John Munch quotes from Homicide: Life on the Street

Munch

But what if they make me take a test? I can't take tests. I always clutch. What if I take it and fail and all our dreams come crashing down?

Bayliss

Well, then it's simple. Meldrick and I will harm you.

Bayliss

So you're a homicide detective and your brother is an undertaker. Between the two of you, the holiday dinner table must be a riot.

Munch

Just one life-affirming story after another.

Munch

What happened to the good old bar where you just go in and talk to the bartender, you think, you get depressed, and you drink, and you go home and puke?

Lewis

It's outdated, Munch.

Lewis

[answering the phone, at Christmas] Merry Christmas, Homicide.

Munch

[answering the phone, at Christmas] Ho-Ho-Ho-Homicide.

Bolander

All I'm saying is that you are a pessimist, Munch!

Munch

A pessimist?

Bolander

Yeah, you're always seeing the worst in everything! You never see anything good, a moment of redemption! You don't believe in anything.

Munch

Sure I do.

Bolander

Oh, yeah?

Munch

Yeah.

Bolander

What do you believe in?

Munch

I believe that one day I'll be sitting at a bar in Hong Kong and this incredibly attractive and submissive woman with an abiding interest in art and existential philosophy will come up to me and say, "Take me home and ravish me."

Munch

How come all the miracles that have happened, happened in the past?

Bolander

What are you talking about?

Munch

Name one miracle that's happened in your lifetime.

Bolander

How 'bout the fact that I haven't killed you yet?

You've got a weird way of talking.

Munch

Don't start with me again, Fidel.

It's like you hafta use all these weird words, its like you're listening to the words like they were in a cartoon coming out of your mouth and you're watching them thinking "I'm cool, I'm cool."

Surely you can understand our desire to protect that history, especially in connection to George Washington.

Munch

George Washington?

George Washington... In 1793, he was traveling from Mount Vernon to Philadelphia. He stopped here.

Munch

He stopped here?

Of course, it was a residence at the time.

Lewis

George Washington slept here?

Well, no...

Munch

He had dinner?

No.

Lewis

So what did he do here?

Apparently the President, just coming from a dinner party where he had consumed quite a bit of wine, was in something of a bind. He had no time to seek out a public chamber pot.

Munch

Are you telling us the reason we can't tear down the bathroom is that it's where George Washington once took a whizz?

How do you feel now?

Munch

Sad, angry...

Stressed?

Munch

Life is stress by definition.

Lewis

I gotta hand it to you, baby. You got some nerve on you. Do me a favor, would ya? Would you autograph this for me?

Munch

What are you talking about?

Lewis

And put the date and something personal. Never know; could be valuable in the future.

Munch

What is going on around here?

Lewis

You don't know?

Munch

No, I don't.

Lewis

You ain't been across the street?

Munch

No, I haven't. Is there something across the street I should know about?

Lewis

Yeah, you need to take a look at the photo exhibit at the gallery over there.

Munch

I do?

Lewis

Yeah. Absolutely. Go way in the back, up against the wall, you'll... you'll know what I'm talking about. You know, I would've never had the nerve to do something like that. And I thought you were all talk, ya big fella. Ohhh, Munchkin. Whoops, guess we can't call him that anymore, huh?

Bolander

You think the old partner's a few bricks shy of a load, huh?

Munch

Stan, you're a load. Trust me.

Munch

We need new customers or we're not gonna have a bar.

Lewis

So what? Ladies night? Wet T-shirt contest, what?

Bolander

Turtle races. I've always enjoyed them.

Munch

We're sinking here, Stan and you're talking about turtle races.

Bolander

Fix me a drink. Scotch

Munch

You sure you should be drinking? You just got outta the hospital a month ago.

Bolander

Are you gonna pour me a drink or do I hafta wreck this place again?!!!

Munch

Let destiny be your guide, Big Man.

Bolander

Munch, let's go.

Munch

What've we got?

Bolander

Skeleton found buried in the basement of a house over on Gough Street. A couple's renovating the house, the contractor dug up bones. They're turning the cellar into a playroom.

Munch

Nice.

Bolander

My bet, the skeleton's at least a hundred years old.

Lewis

Why's that, Big Man?

Bolander

Every year or so someone digs up bones in a basement in Fell's Point. It usually turns out to be some poor sailor who got a night's leave off some nineteenth century schooner docked in the harbor. The sailor came into town for a drink or some poker, got rolled for his pay, got stuffed in the basement. Meanwhile, up in Maine or England or even China, some young bride walked the shore, peering out into the sea, waiting her whole life for him to return.

Munch

Jeez, Stanley, more and more I see the poet in you.

Bolander

That ain't poetry, Munch. Them's the hard, cold facts.

Howard

Life was simpler a hundred years ago.

Bolander

Death was simpler.

Munch

Who lobbies for nothing?

Bayliss

You do, Munch. Every day, in every way, you lobby for nothing.

Bayliss

The doctor says I have a degenerative disc in my back.

Munch

I had that.

Bayliss

You did?

Munch

Mm-hm.

Bayliss

And it went away?

Munch

Well, not that really. What I had was a degenerate disc.

Howard

A degenerate disc, Munch?

Munch

Yeah, see every time a pretty girl walked by, my neck would go like this, completely and involuntarily. It went away as I matured though.

Howard

When did that happen? I must've missed that.