Kay Howard quotes from Homicide: Life on the Street

Howard

Most of the people who kill are men, and most of the people who get killed are men. I'm surrounded by men solving crimes by men.

Howard

Your conscience is going to gnaw at you. Gnaw at you like a. Like a ...

Felton

Chipmunk.

Howard

Yeah, like a chipmunk.

Howard

Let me tell you what happened last night.

Felton

Is this about sex?

Howard

No.

Felton

Forget it.

Howard

I'm lying in bed...

Felton

Ooh, what were you wearing?

Howard

Stop it.

Danvers

The jury's coming back.

Felton

That was fast.

Howard

Is that good or bad? I can't remember.

Felton

Of course it's good! We can go eat dinner soon.

Howard

Smoking causes mouth, lung cancer, emphysema....

Felton

Oh my god, you quit smoking. You committed this madness without consulting me first? Are you nuts? You're selfish. You ex-smokers are more relentless than AA or the Moonies or those born-again vegetarians. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not gonna let you bully me about this. I don't wanna hear about how your lungs are pinker than a newborn baby's or how you're free of mucus and phlegm. It's all a bunch of nonsense. It's all a bunch of crap. I don't want you counting the number of days you've gone without a cigarette when you're supposed to be watching my back. You put my life on the line. I'll put in for hazard pay. No, you know what? I'll put in for another partner.

Pembleton

So you went out to dinner, then back to your place and after a night of hot, steamy, sweaty bone-rattling you laid back to light a cigarette. He got on your case about the cigarettes. It's about the smoking. It's about love, isn't it?

Howard

It shows, huh? I feel tawdry just thinking about it. I must be crazy, certifiable. I should see the department shrink about it. Frank...

Pembleton

What?

Howard

Frank, Ed Danvers is an alpha male. A stallion among ponies. A man larger than life itself.

Pembleton

You mean large as in large?

Howard

Why else do you think I quit a two pack a day habit?

Pembleton

Wait a minute, we're talking about Ed Danvers right? The midget dweeb? C'mon, cut it out.

Howard

No, he drives me insane; I see stars. I walk around feeling all this sweet pain.

Pembleton

I shouldn't be hearing this.

Howard

How do you talk about something like this? And he's constant. I mean anywhere, all day, all night, in the park, in the movie theatre.

Pembleton

Howard...

Howard

I had to set some ground rules. He can't touch me in restaraunts or the church.

Pembleton

Howard, I think you're going too far.

Howard

Frank, I was only kidding. I didn't give up cigarettes for Ed, I gave them up for me.

Pembleton

You were kidding? About everything?

Howard

Yes. No.

Pembleton

C'mon, Howard.

Howard

See, I guess you'll never know.

Munch

We have the city of Angels, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, The city of Brotherly Love, and now, Baltimore, City of the Broken-Hearted. She asked me to marry her. Twice. She asked me. But I love Felicia beyond the immediate moment. I love her for all of eternity and so I know, she's too young. I tell her and here I see you, dallying with Linda. It is Linda, isn't it? My heart sinks to the floor to see your youth. Your fleeting youth. Come autumn, and autumn does come, doesn't it, Kay? You'll be sitting in that big bay window of yours...

Howard

What bay window?

Munch

Some other window you got. Whatever looks out onto the street.

Howard

Oh.

Munch

The rains will be falling; those first hard, vicious rains of the season and you'll wonder what exactly it was that broke you and Danvers up...

Danvers

Wait a minute.

Munch

You know what I'm saying Danvers. I can tell by your tone of voice, you know. You've been in that window, looking down, haven't you? Everyone will be outside, holding hands, being in love, and you'll wonder why you and Danvers are now just good friends. And you'll be standing somewhere by yourself, and there will be that song, that song. Doesn't matter when you hear it, when it comes on, it'll make you think of all those silly little things you did together. You'll break up, get back together, break up, get back together... Call it off for good, find yourself sitting up in bed next to her on one last desperate evening saying to yourself, I miss her. And she's laying in bed next to you thinking the same thing about you...

Bolander

Munch, if you don't shut up and shut up fast, I'll gut ya.

Munch

Truth hurts; doesn't it, Stanley?

Howard

Life is so depressing. Love is hopeless.

Danvers

C'mon, Kay. I'll take you home.

Howard

No, Ed. I need to be alone tonight. Goodnight.

Danvers

Thanks a lot, Munch.

Bolander

C'mon, Linda. Let's go too. [to Munch] I'll deal with you in the morning, and don't look forward to it.

Howard

Your wife called, lookin' for you. Where were you?

Felton

Beth called you tonight?

Howard

Yeah, she said you told her we were working late on a case.

Beau

What did you tell her?

Howard

I told her you were in my bathroom washing up after some great sex.

Bolander

How was it?

Bayliss

How was--how--how--was what?

Bolander

Your date with Emma. I heard you took her to an art gallery.

Lewis

DATE?! You had a date with Emma?! You went behind my back with Emma?!

Bayliss

Me? Meldrick, look at-- No, no, I would not do that.

Howard

Hey Bayliss, Beau says you slept with Emma Zoole in a cuffoon or something?

Lewis

What is she-- You went to bed with Emma?

Bayliss

No, Meldrick, no. We did not go to a bed together.

Lewis

You slept with MY Emma?!

Gee

I thought I smelled sex around here.

Bolander

What is a cuffoon?

Howard

I don't know. Beau was laughing so hard when he said it, he had to sit down.

Lewis

You are a disloyal son of a bitch and I don't want anything to do with you.

[angry] Is this what you learned in Baltimore? Not to trust the people you love?

Howard

...What I learned in Baltimore is that people get murdered for all kinds of reasons, but a dead body is still stone-cold.

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.

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.

Munch

A bar is like the Box. People instinctively want to confess.

Howard

[laughing] I got nothing to confess... I'm not guilty of anything. I'm trying to do my new job as well as I can... [sighs loudly] I try be helpful...People think I'm overbearing, condescending. You were right not to take that exam...It's not so much that I got in Lewis' way... I got in my own way, you know? How could I do that? Work, home... oh my god, listen to me, I am confessing. [sips on her gin fizz drink, embarrassed] This is delicious!

Munch

Want to dance?

Howard

[laughs loudly] No!

Munch

[laughs] Yes! No one'll see, there's no one conscious here! A few smooth steps on the floor... [Munch turns on the jukebox] Have a little fun.

Howard

...No.

Munch

C'mon Kay, let's dance.

Howard

No... [laughs again]

Munch

I'll let you lead, alright? C'mon.

Howard

...Let me lead, alright? You're easy to follow.

Howard

If you were going to hide a body, where you bury it?

Munch

In a cemetery.

Brodie

Giardello and Russert just showed up.

Howard

Well, you know what that means, huh, buddy?

Munch

Congratulations Timmy. It's a bouncing baby red-ball. Got any cigars?