The Wire

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The Wire (2002–2008) is an American television drama set and produced in Baltimore, Maryland. The creator, David Simon, has said that despite its presentation as a crime drama, the show is "really about the American city, and about how we live together. It's about how institutions have an effect on individuals, and how... whether you're a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge [or] lawyer, you are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution you've committed to.

Contents


[edit] Season 1

[edit] The Target [1.1]

McNulty: I gotta ask ya. If every time Snotboogie would grab the money and run away, why'd you even let him in the game?
Man On Stoop: What?
McNulty: If Snotboogie always stole the money, why'd you let him play?
Man On Stoop: Got to. This America, man.
McNulty: All I did was answer the guys questions, he's a fucking judge.
Landsman: And the Deputy's the fucking Deputy, and he, not the judge, has what's left of your be-shitted career in his hot little hands.
McNulty: [to Bunk] That will teach you to give a fuck when it ain't your turn to give a fuck.
Bunk: [to dead body] You moldering motherfucker don't even think about coming back a murder. Don't even think of that shit.
McNulty: It's got dots, Deputy loves dots.
Landsman: Fuck you and your fucking dots.

[edit] The Detail [1.2]

Marla Daniels: You cannot lose if you do not play.
McNulty: This is just us talking right? Just you, me, my partner and... what did you say your name was?
Bodie: I didn't say shit.
McNulty: Just you, me, my partner and Mr. Shit here.
Rawls: McNulty! Where in fuck is he?
Landsman: I— uh... he's detailed, Major, to narcotics.
Rawls: I fuckin' know where he's detailed. I fuckin' already know that.
[about chicken nuggets inventor]
Poot: You think he get paid?
Wallace: Shit, he richer than a motherfucker.

[edit] The Buys [1.3]

McNulty: [after Sydnor comes out in disguise] Where's ya' mic?
Sydnor: Down at my dick man. I figured they ain't gonna go down there anyway right?
Carver: I don't know Sydnor, the way you twirl it around, it might be the first place they look.
Pearlman: [after having sex] You're an asshole McNulty.
McNulty: What the fuck did I do?
Pearlman: Let me understand. You're married and a date is a room at the Best Western with the blinds closed. Now you're single, and a date is you coming over unannounced to learn the legal requisities for a pager intercept.
McNulty: Pretty much.

[edit] Old Cases [1.4]

Freamon: I don't wanna go to no dance unless I can rub some tit.
Poot: How can he know where the stash at? The narco's don't know, but he do, 'cause some nigga snitchin'!
D'Angelo: Man, ain't nobody gotta be snitchin' for Omar, or one of his boys to creep by and see where the stash at.
Wallace: [to Bodie] How you ain't courtside for bankin' a narco?
Bodie: Man, Boys Village ain't shit! I'm just too bad for that off-brand, lil' boy bullshit, man. It can't hold me.
McNulty: I'm late for soccer practice.
Bubbles: Suck what?

[edit] The Pager [1.5]

D'Angelo: Yeah, but, Stringer, if you don't pay a nigger, he ain't gonna work for you.
Stringer: What, you think a nigga's gonna get a job? You think...you think it's gonna be like, 'Fuck it, let me quit this game here and go to college'? No, they're gonna buck a little, but they ain't gonna walk. And in the end, you gonna get respect.
Bubbles: [to Kima] How y'all do what y'all do every day and not wanna get high?
Fritz: I don't know if I should check on this for you.
Kima: How complex a code can it be if these mopes are usin' it? Then again, what does it say about us if we can't break it?
Omar: The cheese stands alone.

[edit] The Wire [1.6]

Kima: You saw the murder?
Omar: Yeah.
Kima: You can ID this man Bird as the shooter of Wiliam Gant? And you ain't afraid to go into court downtown and testify against one of Barksdale's people?
Omar: Omar don't scare.
McNulty: On this case, we're never where we need to be.

[edit] One Arrest [1.7]

McNulty: [to Pearlman] They're gonna do me, Ronnie. I love this fucking job, and they're gonna do me.
Bunk Moreland: So, you're my eyeball witness, huh? [Omar nods] So, why'd you step up on this?
Omar: Bird triflin', basically. Kill an everyday workin' man and all. I mean, I do some dirt, too, but I ain't never put my gun on nobody that wasn't in the game.
Bunk: A man must have a code.
Omar: Oh, mos' def'.
Burrell: [to Daniels] You're not wrong, Lieutenant. In this state, there's a thin line between campaign posters and photo arrays.

[edit] Lessons [1.8]

Omar Little: Come at the king, you best not miss.
McNulty: Hey, are we still police?
Freamon: Technically, yes.
McNulty: Good, just checking.

[edit] Game Day [1.9]

[edit] The Cost [1.10]

[epigraph]
Kima Greggs: ...and then he dropped the bracelets.
Proposition Joe: I'm doing like one of them marriage counselors. Charge by the hour to tell some fool he need to bring some flowers home. Then charge another hour telling the bitch she oughta suck some cock every little once in a while. You know, keep a marriage strong like that.
Waylon: Look, forgiveness from other folks is good, but ain't nothin' but words comin' at you from outside. You want to kick this shit, you got to forgive your own self. Love yourself some, brother. And then drag your sorry ass to some meetings.
Bubbles: Meetings?
Waylon: What the fuck do you wanna hear? That you strong enough to do this by yourself? Gettin' clean's easy part. Now comes life.

[edit] The Hunt [1.11]

Rawls: Listen to me, McNulty. You took a lot of risks. You played a lot of wild cards. And, you made a lot of fucking people do a lot of things they didn't want to do. You, McNulty, are a gaping asshole. I know it, and I'll be fucked if everybody in CID didn't know it. But I'll be also fucked if I let you sit here and think you did a single fucking thing to get a fucking police shot. Believe it or not, not everything is about you. Get it into your head McNulty. It's not your fault. And the motherfucker telling you this, he fucking hates your guts. So you know that if it was your fault, I'd be the first son of a bitch to tell you. Shit went bad, she took two for the company. That's the only lesson here.

[edit] Cleaning Up [1.12]

D'Angelo: If anybody asks you if in you in this game, you tell 'em you in it for life, a'ight?. You play it hard, you play it tight, and you make sure niggas know you gonn' stand by your people. No loose talk, no second thoughts and no snitching. Play it like that.
Senator Clay Davis: Erv, will you explain to this motherfucker just what the fuck it is he's doing here?
Ervin Burrell: Lieutenant Dan-...
Cedric Daniels: [interrupting] Excuse me, sir, but it's pretty basic. If the senator isn't involved in anything illegal, then he doesn't need to worry. I can't be any clearer than that.
Senator Clay Davis: Fool, what do you think? That we know anything about who gives money? That we give a damn about who they are or what they want? We have no way of running down them or their stories. We don't care. We just cash the damn cheques, count the votes and move on.
Cedric Daniels: [stands] Anything else, Deputy Burrell? [leaves]
Bodie: [on killing Wallace] Look, the man gave the word, so we either step up or we step the fuck off. That's the game, yo.
Rhonda Perlman: Forgive me for prying into the details of our investigation - it's annoying, I know - but what the hell are you guys doing?
D'Angelo: Where's Wallace at? ... Where's the boy, String?
Stringer: D'Angelo, shut your mouth.
D'Angelo: Where's Wallace? That's all I wanna know.
Levy: Kid, you better think...
D'Angelo: Where's Wallace? Where the fuck is Wallace? Huh? Huh? String? String? Look at me! Where the fuck is Wallace? HUH!? I don't want this Payless-wearing motherfucker representing me. I'mma get my own man. So just get back in your car and get the fuck back down south.
Stringer: A'ight, you stupid motherfucker, you made your decision
D'Angelo: Yeah, I made my decision. Where's Wallace at? Where the fuck is Wallace? Where's Wallace, String? String! Where the fuck is Wallace? Huh? Stringer?!
Burrell: You came into a lot of money quick. You can go to jail just as quick if I start asking the right questions. This case ends, or you are done. Hell, I don't even need you to lock up Barksdale. I can have your major debrief the detectives and type the warrants himself. This case is done.
Daniels: You do what you feel. You wanna pull Avon in on half a case, you go ahead. You wanna put my shit in the street, feel free. But the Eastern had a lot of stories - mine ain't the only one. A lot of people came through that district. If you were gonna do me, I'd already be done. But there ain't nothin' you fear more than a bad headline, is there? You'd rather live in shit than let the world see you work a shovel. You can order warrants, and I'll serve 'em. But as long as I have days left on those dead wires, this case goes on.

[edit] Sentencing [1.13]

Carver: [observing Bodie beat a competing dealer with a bat] See, that's why we can't win.
Hauk: Why not?
Carver:They fuck up, they get beat. We fuck up, they give us pensions.
D'Angelo: All my people, man, my father, my uncles, It's just what we do. You just live with this shit, until you can't breathe no more. I swear to God, I was courtside for eight months, and I was freer in jail than I was at home.
Pearlman: What are you looking for?
D'Angelo: I want it to go away.
Pearlman: I can't...
D'Angelo: I want what Wallace wanted. I want to start over. That's what I want. I don't care where. Anywhere. I don't give a fuck. I just want to go somewhere, where I can breathe like regular folk. You give me that... And I'll give you them.
Daniels: [To Carver] Couple weeks from now, you're gonna be in some district somewhere with 11 or 12 uniforms looking to you for everything. And some of them are gonna be good police. Some of them are gonna be young and stupid. A few are gonna be pieces of shit. But all of them will take their cue from you. You show loyalty, they learn loyalty. You show them it's about the work, it'll be about the work. You show them some other kinda game, then that's the game they'll play. I came on in the Eastern, and there was a piece-of-shit lieutenant hoping to be a captain, piece-of-shit sergeants hoping to be lieutenants. Pretty soon we had piece-of-shit patrolmen trying to figure the job for themselves. And some of what happens then is hard as hell to live down. Comes a day you're gonna have to decide whether it's about you or about the work.
Rawls: [To McNulty] Great work you all did. And the number of clearances I'm looking at here? I mean, Christ, for the first time this year, we got the clearance rate up over 40%. That's on the one hand. On the other hand, I know the Deputy Ops got a call from the First Deputy U.S. Attorney this morning asking whether an asshole such as yourself really works for us. And, of course, this is the first the deputy hears his troops are creeping behind his back, trying to take a case federal when they've already been told the case is closed. You're a good detective. And I've got to admit you got some stones on you. Did you actually call the first deputy an empty suit? [Chuckles] I want to see you land okay, Jimmy. So, tell me, where don't you wanna go?

[epigraph]

Omar: All in the game yo... [laughs] All in the game.

[edit] Season 2

[edit] Ebb Tide [2.1]

Rawls: Sergeant! Your floater's come back. County boards are puttin' her on our side of the bridge.
Landsman: No fuckin' way.
Rawls: Yeah, some useless fuck in our marine unit faxed 'em a report on the early morning tides and wind currents. Show's the body went into the water west of the bridge and drifted out.
Landsman: McNulty.
Rawls: [laughs] Fuckin' Jimmy. Fuckin' with us for the fun of it. I gotta give the son of a bitch some credit for wit on this one. [laughs] Cocksucker.
Landsman: Motherfucker.
Herc: How about you come on the raids tomorrow? Take a few doors for ol' time sake.
Kima: You takin' doors?
Herc: Yeah. Two houses an' a bar on Kane Street. C'mon Kima, man up wit' us. I know you miss it.
Kima: I'm done rollin' around the gutter. I am inside now.
Herc: Oh, you're a house cat now, huh?
Kima: I made a promise.
Herc: I gotta say Kima, if you were a guy, and actually in some ways you're better than most of the guys I know. But if you were a guy, friends would buy you a beer and let you know.
Kima: Let me know what?
Herc: You're fuckin' whipped.
Kima: Whipped?
Herc: Pussy whipped within an inch of your life. I kid you not.
Horseface: Damn, Frank.
Union Member: We just sat here and watched Nat Consin take a shit all over you.
Horseface: And the shrivelled dick motherfucker that you are, you take it.
Sobotka: For your information, I wake up every morning with an angry blue vein diamond cutter. I was gonna enlighten the President of the local 47 on this particular point, and he chose to depart. Blue steel gentlemen. Three and a half inches of hard blue steel.
Shamrock: We done gone so far from Baltimore, we're losing the station. Yo', try a Philly station or some shit like that.
Bodie: The radio in Philly is different?
Shamrock: Nigga, please. You gotta be fucking with me, right? You ain't never heard a station outside of Baltimore?
Bodie: Yo' man, I ain't never left Baltimore except that Boys Village shit one day, and I wasn't tryin' to hear no radio up in that bitch.
Little Big Roy: Ain't never gonna be what it was.

[edit] Collateral Damage [2.2]

[Bunk and McNulty secretly eating crabs in the interrogation room]
Bunk: You got these off the boat?
McNulty: What, in winter? In a couple of months... fringe benefit. Can't catch crabs in homicide, right?
Bunk: Uh-uh... except maybe the occasional emergency room nurse every now and then.
Beadie: You with City Homicide? You must know Jimmy McNulty.
Bunk: Yeah, he's dead to us.
Rhonda: [to McNulty] What's the most useless thing on a woman? A drunken Irishman.
Frank Sobotka: Why the fuck didn't you tell me what was in that motherfucking can?
Spiros: Now you wanna know what's in the cans? Before you wanted to know nothing. Now you ask. Guns, OK? Drugs, whore, vodka, BMWs. Beluga caviar, or bombs, maybe? Bad terrorists with big nuclear bombs. I'm kidding you, Frank, it's a joke. But you don't ask ... because you don't wanna know.
Bunk: Jimmy, the look on Jay Landsman's face, he nearly cried!
[McNulty, Freamon and Bunk all laugh]
Freamon: And Rawls! All afternoon, he just stays in his office with the door closed.
McNulty: Careful, you're giving me an erection!

[edit] Hot Shots [2.3]

Lester: [to "Non-English" speaking crewman] You cannot travel halfway around the world and not speak any motherfuckin' English.
Country: Yo, uh, String, why are you so down on the phone companies, man?
Stringer: While back, I took a stroll through the pit, I saw that kid we got running things down there, uh, Poot. Now, he got the cell phone I gave him for the business, right there on his hip. But, the nigga got another cell phone that only rang when the pussy called. Now, if this no-count nigga got two cell phones, how the fuck you gonna sell any more of them motherfuckers? That's market saturation.
Omar: Look, Dante, what's it gonna take for you to be convinced, man? I don't bag no babies. [pauses] Huh?
Dante: What you think?
[Omar and Dante start making out]
Dante: You gonna have to do better than that.
Omar: Oh, indeed.
Aimee: You want a streak [in your hair] or somethin'? I could put a little purple in it.
Nick Sobotka: Yeah, and after that I could go stick my tongue up some guy's ass.
McNulty: You see the preliminary? Positives for oral, vaginal, anal. No IDs, no passports, no visas, no real money - and the girls are coming across the water like that.
Bunk: Yeah.
Freamon: McNulty has a theory...
Bunk: Does he now?
Freamon: You deductive motherfucker, you.
Bunk: So he's gonna wander in here with some johnny-come-lately bullshit about how all these girls must be coming over here as prostitutes. Talking about how if they ain't got the cash to travel better than a container ship, then they sure as shit don't got the money to pay a plastice surgeon.
Freamon: Then he's gonna go past that. And say something about that one found dead in the water - being tossed off the ship after she's already dead from a beat-down?
Bunk: But why did she get beat? He's gonna ask us that like we don't know.
Freamon: Then he's gonna answer his own question, and say her swabs are negative, right? Fuck or fight with all them sailor boys - and she fought.
Bunk: So, it got a little rough, she got banged around, she comes up dead. And then, somebody panics and tosses her in the harbour overnight before the ship ties up.
Russell: But the other girls saw.
Bunk: So now the other girls, they get told to get back in that can. And our man, to cover this shit up, he gets up on top and bangs down the airpipe. [stands up, sighs dramatically] Anything else you wanna tell us?

[edit] Hard Cases [2.4]

Rawls: Do you even know what this detail's about Lieutenant?
Daniels: Some kinda beef that Valchek has.
Rawls: Two fuckin' Polacks pissin' on each other's leg.
Prison Warden: Hell, if you can't win the war on drugs in a prison, where the hell you gonna win it?
Stringer: Yo', Rock.
Shamrock: Huh?
Stringer: Be subtle with it, man. You know what subtle means?
Shamrock: Laid back and shit.
Daniels: Where are the detectives who were first assigned?
Valchek: Dead. To me, anyway. I shipped them humps back to Burrell as fast as I could.
Kima: [to Daniels, about joining the new detail] I'll tell your wife if you tell mine.

[edit] Undertow [2.5]

McNulty: [about Omar] He play you hard?
Bubbles: I go at him respectable. He put that goddamn shotgun in my face, man. I’m looking at two goddamn tubes of the Harbor Tunnel staring right at me. [McNulty laughs] Each one about yea-big. I damn near piss my pants.
Lester: Colonel, respectfully, did you just fuck me over without giving me half a chance to clear this case?
Rawls: Let’s be clear, Det. Freamon. When I fuck you over, you’ll know it. You’ll be so goddamn certain, you won’t need to ask that question.
Kima: Cool Lester Smooth... hey, what's happenin'?
Lester: Same fuck-ups in the same shit detail, workin’ out of the same shithouse kind of office. You people lack personal growth, you know that?
[after the Stewedores' Union members testified in front of the Grand Jury]
Bunk: How'd we do, Charlie?
Charlie: I almost got one to swear that the docks are actually near the water.
Sobotka: What do you say, Johnny? What do you say to any question?
Johnny Fifty: I take the Fifth Commandment.

[edit] All Prologue [2.6]

D'Angelo Barksdale: The past is always with us. Where we come from, what we go through, how we go through it; all this shit matters. Like at the end of the book, ya' know, boats and tides and all. It's like you can change up, right, you can say your somebody new, you can give yourself a whole new story. But, what came first is who you really are and what happened before is what really happened. It don't matter that some fool say he different 'cause the things that make you different is what you really do, what you really go through. Like, ya' know, all those books in his library. He frontin' with all them books, but if you pull one down off the shelf, none of the pages have ever been opened. He got all them books, and he hasn't read nearly one of them. Gatsby, he was who he was, and he did what he did. And 'cause he wasn't willing to get real with the story, that shit caught up to him.
[At Bird's trial]
Ilene: And what is your occupation?
Omar: Occupation?
Ilene: What exactly do you do for a living, Mr. Little?
Omar: I rip and run.
Ilene: You...
Omar: I robs drug dealers.
Ilene: And exactly how long has this been your occupation, Mr. Little?
Omar: Well, I don't know exactly. I venture to say maybe 'bout eight or nine years.
Ilene: Mr. Little, how does a man rob drug dealers for eight or nine years and live to tell about it?
Omar: Day at a time, I suppose.
Levy: You are amoral, are you not? You are feeding off the violence and the despair of the drug trade. You're stealing from those who themselves are stealing the lifeblood from our city. You are a parasite who leeches off--
Omar: Just like you, man.
Levy: --the culture of drugs... Excuse me, what?
Omar: I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase. It's all in the game, though, right?
Omar: That wasn’t no attempted murder.
Levy: Then what was it, Mr. Little?
Omar: I shot the boy Mike-Mike in his hind parts, that all. [jury members laugh] Fixed it up so he couldn’t sit right. [Judge Phelan chuckles]
Levy: Why’d you shoot Mike-Mike in his, um... hind parts, Mr. Little?
Omar: Let’s say we had a disagreement.
Levy: A disagreement over?
Omar: Well, you see, Mike-Mike thought he should keep that cocaine he was slingin’ and the money he was makin’ from slingin’ it. I thought otherwise.
Sergei: Family cannot be helped.
Proposition Joe: Who you tellin’? I got motherfuckin’ nephews and in-laws fucking all my shit up all the time and it ain’t like I can pop a cap in their ass and not hear about it Thanksgivin’ time. For real, I’m livin’ life with some burdensome niggers.
...
Nick: Thanks for bein’ straight on this.
Proposition Joe: Fool, if it wasn’t for Sergei here, you and your cuz' both would be cadaverous motherfuckers.

[edit] Backwash [2.7]

D.C. Guy: [about D'Angelo's death] But did your man Avon even knew about it? [Stringer shakes his head] You on your own here huh?
Stringer: You right, it ain't none of your business. And if I were you, I wouldn't let a word of this mess end up in Avon's ear.
D.C. Guy: Baltimore nigga's off the hook, I swear. All ya'll.
Prez: What if they're not sneaking anything off this time? What then?
Lester: Ah then, tragically, you will have wasted yet another day in a life you've already misspent in the service of the City of Baltimore.

[edit] Duck and Cover [2.8]

Bunk: The thing of it is, Lieutenant... Jimmy McNulty, when he ain't policing he's a picture postcard of a drunken, self-destructive fuck-up. And when he is policing... he's pretty much the same motherfucker. But on a good case, he runnin' in front of the pack. That's as close as the man comes to bein' right.
Daniels: [about McNulty] You ever see how a dog gets when he smells a bone buried in the yard?
Rawls: Yeah, and I seen one take a shit on my carpet, too. And don't give me that he's-got-that-fire-in-the-belly garbage, either. The answer is no.
Rhonda: [reading an affadavit] You all cannot spell for shit.
Bunk: Well, would we be police if we could?
Horseface: [to Frank, while looking at a porn mag] Let me ask you something important. You like fake tits? I can't decide. Thus far, I'm undecided on fake tits.
[Bunk comes into detail room wearing lacrosse sweats]
Herc: Lacrosse?
Bunk: What, a brother can't run with a stick? Jim Brown was an All-American midfielder at Syracuse.
Lester: You putting yourself beside Jim Brown?
Bunk: Lester, um, I'm, I'm just saying...
Daniels: I thought you were born in pinstripes!
Bunk: Lieutenant, I was under the impression that, uh, when detailed against his will to some backwards-ass, no-count, out-in-the-district, lost ball/tall-grass drug investigation, a veteran police of means and talent can wear whatever the fuck he damn well pleases.

[edit] Stray Rounds [2.9]

Stringer: [to Bodie] This here game is more than the rep you carry, the corner you hold. You gotta be fierce, I know that, but more than that, you gotta show some flex, give and take on both sides.
Proposition Joe: [about Brother Mouzone] You don't think I'm gonna send any of my people up against Brother? Shit, That nigger got more bodies on him than a Chinese cemetery.
Valchek: Now the votes are in, and you're movin' your damn golf trophies upstairs to the Commisioner's office, now you're freezin' me out, huh? Fuckin' rat-fucker's, all of ya'. This is my case, mine! And now you're gonna tell me who the target is? Well not fuckin' likely.
Brianna Barksdale: As long as them towers are still standing, I am too. And i'm a be damned if I'm a let everything we fought for go to shit.
[during extended surveillance detail, Herc takes a picture of Carver]
Carver: Hey, don't waste film.
Herc: We've been here so fucking long that you're startin' to look good to me.

[edit] Storm Warnings [2.10]

Brother Mouzone: Lamar, where's my Harper's?
Lamar: Say wha'?
Brother Mouzone: Harper's. The new issue.
Lamar: You didn't say that one. You said The New Republic, and Atlantic, and a new somethin' else.
Brother Mouzone: I did not forget to tell you Harper's. Every week I tell you the same shit, and every week you forget half of what I say.
Stringer: You see these east-side motherfucker's over here? I want'chu to extend to these motherfucker's all the hospitality west Baltimore is famous for.
Bodie: Yeah, you want us to fuck 'em up.
Cheese: You mean to tell me there's a west-side nigga that know how to sell shit without stickin' a pistol in a fiends face?
Bodie: Yeah dog, and you better get used it, 'cause ya'll ain't sellin shit, until we bone-ass dry!
Brother Mouzone: [to Cheese, after shooting him] Pellets in plastic. Rat shot. What you need to be concerned about is what’s seated in the chamber now: a copper-jacketed, hollow point 120-grain hot street load of my own creation. So you need to think for just a moment and ask yourself: what do I have to do before this man raise up his gun again?
Ziggy: It pays to go with the union card every time.

[edit] Bad Dreams [2.11]

Amanda Reese: Name names, and come clean. You help yourself, and your union.
Sobotka: Help my union? For 25 years we've been dyin' slow down there. Dry dock's rustin', piers standin' empty. My friends and their kids like we got the cancer. No life-line got thrown all that time, nothin' from nobody, and now you wanna help us? Help me?
Mouzone: [on Brandon's death] The game ... is the game.
Omar: No doubt.
Spiros: [about Nick Sobotka] You don't have to worry about Nicko...
The Greek: You are fond of him Spiros. You should have had a son.
Spiros: But then I would have had a wife.
Bunk: A different look for our boy.
McNulty: Yeah, Perry Ellis, or something.
Bunk: Now, how would a just-rolled-out-of-bed-looking motherfucker like you, know the designer?
McNulty: [pauses] Okay, I'm guessing.
Bunk: It's a Joseph Abboud. He puts dark buttons instead of brass on his blazers. That's the Abboud signature.
McNulty: You know what they call a guy who pays that much attention to his clothes, don't you?
Bunk: Mm-hmm, a grown-up.
Sobotka: You know what the trouble is, Brucey? We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket.
Bunk: Boy, them Greeks and those twisted-ass names.
McNulty: Man, back off the Greeks. They invented civilization.
Bunk: Yeah? Ass-fucking, too.

[edit] Port in a Storm [2.12]

Daniels: [to Major Valchek] I'll tell you the truth Major. Everyone who saw the punch wrote on it. And they've all got Prez throwing the punch, no question. They've also got you addressing a subordinate officer as uh, what was it? A shit-bird?
Valchek: Fuck you. This is the Baltimore Police Department, not the Roland Park Ladies Tea.
Nick: Seniority sucks.
La La: If you ain't a senior.
Spiros: He knows my name, but my name is not my name. And you... to them you're only "The Greek."
The Greek: And, of course, I'm not even Greek.

[edit] Season 3

[edit] Time After Time [3.1]

Burrell: What makes you think they'll promote the wrong man?
Daniels: We do it all the time.
Slim Charles: What happens if they don't cop our re-up?
Stringer: Well, I'ma worry about that when it happens. Until then, Mr. Charles, we're going to handle this like businessmen, make profit and later for that gangsta bullshit.
Poot: Do the chair know we gonna look like some punk-ass bitches out there?
Stringer: You ain't got the floor. Chair don't recognize your ass.
Prez: If that idiot worked for us, he'd be a deputy commissioner by now.
Herc: [cueing up the theme from "Shaft"] Carv. He's a complicated man, and the only one that understands him is his woman.
Carver: Seek therapy.

[edit] All Due Respect [3.2]

Herc: Anybody I want?
Carver: Anybody.
Herc: I want more than one. I want the Olson Twins.
Carver: You got 'em. Slaves. All they live for is to get you off. But so now who are you gonna do for 'em? One guy, one act, one time.
Herc: Right, and the minute I name a guy, you're gonna be like, "I knew you're a cocksucker from the first time I laid eyes on you. Steve McQueen? Huh, that's your fantasy? You fucking closet case motherfucker."
Carver: Steve McQueen?
Herc: Fuck you. It's a setup.
Carver: Both Olson twins. Ashley. Kate...
Herc: Mary-Kate. And yeah, I admire her body of work.
Carver: They're yours. All you gotta do is name a guy.
Herc: I'm not catching, I'm pitching.
Carver: No problem.
Valchek: So, what's my role in your little drama?
Carcetti: I thought you might broker a meeting, you know... help your fearless leader see the light about his new friend on the council.
Valchek: And I should tell him, what? Make nice or invest heavily in petroleum jelly?
Carcetti: Hey, his ass, his choice.

[edit] Dead Soldiers [3.3]

Burrell: If the gods are fucking you, you find a way to fuck them back. It's Baltimore, gentlemen; the Gods will not save you.
Stringer: That's good. That's like a forty degree day. Ain't nobody got nuttin to say about a forty degree day. Fifty? Bring a smile to your face. Sixty? Shit, niggas are damn near barbequeing that mothafucka. Go down to twenty? Niggas get they bitch on. Get they blood complainin... but forty? Nobody give a FUCK about forty. Nobody remember forty, and ya'll niggas is giving me way too many forty degree days. What the fuck?!
Greggs: [to McNulty] How come they know you're police when they hook up with you. And they know you're police when they move in. And they know you're police when they decide to start a family with you. And all that shit is just fine until one day it ain't no more. One day, it's 'You should have a regular job.' and 'You need to be home at five o'clock'.
Landsman: [to Bunk] Rawls and Foerster have crawled up my backside and they're gonna stay there until you find Dozerman's gun. Now, I would like it very much if I could unclench my ample ass cheeks, if you don't mind, and rid myself of that discomfort.
Bunk: [types in "Peanut" in database] 89? And that's just the ones with Westside addresses.
Vernon: Man, you got to narrow that shit down. Find some way to work with all them "Peanuts."
Bunk: Motherfucker, do I look like George Washington Carver?

[edit] Hamsterdam [3.4]

Lester: From the looks of things, Stringer Bell's worse than a drug dealer.
Prez: He's a developer.
Bubbles: This pay how much?
Kima: Let's treat it like a real job. Say $5 an hour, $30 on a day, max.
Bubbles: That's less than minimum wage.
McNulty: But there's no withholding, Bubs. It's tax-free.
Cutty: Game done changed.
Slim Charles: Game's the same, just got more fierce.

[edit] Straight and True [3.5]

McNulty: [to Stringer] I had such fuckin' hopes for us.
Proposition Joe: For a cold-ass crew of gangstaz, y'all carried it like Republicans and shit.
Stringer: Nigga, is you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?
Colvin: Middle management means that you got just enough responsibility to listen when people talk, but not so much you can't tell anybody to go fuck themselves.
Colvin: I swear to God, I have over 200 sworn personnel and I will free them all up to brutalize every one of you they can. If you're on a corner in my district, it will not be just a humble or a loitering charge. It will be some Biblical shit that happens to you on the way into that jail wagon. You understand? We will not be playing by any rules that you recognize.

[edit] Homecoming [3.6]

Avon: [to Stringer] I ain't no suit-wearin' businessman like you. You know, I'm just a gangster, I suppose. And I want my corners.
Dealer: [while being thrown in the police truck] Hey, we in America!
Officer: Nuh-uh, West Baltimore.
Bunk: [to Omar] Rough as that neighborhood could be, we had us a community. Wasn't nobody, no victim, who didn't matter. Now all we got is bodies, and predatory motherfuckers like you.

[edit] Back Burners [3.7]

Butchie: Conscience do cost.
Herc: It's like one of those nature shows. You mess with the environment, some species get fucked out of their habitat.
Carver: Did you just use the word 'habitat' in a sentence?
Herc: I did.

[edit] Moral Midgetry [3.8]

Clay Davis: [to Stringer] Crawl, walk, and then run.
Avon Barksdale: You know the difference between me and you? I bleed red and you bleed green. I look at you these days, String, you know what I see? I see a man without a country. Not hard enough for this right here and maybe, just maybe, not smart enough for them out there.
Runner: Yo, I just rolled for peanut butter. You got anything else?
Colicchio: The fuck I look like, Chef Boyardee?
Runner: Who?
Rawls: Amazing. Crime is down and no one wants to take any credit. What is wrong with this picture?

[edit] Slapstick [3.9]

Lester: Tell me something, Jimmy. How exactly do you think it all ends?
McNulty: What do you mean?
Lester: A parade? A gold watch? A shining Jimmy-McNulty-day moment, when you bring in a case sooooo sweet everybody gets together and says, "Aw, shit! He was right all along. Should've listened to the man." The job will not save you, Jimmy. It won't make you whole, it won't fill your ass up.
McNulty: I dunno, a good case—
Lester: Ends. They all end. The handcuffs go click and it's over. The next morning, it's just you in your room with yourself.
McNulty: Until the next case.
Lester: Boooooy, you need something else outside of this here.
McNulty: Like what, dollhouse miniatures?
Lester: Hey, hey, hey, a life. A life, Jimmy. You know what that is? It's the shit that happens while you're waiting for moments that never come.
Avon: [to Stringer] Sunday truce been there as long as the game itself ..... I mean, you can do some shit and be like what the fuck, but hey, never on no Sunday.
McNulty: We're good at this Lester. In this town, we're as good as it gets.
Lester: Natural police.
McNulty: Fuck yes. Natural police.
...
McNulty: You know something, Lester? I do believe there aren't five swinging dicks in the entire department who can do what we do.
Colvin: What I'm sayin' is, come tomorrow, if I don't have a shooter in bracelets, the Hamsterdam thing is over, finished. It's back to the corners for all of us and fuck y'all any way we can. You hear me? It was good while it lasted. For y'all it was cash on the barrel and no one needs no bail money. For me, I had clean corners damn near everywhere I looked. But that's all gone tomorrow unless y'all bring me my shooter.
Avon: [after Brianna confronts him about D'Angelo's suspicious suicide in prison] The fuck you even thinking? That I had something to do with it? That I could do that to my own kin? Is that what you think? The fuck is in your head Brie? I ain't do nothing to Dee. I ain't have shit to do with it.
Brianna: To do with what?

[edit] Reformation [3.10]

Proposition Joe: [to Stringer] The feeling is it ain't right for you to be at the head of our table, when you can't call off your dog. Call it a crisis of leadership.
Stringer: Make this quick, I got a meet.
Fatface Rick: Oh, fuck your meet! You're harder to get at than my fat wife's cunt.
Rawls: Don't you see what he' s done. He legalized drugs!
Rawls: Bunny, you cocksucker, I got to give it to you, a brilliant idea. Insane and illegal, but stone fuckin' brilliant nonetheless. After all my puttin' my foot up people's asses to get the numbers down, he comes along and in one stroke, gets a 14 fuckin' percent decrease. Fuckin' shame it's gonna end our careers, but still.

[edit] Middle Ground [3.11]

Stringer: We don't need to dream no more.
Levy: [to Stringer] A guy says if you pay him, he can make it rain. You pay him. If and when it rains, he takes the credit. If and when it doesn't, he comes up with reasons for you to pay more. Clay Davis rainmade you ...... It's an old game in this town, and Clay Davis? That goniff was born with his hand in someone's pocket.
Slim Charles: [when Stringer asks him to kill Clay Davis] Shit, murder ain't no thing, but this here is some assassination shit!
Brother Mouzone: [to Avon, leading Avon to give up Stringer] What got you here is your word and your reputation. With that alone, you've still got an open line to New York. Without it, you're done!

[edit] Mission Accomplished [3.12]

Slim Charles: Don't matter who did what to who at this point. Fact is, we went to war and there ain't no turnin' back. I mean, shit, it's what war is, you know? Once you in it, you in it. If it's a lie, then we fight on that lie. But we gotta fight.
Witness: I saw only the one of them. He was black, big I thought. With a large weapon.
Bunk: BNBG.
Det. Vernon Holley: [laughing] Big Negro, Big Gun.
McNulty: [referring to a now deceased Stringer] I caught him, Bunk. On the wire. I caught him. He doesn't fuckin' know it.
Squeek: You've got to be the stupidest motherfucker... I've ever dated.
Bernard: [to crony] I can't wait to get to prison.

[edit] Season 4

[edit] Boys of Summer [4.1]

Carver: Okay, so let's try this again. I say, "Have a good evening, Mr. Broadus!"
Bodie: And a good evening to you, Sgt. Carver.
Carver: See.
Bodie: And a VERY good evening to you, Officer Collichio!
Colicchio: Fuck yourself with a 40, shit-bird.
Snoop: God-dayumn.
Salesman: I see you’ve got the DeWalt cordless. [pause] Your nailgun. DeWalt four-ten.
Snoop: Yeah. Trouble is, ya leave it in the truck for a while, and need to step up and use da bitch, da battery don’t hold up, ya know?
Salesman: Yeah. Cordless'll do that. You might want to consider the powder-actuated tool. The Hilty DX460MX or the Simpson PTP. These two are my Cadillacs. Everything else on this board is second best, sorry to say. Are you contracting or just doing some work around the house?
Snoop: Nah, we work all over.
Salesman: Full time?
Snoop: Nah, we had about five jobs last month.
Salesman: At that rate, the cost of the powder actuated gun justifies itself.
Snoop: You say ‘power’?
Salesman: Powder.
Snoop: Like gunpowder.
Salesman: Yeah. The DX460 is fully automatic, with a 27 caliber charge. Wood, concrete, steel to steel, she’ll throw a fastener into anything. And for my money, she handles recoil better than the Simpson or the P3500. You understand what I mean by recoil?
Snoop: Yeah. The kickback. I’m wit cha.
Salesman: That’s right.
Snoop: 27 caliber, huh?
Salesman: Not large ballistically, but for driving nails, its enough. Any more and you’d add to the recoil.
Snoop: Aw shit, I seen a tiny ass .22 round nose drop a nigga plenty a days, man. Motherfuckers get up in ya like a pinball, rip your ass up. Big joints though? Most the time they just break a bone and they just say “fuck it.” I’ma go with this right here, man. How much do I owe you?
Salesman: Six-sixty-nine, plus tax.
[Snoop counts out money]
Salesman: No no, just pay at the register.
Snoop: No man you handle that for me, and keep the rest for your time.
Salesman: This is $800.
Snoop: So what man? You earned that buck like a motherfucker, keep that shit.
Chris: We good?
Snoop: Yeah, man. Man say if you wanna shoot nails, this here the Cadillac, man. Meant Lexus but he ain’t know it.
Chris: Hold a charge better?
Snoop: Man, fuck a charge, this here’s a gun powder activated, 27 caliber, full auto, no kickback, nail-throwing mayhem man. Shit right here’s tight.
[Chris laughs]
Snoop: Word. Fuck this nailin' up boards, we could kill a couple mother fuckers with this right here.

[edit] Soft Eyes [4.2]

Tommy Carcetti: I still wake up white in a city that ain't.
Bunk: Better to be lucky than to be good.
Clay Davis: You think I have time to ask a man why he giving me money? Or where he gets his money from? I'll take any motherfucker's money if he givin' it away!

[edit] Home Rooms [4.3]

Namond: I love the first day, man. Everybody all friendly an' shit.
Omar: How you expect to run with the wolves come night, when you spend all day sparring wit' the puppies?
Omar: It ain't what you takin', it's who you takin' it from.

[edit] Refugees [4.4]

Security Guard: You think I dream of comin' to work up in this shit on a Sunday mornin'. Tell all my friends what a good job I got. I'm workin' to support a family man. Pretend I ain't talking to you. Pretend like I ain't even on this Earth. I know what you are, and I ain't steppin' to, but I am a man, and you just clip that shit and act like you don't even know I'm there.
Marlo: I don't.
Cutty: [to the Deacon] You hang around and you can see me preach on some young-uns. Solemn left and sanctified right.
The Deacon: A good church man is always up in everybody's shit. It's how we do.
Proposition Joe: Business man, such as myself, does not believe in bad blood with a man such as yourself. Disturbs the sleep.
Omar: Oh, I bet it do.
Marlo: That's my money.
Omar: Man, money ain't got no owners. Only spenders.
...
Omar: [to Marlo] I like that ring too. [pause] Boy, you got me confused with a man who repeat himself.

[edit] Alliances [4.5]

[epigraph]
Chris Partlow: If you with us, you with us.

[edit] Margin of Error [4.6]

[epigraph]
Norman Wilson: Don't try this shit at home.

[edit] Unto Others [4.7]

[epigraph]
Bunk Moreland: Aw yeah. That golden rule.

[edit] Corner Boys [4.8]

[epigraph]
Zenobia: We got our thing, but it's just part of the big thing.

[edit] Know Your Place [4.9]

[epigraph]
Proposition Joe: Might as well dump 'em, get another.

[edit] Misgivings [4.10]

[epigraph]
Poot Carr: World goin' one way, people another.

[edit] A New Day [4.11]

[epigraph]
Jimmy McNulty: You play in dirt, you get dirty.
Cheese: You know who got the best ass and pussy? Midgets, yo. I'm not even playin'

[edit] That's Got His Own [4.12]

[epigraph]
Bubbles: That all it is to it?
Cheese: Omar had this one chick pullin' guns out her pussy. That shit was unseemly, yo.

[edit] Final Grades [4.13]

[epigraph]
Unknown: [traditional Baltimore] If animal trapped call 410-844-6286.
Wee-Bey: [To De'Londa] Remember who the fuck you talking to right here. Remember who I am. My word is still my word. In here, in Baltimore, in any place you can think of calling home, it'll be my word that finds you. You still got me. We'll get by. But you gonn' let go of that boy. Bet that.

[edit] Season 5

[edit] More With Less [5.01]

[epigraph]
Bunk: The bigger the lie, the more they believe.
Daniels: So, one thieving politician trumps twenty-two bodies? Good to know.

[edit] Unconfirmed Reports [5.02]

[epigraph]
Bunk: This ain't Aruba, bitch.

[edit] Not For Attribution [5.03]

[epigraph]
Mike Fletcher: They're dead where it doesn't count.
Prop Joe: [on Marlo] It ain't easy civilizin' this motherfucker.

[edit] Transitions [5.04]

[epigraph]
Templeton: Buyer's market out there.
Prop Joe: I treated you like a son.
Marlo: I wasn't made to play the son.

[edit] React Quotes [5.05]

[epigraph]
Gus Haynes] Just because they're in the street doesn't mean they lack opinions.

[edit] The Dickension Aspect [5.06]

[epigraph]
Freamon: If you have a problem with this, I understand completely.
Bunk: I'm a murder police. I work murders. I don't fuck with no make-believe. I don't jerk shit around. I catch a murder, and I work it.

[edit] Took [5.07]

[epigraph]
Rupert Bond: What the fuck just happened?
Rhonda Pearlman: Whatever it is, they don't teach it in law school.

[edit] Clarification [5.08]

[epigraph]
Terry Hanning: A lie ain't a side of a story. It's just a lie.
Beadie: All the guys at the bar, Jimmy, all the girls; they don't show up at your wake. Not because they don't like you. But because, they never knew your last name. Then a month later, someone tells them, "Oh, Jimmy died." "Jimmy who?" "Jimmy the Cop." "Ohhh," they say, "him". And all the people on the job, all those people you spent all the hours in the radio cars with, the guys with their feet up on the desk, tellin' stories, who shorted you on your food runs, who signed your overtime slips. In the end, they're not gonna be there either. Family, that's it. Family, and if you're lucky, one or two friends who are the same as family. That's all the best of us get. Everything else is just...
McNulty: You start to tell the story, you think you're the hero, and then when you get done talking...

[edit] Late Editions [5.09]

[epigraph]
Snoop: Deserve's got nothin' to do with it.
Jay Landsman: [To McNulty] From everything we've given you, fire should be shootin' outta your ass. But there you sit, like a genital wart.
Tommy Carcetti: You know, I always wanted to say how sorry I am about how things turned out. There wasn't anything I could have done with your experiment in the Western District, there wasn't anything that anyone could have done with that.
Colvin: Yeah, well, I guess, Mr. Mayor, there's nothing to be done.
Clay Davis: [To Lester] You ain't nothin' but a shakedown artist.
Bubbles: Ain't no shame in holdin' on to grief, as long as you make room for other things too.
Michael: Why? What I do wrong?
Snoop: Chris locked up behind somethin' he did for you. And you spent time downtime wit' the police.
Michael: I ain't say a word.
Snoop: Yeah, that's what you say. But it's how you carry yourself. Always apart. Always askin', "Why?". When you should be doin' what you're told. You was never one of us. And you never could be.

[edit] -30- [5.10]

[epigraph]
H. L. Mencken: ...the life of kings.
Mike Fletcher: I'm putting the guy's life out there. I just wanna feel clean about it, y'know?
Gus Haynes: I remember 'clean'.
Bunk: [To Kima] There you go, givin' a fuck when it ain't your turn to give a fuck.
McNulty: You lock up every liar, there's no room in BDC for anyone else, right?
Gus Haynes: [To Klebanow] Maybe you win a Pulitzer with this stuff, ...and maybe you have to give it back.
McNulty: [on a copycat homeless killing] I had nothing to do with this.
Greggs: Wonderful! We've eliminated one suspect!
Rawls: You're not killing them yourself, McNulty. At least assure me of that.
McNulty: [To Templeton] You lying motherfucker, you're as full of shit as I am. And you've got to live with it and play it out as far as it goes, right? Trapped in the same lie. Only difference is, I know why I did it. But fuck if I can figure out what it gets you in the end. But, hey, I'm not part of your tribe.
Templeton: You're not serious?
McNulty: No, no, I'm a fucking joke. And so are you.
Rawls: If he's NCR, what the fuck is the difference if he cops to two or six [murders]? Either way they tie his arms and feed him green jello.
McNulty: Sir, he did the last two.
Rawls: Motherfucker! You are a cunt hair away from indictment and you see fit to argue with me?
McNulty: I did what I did, I know. And now I'm standin' responsible for two fresh murders. I know what I've done here. But I'm not doing this.
Daniels: [To Steintorf] Either we fix this police department and the crime goes down, or we don't and the crime stays up.
Freamon: You couldn't do any better with Levy? I mean, givin' up the money...
Pearlman: You lost the money, Lester, when you started coloring outside of the lines. This isn't on me.
Jay Landsman: [At McNulty's "wake"] He was natural po-lice. Yes, he was. And I don't say that about many people. Even when they're out here on the felt. I don't give that one up unless it happens to be true. Natural po-lice. ... [pretends to choke up] ... But, Christ, what an asshole!
Jay Landsman: Jimmy, I say this seriously. If I was laying there dead on some Baltimore street corner, I'd want you standing over me, catching the case. Because, brother, when you were good, you were the best we had.
Bunk: Shit, if you were lying there dead on some corner, it probably was Jimmy that done ya.
Daniels: I'll swallow a lie when I have to; I've swallowed a few big ones lately. But the stat games? That lie? It's what ruined this department. Shining up shit and calling it gold so majors become colonels and mayors become governors. Pretending to do policework while one generation fucking trains the next how not to do the job. And then-[catches himself, and sighs] I looked Carcetti in the eye, I shook his hand, I asked him if he was for real. Well, this is the lie I can't live with.
Gus Haynes: Look around you: the pond is shrinkin', the fish are nervous. "Get some profile, win a prize. Maybe find a bigger pond somewhere" Whiting? Klebanow? Templeton? They snatch a Pulitzer or two and they are up and gone from this place. For them that's what this is all about. Me? I'm too fuckin' simple-minded for that. I just wanted to see somethin' new everyday, and write a story with it.
McNulty: C'mon, Larry, let's go home.

[edit] Cast

[edit] External links

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