Meldrick Lewis quotes from Homicide: Life on the Street

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.

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?

Lewis

Luther, Luther, look both ways before crossing the street, my brother.

You do the same.

Howard

I'll go have a conversation with the illustrious Luther Mahoney.

Lewis

I'm goin' to put a bullet in his brain.

Howard

Hey, that's a thought.

Kellerman

He stands up for us and where are we for him? Have a beer, right? So we can raise a toast to the son of a bitch because he was an idiot, thinking he could make a difference in the world.

Lewis

He wasn't an idiot.

Kellerman

No? All he had to do was go along with the program; just let them sell drugs off the corner, just accept things as they are and he'd still be alive. Your old partner Crosetti - he was an idiot too.

Lewis

What?

Kellerman

He let it all get to him.

Lewis

Why you wanna go there, man? Why you wanna drag Crosetti into this?

Kellerman

I see certificates of merit hanging in the squadroom. For what? So we can remember what a great guy he was, what a great detective? Does him a lot of good that he's remembered. Just a stupid, pathetic moron is what he was.

Lewis

Why you wanna talk about Crosetti like that? Why you wanna talk about someone you didn't even know?

Kellerman

There's the door. You don't wanna hear it, get out.

Lewis

He was a good man and he was a good detective. You don't know the first thing about him so what gives you the right to talk about someone you don't even know?

Kellerman

What, he's a mystery?! He kills himself. He tossed his drunk, pill-popping ass in the water and he comes up a floater. He should have eaten his gun.

Lewis

Mike-

Kellerman

No! No "Mike"! No more partner, no more friend, none of it! This is done between us!

Lewis

Nothin's missing, so I guess we can rule out a robbery, huh?

Pembleton

We don't guess, Meldrick, we hypothesize. We infer. We extrapolate from the evidence. We do not guess.

Lewis

Go easy on me, would you Frank? It's early in the morning, I haven't had my first donut yet.

Who do you guys think did this?

Lewis

In my best extrapolation? Professor Plum, in the library, with the candlestick.

Lewis

And you know what else, Frank? Love spelled backwards is "evil." E-v-o-l.

Pembleton

That's not love spelled backwards. That's live spelled backwards.

Lewis

Cut me some poetic slack, will ya, Frank?

Stivers

Luther Mahoney. What do you say? You in?

Lewis

You mention Luther Mahoney, we'll follow you to the ends of the earth.

Could you please bring some identification to the front desk?

Lewis

No problem. [drives through gate]

Lewis

[after beating up Luther] I'm a good cop, Luther. I'm an honest cop. That means I got standards.

I'm not armed.

Lewis

Never beat on a man half your size. People won't think it's a fair fight.

I'm surrendering.

Lewis

Never put an ass-whooping on a man unless you're damn sure he got it coming to him. I'm going to be beating on you for a little while.

You're crazy, Lewis.

Lewis

I've been a cop for a long time. And drugs out there, we're never gonna win that. There's a hundred open-air drug markets in this city and 50,000 drug fiends out there. And we are taking on human desires with lawyers and jailhouses and lockups and you and I both know human desire is kicking us in the ass. So what I need to know, Luther, is why you couldn't be happy with just the package. If you were just slinging drugs maybe you and I wouldn't be here. But the bodies. What about the bodies? What is up with that?

Lewis

I can't believe it. You lost a witness. How tall are you Mike?

Kellerman

How tall am I?

Lewis

Yeah, what, about 6'1, 6'2?

Kellerman

6'1. Why are you asking how tall I am?

Lewis

I didn't know they could pile crap that high.

Pembleton

I told Lange I'd put our best detectives on it.

Lewis

Don't try to back-door me with that "best" business, Frank. You ain't about compliments.

Falsone

So it's a murder. Wow! A hanging murder.

Lewis

A member of the Baltimore City Police Department, Homicide unit used the word 'Wow' on a crime scene?

Falsone

You gotta admit it, Meldrick, it's a little different. I mean we get shootings and cuttings, cuttings and shootings, and every now and then some mope tries to pound someone to death with a baseball bat, but who goes to the trouble of trying to hang people nowadays?

Dr. Cox

Wow!

Lewis

She gonna be in my face; I'm gonna be in her face. Every step of the way.

Giardello

Meldrick, in her face is one thing; breaking it's another.