon in Scotland in my youth.
ABBY: It’s so cool.
DUCKY: Yeah. Almost a lost art, I’m afraid.


DUCKY: Mister Palmer, what I’m about to show you may force you to reevaluate your theory.
JIMMY: French fried poodle.
DUCKY: The family pet. Who was, tragically, inside the car. I can just see those FBI forensic weasels sitting around laughing, picturing what I’m going to look like performing a forensic autopsy on this poor creature.
JIMMY: What are you going to do?
DUCKY: Oh, let them laugh. Alexander The Great had a dog. A Mastiff named Peritas. Yeah, nobody laughed about her. When she died, he led the funeral procession. He built monuments to her. Ordered yearly celebrations in her memory.
JIMMY: When I was a kid, I used to bury our pets under our porch until my mom found out. She was pretty upset.
DUCKY: They didn’t want you to bury your pets?
JIMMY: No, we lived on the tenth floor of an apartment building.

DUCKY: Well, he reminds me of my great uncle William in Bristol. We’d visit every Christmas. He was always apologizing for sitting naked at the dinner table.
GIBBS: He wasn’t naked, was he?
DUCKY: No. Aunt Gertrude was.

JIMMY: Does it help you to talk to them?
DUCKY: They’re still human. Well what we do is very invasive and impersonal. It helps me establish a relationship.

DUCKY: I never cease to be amazed by your skill, Abby. You know, when I was a young M.E., we used to recreate crime scenes using interns.
ABBY: You also used to listen to records and do the jitterbug.
DUCKY: Actually, I was quite the hoofer.

BYERS: Ducky?
DUCKY: Yes, it’s something I was tagged with in school in my youth. I used to resent it. Now I quite like it.
BYERS: So do I.


ABBY: Are you making a statement with this tie, Ducky?
DUCKY: Oh, too much you think?
ABBY: Oh, no no no. You can pull it off. So what’s the big event? Dinner date?
DUCKY: Too ordinary.
ABBY: What then?
DUCKY: I thought I’d show her something that reveals who I am. If she gets turned on, too, we haven’t wasted our time.
ABBY: You’re the man, Ducky. Why can’t I find someone like you?
DUCKY: Well, if this doesn’t work out, I am available.

DUCKY: Several South American tribes were known to ritualistically pluck the eyes of their enemies to discourage them being followed. Of course, they were cannibals so they did--
GIBBS: I don’t think we’re dealing with cannibals here, Duck.
DUCKY: No, I should think not. We’re not this far north.

GIBBS: Oh, you know me, Duck. I suspect everything.
DUCKY: Yes, an admirable trait in an investigator. And also the reason your three marriages ended in divorce.
GIBBS: Oh yeah? All these years I thought it was because I was a bastard.
DUCKY: Well, of course, that didn’t help.

JIMMY: Did you meet any of his wives?
DUCKY: I introduced him to the last one.
JIMMY: Really? What went wrong?
DUCKY: It’s difficult to say, Mister Palmer. She doesn’t talk to me anymore.

GIBBS: You’ll stay at NCIS as much as possible. Other than that, one of us will be with you at all times.
DUCKY: Jethro, my mother is ninety-six years old. She suffers from dementia. She gets very nervous when I’m not home in the evenings.
GIBBS: Tony, you’ll take the first shift … with his mother.
TONY: Uh… doing what, boss?
GIBBS: Whatever she wants.
DUCKY: Yes, it would be helpful if you could assist with the dogs.
TONY: Oh, gosh. I’m not really an animal person, Ducky. I just haven’t spent a lot of time with them lately and…
DUCKY: The yappy creatures are all she has in this life… except for me, of course.

DUCKY: There is only one thing better than looking into the eyes of a beautiful woman and have her say that everything is going to be all right.
KATE: And what’s that, Ducky?
DUCKY: My saying it to her.

DUCKY: Mother, I’m home!
KATE: Your dogs.
DUCKY: Not just dogs, Kate. Welsh Corgis. In Wales the Corgi was the protector of the farmer. Now they protect my mother. That’s Tyson.
KATE: Because he thinks he’s a boxer?
DUCKY: No, because he bites. The bedrooms are upstairs, of course. Mine’s there. You could use the guest room.
KATE: I won’t be sleeping, Ducky.
DUCKY: Of course.
KATE: Where’s your mother’s room?
DUCKY: Oh, she sleeps down here now.
KATE: It must be difficult for her to get up the stairs at her age.
DUCKY: It has nothing to do with stairs, Caitlyn. Her snoring is deafening. She kept me awake all night. She’ll keep you awake, too.

JIMMY: But what I don’t get is the flesh trauma. What kind of wounds are these, Doctor?
DUCKY: They’re Coyote. They would eat the exposed tissue first.
JIMMY: What’s second?
DUCKY: If what I suspect is true, the abdominal cavity has been chewed open. The liver and kidney are a rich source of nutrients for these creatures.
JIMMY: That’s gross, Doctor.
DUCKY: Well actually, Mister Palmer, we’re quite lucky here. In some cases they chew off the head and carry it away so they won’t have to fight other coyotes for it. My coroner friend in Los Angeles says coyotes take it “to go.” They’re very strange in Los Angeles.

DUCKY: Indiscriminate predators; coyotes, fish, cats, garbage. They’ll eat anything they can chew, unlike my mother who can no longer chew anything. I assure you, Mister Palmer, it is a beastly sight.
JIMMY: Yes, it is, Doctor.
DUCKY: I was speaking of my mother.
JIMMY: Right.
DUCKY: Have you ever seen a rib-eye steak that’s been reduced to baby food by a Cuisinart?
JIMMY: Not recently.
DUCKY: It’s remarkably similar to her burritos and her pizzas. Not to mention the Sunday dinner treat sushi through a straw.

DUCKY: Her body contained four liters of blood so there was no exsanguination.
GIBBS: Ducky.
DUCKY: I’m sorry. It’s such a lovely word, exsanguination. I can’t help saying it.

JIMMY: That is incredible. You know, you have a real gift.
DUCKY: Give yourself time, Mister Palmer. I’ve been doing this since long before you were a twinkle in your mother’s eye. Or even your mother’s mother.
JIMMY: Some people find it strange… our profession.
DUCKY: So I’ve heard.
JIMMY: Did you ever consider another line of work?
DUCKY: I suppose so. I believe there comes a time in everybody’s life where they stop but wonder if what they’re doing is meaningful. It’s only healthy.
JIMMY: Really? What other kinds of …
DUCKY: Shortly after I graduated from Edinburgh Medical School, I gave serious consideration to a career in teaching. Yes, in fact, I heard there was a vacancy at Eton, my alma mater. I almost applied.
JIMMY: Well, why didn’t you?
DUCKY: I got the idea of teaching the world’s youth, yeah, and then I realized deep down academia was not for me. I could never picture myself giving those long, rambling, esoteric lectures.
JIMMY: Me either, Doctor.

DUCKY: It looks like some sort of paraffin wax. Yeah, it reminds me of a product my grandfather used to use. He put a little of it on either end of his moustache. Gave it the handlebar look.
JIMMY: Well, doesn’t make sense.
DUCKY: Well, it was well before your time. Back then it was a very popular look. It epitomized high society.
JIMMY: No, not about your grandfather.

DUCKY: Oh, there you are.
GIBBS: Appreciate you coming.
DUCKY: It’s a godsend, actually. Mother has the ladies of the Kennel Club over for cocktails.
GIBBS: Take a ride, Duck.

GIBBS: They’re holding Petty Officer Dobbs’ body for you at the Dover morgue.
DUCKY: I don’t get it. I thought he died in combat.
GIBBS: I need you to take a look, Ducky.
DUCKY: What do you expect me to find?
GIBBS: Nothing. I just need to buy more time.
DUCKY: Oh, Jethro… I can spend forever finding nothing.

GIBBS: Where the hell are they, McGee?
MCGEE: Well, Palmer must have taken a wrong turn again, Boss.
(VAN BRAKES TO A STOP)
DUCKY: You should have known right was wrong.
JIMMY: Doctor, I just--
DUCKY: You should have known right meant left! I’m terribly sorry, Jethro. Mister Palmer got us lost again.
JIMMY: Doctor, you had the map!
DUCKY: You gave it to me.

KATE: Can’t you do something, Ducky?
DUCKY: I’m doing it right now.
KATE: What?
DUCKY: Praying.