- Jessica Fletcher: There are three things you can never get enough of in life, Lieutenant. Chocolate, friends, and the theater.
- Jessica Fletcher: Damien, when you picked up the rose off the prop table, were you aware that it was a real flower?
- Damien Bolo: Uh, no. No, uh, you see, just before a performance, you, um... You get so wound up. You know, the adrenaline is flowing. I just picked it up off the prop table, didn't even look at it.
- Jessica Fletcher: Didn't even notice the thorns?
- Damien Bolo: I was so tense, I could've been handling a porcupine and not even noticed.
- Jessica Fletcher: You may want to take a look at the young woman's hands. She seems to have sustained a puncture wound. on the palms of her hands. Probably caused from grasping a thorn on the rose that she used in her dance. I expect you'll want to test the rose for poison.
- SFPD Lt. Martin Kinicki: And you are?
- Jessica Fletcher: Jessica Fletcher.
- SFPD Lt. Martin Kinicki: [smiles] I thought that was you. My wife reads all your books.
- Jessica Fletcher: You made such a point, Edward, that you were doing the ballet *exactly* as it had originally been staged. But the film showed the ballerina never touching the skull. Yet, you staged the dance so that Lily would clutch the skull.
- SFPD Lt. Martin Kinicki: The one with the needles that you laced with thallium.
- Jessica Fletcher: Puncturing her palms and killing her within a matter of seconds.
- Jessica Fletcher: What... Didn't you see what happened?
- SFPD Lt. Martin Kinicki: Yeah, a bunch of people jumping around flapping their arms. Which they do a lot of in ballet.
- [last lines]
- Claudia Cameron: You see, Geoffrey, I wanted to do something where maturity and experience were advantages, not burdens. I'm not getting any older, just better.
- [to Jessica]
- Claudia Cameron: Did I forget anything?
- Jessica Fletcher: I think you've covered just everything.
- Geoffrey Presser: Ladies, I bow to superior wisdom. To maturity and experience. Cheers.
- Jessica Fletcher: Well, it's just that there's something I can't quite put my finger on that's not right.
- SFPD Lt. Martin Kinicki: Yeah. It's all these guys prancing around in their long underwear.
- [first lines]
- Geoffrey Presser: The maiden is beautiful, her lover strong and brave. And they're very much in love. But in ballet, the course of true love never does run smooth. Very soon they encounter trouble. Its name is death.