- Michael 'Meathead' Stivic: Do you believe in capital punishment, Ma?
- Edith Bunker: Well, yeah, I guess so.
- Gloria Bunker-Stivic: Mother!
- Edith Bunker: Well, so long as it ain't too severe.
- Archie Bunker: Let me just ask you something, Professor, you who don't believe in capital punishment: Suppose you was to come home some fine day and find your wife's throat cut. Now are you gonna tell me you wouldn't be itching to fry the guy who cut that throat?
- Michael 'Meathead' Stivic: No, what good would that do?
- Archie Bunker: [to Gloria] Do you see this guy? You see what you married? Some fiend could come in here and murder you and he ain't gonna lift a finger to help!
- Michael 'Meathead' Stivic: Archie, if I killed that murderer, would that bring Gloria back? No. An eye for an eye is not the answer. The problem rests with society.
- Archie Bunker: He's always blaming everything on society! Listen, if you're gonna blame society for murder, what we ought to do is turn the killer loose, give him a pension for life, and go out and shoot the rest of the city!
- Archie Bunker: Go ahead, ask your mother, *she* believes in capital punishment.
- Gloria Stivic: Do you Ma?
- Edith Bunker: Well, sure.
- Gloria Stivic: Mother...?
- Edith Bunker: Well, as long as it ain't too severe.
- Michael 'Meathead' Stivic: I wanna ask you something, Archie. You mean to tell me you're not the least bit interested when your wife is sitting on one of the hottest murder trials in the country?
- Archie Bunker: Oh, what's so hot about it? There's far better murders on the late show.
- Lydia Stonehurst: Three people saw him!
- Edith Bunker: They could have been mistaken...
- Lydia Stonehurst: Three different people?
- Edith Bunker: It coulda been somebody else - you yourself said all Puerto Ricans look alike...
- Lydia Stonehurst: To US, not to each other!