Magnum: [narrating] Fate has a nasty way of popping up and waving it's long, bony finger under your nose. Sometimes it's a squeaker at 70 miles an hour; Sometimes it's a plane you missed that never makes it back from the Bermuda Triangle; But whatever it is, you always get the message: it's time to stop taking your good luck for granted.

Magnum: [narrating] Hawaii is one of those places that, keeps topping itself. Just when you think you'll never see another sunset as beautiful, there comes a sunrise that only Gauguin could imagine. It kind of makes unemployment easier to take.

Magnum: [narrating] Hawaii's like every sensual woman I've ever known. She can have raging, violent bursts of temper, followed by incredible calm and peacefulness. Today was one of those days of true serenity, when even the great tourist wave seems to recede. I mean, I couldn't believe the stillness.
Season 2

Magnum: [narrating] Hawaiian sunsets are among the most breathtakingly beautiful in the world. Grandly vibrant, uniquely different every day, they paint a palette with boundaries that stop only at the horizons of one's imagination. However, when the sun goes down, it looks the same all over the world. Whether you're in Milwaukee or Maui, it's dark.
Season 5

Magnum: [narrating] Here in paradise, there are at least three different ways of looking at time; There's the traditional mainland kind of time � people say "let's meet at eight o'clock", and that's more or less what they mean. Then there's Hawaiian time, which is a lot more... flexible � eight o'clock may mean seven... or nine... or not at all... depending on an infinite variety of factors. However, even in paradise, there's also a time-frame which seems to operate on a mysterious circadian rhythm all it's own � bureaucratic time; Roughly, that translates into "stand in line until we're ready for you, and then do it our way, or not at all.

Magnum: [narrating] I always thought of L.A. as the "City of Dreams", a place where you go when you want your fantasies to come true. Apparently, ten million other people agreed with me. Some of those dreams must have come true, but I couldn't help but notice that too many others had been buried beneath the smog and congested freeways that had sprawled out of control.

Magnum: [narrating] I get these feelings... I guess a... I call them my "little voice". I know that sounds dumb, but it's like an early warning system, or a conscience. Or maybe, it's just a way of communicating to myself how I really feel about something deep down. I think we all have something like that. I think we communicate those deep down feelings with others that we care about and it's not just by talking about it. This doesn't make any sense, I'm sorry. I guess what I mean is if there's a real connection with somebody you care about ultimately they hear you and that's why I think T.C.'s gonna hear us.

Magnum: [narrating] I guess the earliest memory I have of my grandfather Sullivan is the kind of heart-to-heart talk we had while walking by the Rappahannock River when I was six years old. We used to hunt for wild asparagus down by the river to take home to my mom to cook for dinner. Anyway, on this particular walk my grandfather confided in me that probably the only thing you can count on in life is change... that no matter how much you wanted things to stay the same they never did, and that change itself wasn't bad. It's just that, the transitions were sometimes tricky. Well, I'm not sure what he was talking about at the time. I was more interested in the asparagus than transition, but I never forgot it. And I guess if there is one thing that I could in some way pass on, it would be my grandfather's advice--don't be afraid of "transitions", they make you strong.

Magnum: [narrating] I know what you're thinking, and you're right. There are few things more dangerous than getting in the middle of a family quarrel, especially a family quarrel over a large fortune. Ask any cop and he'll tell you; more policeman are injured answering family disturbance calls than any other kind. It's like that old love song says, "you always hurt the one you love", and anyone else who happens to be in the line of fire. Well, I wasn't planning to make the 10 o'clock news the hard way.

Magnum: [narrating] I must've seen a hundred rainbows since I've been in the islands, but each one just seems to take my breath away, despite the best efforts of Mr. Corkall, my high school science teacher. He used to lecture our class on light reflections and refraction, polarization and prisms, but I knew, I knew that that really wasn't what rainbows were all about. So when I got a "C" on my midterm, Mr. Corkall told me that he was really worried that I would go through life not understanding the importance of geometric optics. But to tell you the truth, I was a lot more worried Mr. Corkall might go through life not understanding the importance of a rainbow.

Magnum: [narrating] I once had a paper route in Tidewater, the Daily Sentinel. It was my first major job. I made $12 dollars a week and a penny for every delivered paper, and I never got nervous at income tax time, because I knew the IRS always gave me my money back, reluctantly. Sending in your 1040 form has always been as much a part of the American way of life as hot dogs at the ballpark on the Fourth of July, only now I've found myself having to file a lot more than a 1040. I wasn't getting my money back anymore, and I hadn't been to the ballpark since, well... before the paper route. I told myself not to feel persecuted. I told myself that people who get audited are chosen at random. I told myself it was nothing personal.

Magnum: [narrating] I remember when I was five years old, I found this little puppy in the street. It had been hit by a car and was in pretty bad shape, so, I brought it home and my dad and I took it to the vet. One hundred twenty bucks. The little puppy grew into a big Saint Bernard; it ate a five hundred dollar couch and my dad's favorite arm-chair. The next day, my dad put it in the back yard, where it dug under the fence and ran away. Ever since then, I've been wary about taking in big, adorable pups, one of life's lessons you just have to keep learning over, and over again.

Magnum: [narrating] I was running late; I'd taken too much time getting dressed; and that's a bad sign � instead of worrying about the job I was going to do for my client, my mind was taken up with picking exactly the right tie; as if it matters.
Virginia Fowler: I like that tie.
[Magnum turns and smiles to camera]

Magnum: [narrating] I'm not really sure which kind of private investigator I am. The Holmesian-type with the constant deductive mind, or one with a Marlowe-type intuitive sense of the darker side of human nature? Hopefully a combination of both. At any rate, it doesn't matter. Not when you have a "little voice". I don't know, maybe a gently nagging "little voice" is just another way of adding what you know, to what you feel, but right now mine wasn't "gently nagging". It was screaming.

Magnum: [narrating] I've always felt at home on the ocean, even as a kid. Maybe that's why I spend so much time alone on it, even on the 4th of July. I know, the Fourth should be spent with your buddies drinking beer, or eating hot dogs at the ballpark, or hoping into a potato sack race with your best girl, or barbequing in the back yard with your folks. Maybe for most Americans, but for me it's been a day to spend alone, to remember. So, here I was all alone on the ocean starting my annual Independence Day remembrance. At least I wouldn't get my fingers blown off by a cherry bomb.