Mike Kellerman quotes from Homicide: Life on the Street

Kellerman

There's no absolutes in life; only in vodka.

Kellerman

You and Howard. I'm telling you. It's love. Start picking out your china patterns.

Kellerman

All this overtime; I'll never get schtupped.

Kellerman

We do this job. A job that nobody gives a piss about and what are we? We're garbagemen. There isn't any consideration anymore, they just keep killing each other. They should have to go out and roll a body and see what we see.

Kellerman

[to Lewis, referring to Junior] Don't get too close; she bites. You might lose a finger.

Kellerman

What do you do for fun, Frank?

Pembleton

Define "fun".

Kellerman

Fun is when you do something exciting, maybe dangerous, with the possibility that you're gonna feel really good before it's all over.

Pembleton

Oh, you mean work.

Kellerman

No, I don't mean work. I mean... sucking unfiltered Camels until you get headaches and snagging a 50-pound marlin on the line, and guzzling Wild Turkey until you puke, and running around the block all night and shooting pool for money against mentally defective bikers. Stuff like that.

Pembleton

I don't have time for fun.

Kellerman

Then what the hell gets you up in the morning? You gotta believe in something.

Pembleton

Well, you can't believe in fun. That's not a faith.

Kellerman

Fun is my god, Frank. I worship fun, I live for fun, and when I die, I hope that I'm having fun. Like that upstate car dealer, -- You remember him? He had a heart attack while nailing his beautiful, young mistress. Came and went. Now, that's the way to die.

Pembleton

Smoke a cigarette, please.

Giardello

You found the whorehouse?

Bayliss

On wheels.

Kellerman

Sort of a good-humor truck for sex. Wonder if they ring a bell.

Giardello

There are no real masterminds out there. Mostly we're dealing with people who think they are. If they think at all. Problem is, there's so many of them.

Kellerman

I don't get it.

Giardello

You don't hafta get it. You'll sleep better if you don't know. Give me the where, the what, the when - the why - is a thing we can live without. Homicide is the elite of the police force. There is no higher calling.

Lewis

Lemme tell you one thing alright? You gotta do everything I say.

Kellerman

Well, there's nothing I won't do; but some things are gonna cost you extra.

Kellerman

You know, he shouldn't leave a department vehicle running like that.

Lewis

Yeah, could get stolen.

Kellerman

Lieutanant said take the first car in.

Lewis

We shouldn't.

Kellerman

You're right.

Lewis

Grand theft auto, baby. [they drive off in the car, as Pembleton comes back out]

Pembleton

You sons of bitches!

Regulations stipulate that a policewoman escort a female prisoner.

Lewis

[motioning to Kellerman] Meet Det. Michelle Kellerman.

Kellerman

Hi.

You're not a woman.

Kellerman

But I used to be.

Kellerman

Does the name Poulson ring a bell with you, Jimmy Poulson?

Giardello

Yeah. Poulson was a policeman in the Northwest around '73, '74. During that time a cop named Reinman was k*lled during a traffic stop and every cop in the city was hunting the shooter.

Giardello

And the rule was then if you ran into him on the street, you k*lled him. No questions asked.

Kellerman

So what about Poulson?

Giardello

Poulson was a good cop, but he had the misfortune of cornering the Reinman shooter in a Pimlico alley.

Kellerman

And?

Giardello

And he let him surrender. I was working Tactical during the time, and I was in the district station house when Poulson brought the shooter in.

Kellerman

So what happened?

Giardello

Turned him over to the desk sergeant, and a number of Reinman's friends grabbed the sh**t, dragged him out of the lock-up, took him back into the cell block and beat him bloody. Ever since that day not one cop, not one cop spoke a word to Poulson.

Kellerman

Man! Here's to the good old days.

Giardello

Yeah. I don't agree with a lot of those things that happened back then, but back in the '70's, '60's, if you even dreamed of killing a cop or one of the cop's relatives, you woke up and you apologised.

Kellerman

Jimmy Poulson and Jake Rodzinski, both of them born at the wrong time.

Giardello

it would be back in the Northwest, and standing in the parking lot, and listening to those cops beat that prisoner in his cell and hearing him scream for justice, just screaming for justice. And I remember this... the sergeant laughing and saying, "There ain't no justice here. It's just us."

Giardello

But nowadays, thinking about this Kenny Damon case, it makes me wonder about... us.

Kellerman

You don't think much of me, do you?

Munch

Actually, I have no opinion of you one way or another. You have yet to appear on my radar screen.

Kellerman

You know, she is pretty hot.

Munch

Kay?

Kellerman

Yeah. I think it's the hair.

Munch

I don't wanna think about her hair. She's one of us. She's a detective.

Kellerman

She's a woman. You work around a woman all day, you notice her. It's human nature.

Munch

She's a sergeant for God's sake.

Lewis

[after finding a jar of yellowish water in a freezer] Does this look strange to you?

Kellerman

Nah, just good old Baltimore City tap water.

Lewis

[shaking his head] Nah.