John Munch quotes from Homicide: Life on the Street

Munch

How could anybody be too old for 101 Dalmatians? It's universal; It's like Homer: a great journey of the heart disguised as an adventure story.

Brodie

With dogs.

Bayliss

We're gonna find Gerry Uba, and I'm not gonna stop until I put this case down.

Munch

I forgot about this side of you.

Bayliss

What side?

Munch

The obsessive side.

Dr. Cox

Look at her eyes.

Munch

Did they move?

Dr. Cox

She's got makeup on.

Munch

So?

Dr. Cox

Most women take off their makeup before they go to bed.

Munch

Not the women I know.

Dr. Cox

Don't you even wonder why?

Munch

Why what?

Dr. Cox

Why he lied?

Munch

I'm a homicide cop. The only time I wonder why is when they tell me the truth.

Bayliss

You have got the absolute right to remain silent!

Pembleton

Of course you do. You're a criminal. Criminals always have the right to remain silent.

Lewis

We're talking about sacred freedoms here, notably your Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. Hey, if it was good enough for Ollie North and Mark Fuhrman, who the hell are you to incriminate yourself at the first opportunity?

Munch

Get it straight, a police detective paid government money to put you in prison is explaining your absolute right to shut up before you say anything stupid.

Brodie

What are you focusing on when you first sit down with a suspect?

Pembleton

The detective has informed you of your rights. He wants you to be protected, he says. Because, he says, there's nothing that concerns him more than giving you every possible assistance in this very confusing and stressful moment in your life.

Howard

The detective wants you to know, and we've been doing this a lot longer than you have, so you can take our word for it. Your rights to counsel aren't all they're cracked up to be.

Pembleton

Once you actually up and call for that lawyer, son, there ain't a damn thing we can do for you. No, sir, your good friends in the Homicide Unit are gonna have to lock you all alone in this room. And the next authority figure to scan your case will be a no-nonsense prosecutor from the Violent Crimes Unit, with the official title "Assistant State's Attorney for the City of Baltimore."

Munch

And God help you then, because a ruthless blood-sucker like that'll have an O'Donnell Heights motorhead like yourself halfway to the gas chamber before you get three words out.

Kellerman

Your best bet is to speak up. Speak up now.

Giardello

You and Detective Stivers.

Lewis

Gee, Detective Stivers and I were having a meeting. We were trying to figure out a way to get Luther Mahoney off the streets once and for all.

Pembleton

It doesn't look like a business meeting.

Lewis

There are business meetings and then there's -- there's business meetings.

Munch

Word to the wise, Meldrick? Nix the horizontal rumba with a fellow detective. Don't dip your wick in the company ink.

Lewis

I wasn't. [to Brodie] Why you want to film that?

Munch

Ah, provolone and onion. Bland and zing. Soft and crunch. The Yin and Yang of sandwich filling.

Brodie

Only a man with no woman in his life eats extra onion for lunch.

Munch

Come on, do it for me just one more time, please, and I won't ask you again.

Kellerman

Would you give it a rest?

Munch

Just once more, please?

Kellerman

Oy vey iz mir, I'm so meshugenah I could plotz.

Munch

Do it again.

Kellerman

No.

Munch

You remember when you were young and the most exciting thing that you thought of was that girl in your French class. You hoped she'd talk to you, let you walk her home, maybe even let you hold her hand.

Kellerman

Every time you looked at her you got embarrassed.

Munch

You couldn't imagine sleeping with her. All you could think about was reaching down for her hand, weaving your fingers together, have her palm touch your palm. We forget what that was like. We have sex, get married, fight, get divorced. Somewhere along the line we forgot how wonderful it is to hold another human being's hand. What happens to us that we take things like that for granted?

Kellerman

I don't know. We get older, I guess.

Munch

We get older, forget who we used to be, what we used to believe in. Love, peace, the Colts would always be in Baltimore. Here's to all the Helen Rosenthals of the world.

Dr. Cox

You depress me, Munch. Don't you ever think of anything positive to say?

Munch

Hey, if he's not murdered, it's not my problem.

Pembleton

Where's Brodie?

Munch

PBS aired his documentary. He won an Emmy.

Bayliss

An Emmy? They give those things to anybody.

Munch

Hey pal, where you from?

[an obvious New Yorker] Baltimore.

Kellerman

Oh yeah?

Abso-freakin'-lutely. I love Baltimore. Eat crabs. Go, Orioles.

Munch

That's not how we say it.

Kellerman

It's 'Bawlmer,' hon. We lose the 't.'

Oh yeah, well lose this, pal.

Kellerman

Enough with the metaphors.

Munch

If not metaphors, what are we left with? We have a riddle, surrounded by a mystery, wrapped inside an enigma, and stuffed inside a body bag.

Munch

Hey partner, ready to roll?

Kellerman

Actually, I gotta run to the dentist; I cracked a filling.

Munch

Which part do you hate the worst? The rubber dam they put in your mouth to open it, or the sound of the drill?

Kellerman

I think the worst part is when I scream like a little girl.