The Wire quotes

257 total quotes



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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?

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.

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.

Avon: 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.

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.

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.

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?

Bunny Colvin: Somewhere back in the beginning of time, this district had itself a civic dilemma of epic proportions. The city council had just passed a law that forbade alcoholic consumption in public areas; on the streets and on the corners. But the corner is, it was and it always will be the poorman's lounge. It's where a man wants to be on a hot summer's night. It's cheaper than a bar. Catch a nice breeze and watch the girls go on by. But the law is the law so what are the western cops gonna do? They arrest every dude for tipping back a High Life, there'd be no time for any other kind of police work. And if they look the other way, they open themselves up to all kinds of flaunting, all kinds of disrespect. Now, this is before my time but somewhere back in the 50's or the 60's, there was a moment of goddamn genius by some nameless smokehound who comes out the Cut-Rate one day and on his way to the corner he slips that just bought pint of elderberry into a paper bag. A great moment of civic compromise. That small wrinkled ass paper bag allowed the corner boys to have their drink in peace and gave us permission to go and do police work. The kind of police work that's actually worth the effort, that's actually worth taking a bullet for. Dozerman got shot last night buying three vials. Three. There has never been a paper bag for drugs. Until now.

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.

Burrell: What makes you think they'll promote the wrong man?
Daniels: We do it all the time.

Butchie: Conscience do cost.

Clay: [to Stringer] Crawl, walk, and then run.

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.

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: 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.