I swear to God, I have over 200 sworn personnel and I will free them all up to brutalize every one of you they can. If you're on a corner in my district, it will not be just a humble or a loitering charge. It will be some Biblical shit that happens to you on the way into that jail wagon. You understand? We will not be playing by any rules that you recognize.
S3 E5Straight and True
S3 E6Homecoming
[to Stringer] I ain't no suit-wearin' businessman like you. You know, I'm just a gangster, I suppose. And I want my corners.
DDealer
[while being thrown in the police truck] Hey, we in America!
SOfficer Santangelo
Nuh-uh, West Baltimore.
Shoot, the way y'all looking at things, ain't no victim to even speak on.
Bullshit, boy. No victim? I just came from Tosha's people, remember? All this death, you don't think it ripples out? You don't even know what the fuck I'm talking about. I was a few years ahead of you at Edmondson, but I know you remember the neighborhood, how it was. We had some bad boys, for real. Wasn't about guns so much as knowing what to do with your hands. Those boys could really rack. My father had me on the straight, but like any young man, I wanted to be hard too, so I'd turn up at all the house parties where the tough boys hung. Shit, they knew I wasn't one of them. Them hard cases would come up to me and say, "Go home, schoolboy, you don't belong here." Didn't realize at the time what they were doing for me. As rough as that neighborhood could be, we had us a community. Nobody, no victim, who didn't matter. And now all we got is bodies, and predatory motherfuckers like you. And out where that girl fell, I saw kids acting like Omar, calling you by name, glorifying your ass. Makes me sick, motherfucker, how far we done fell.
How'd it go?
We got one out of two of the motherfuckers, y'know?
You mean you motherfuckers come strollin' in here, all walking tall and shit-
Yo, B. I'm saying man, we was blazing on them dudes, you know what I'm sayin'? Just got in the heat, man. We was blazing, though, it was like-
Alright, alright, relax, man. I already heard, go sit down. I'm not tweaking behind none of this - that's one less motherfucker that's breathing than there was yesterday, you know what I'm sayin'? So we all good. [to Cutty] But I'm surprised at you though, man. Shit didn't get by you, back when.
Wasn't my man's fault, man. I unloaded on the young'un too soon, gave him enough room to buck and run, man. I fucked up that shit up myself, y'know-
Hold on... it's on me. I had that kid in my sights, close enough to take off his Kangol and half his dome with it... couldn't squeeze the trigger. Couldn't do it, man.
Hmm. Why not?
...Wasn't in me, I guess. You know, whatever it is in you, that lets you flow like you flowing? Do that thang? It ain't in me no more.
...A'ight. So you done soldiering, but you ain't done; could use you for what you got in your head. We gonna put you on a corner, you could be inside-
No, man. I ain't making myself clear... the game ain't in me no more. None of it.
[beat]
But you ain't done shit else, y'know what I'm saying? So what you gonna do?
I don't know. But it can't be this.
...A'ight, then. We straight.
[Avon and Slim Charles hug him. Cutty leaves]
B, he was a man in his time, you know?
Yeah... he a man today. He a man.
S3 E7Back Burners
BButchie
Conscience do cost.
It's like one of those nature shows. You mess with the environment, some species get fucked out of their habitat.
Did you just use the word 'habitat' in a sentence?
I did.
Detective McNulty,... when the cuffs go on Stringer you need to find a new home. You're done in this unit.
S3 E8Moral Midgetry
[to Stringer] Crawl, walk, and then run.
You know the difference between me and you? I bleed red and you bleed green. I look at you these days, String, you know what I see? I see a man without a country. Not hard enough for this right here and maybe, just maybe, not smart enough for them out there.
RRunner
Yo, I just rolled for peanut butter. You got anything else?
CColicchio
The fuck I look like, Chef Boyardee?
RRunner
Who?
Amazing. Crime is down and no one wants to take any credit. What is wrong with this picture?
BBBrianna Barksdale
[On McNulty telling Donette about D'Angelo's possible murder] Why go to her? Why not go to me first?
Honestly? I was looking for someone who cared about the kid.
S3 E9Slapstick
Tell me something, Jimmy. How exactly do you think it all ends?
What do you mean?
A parade? A gold watch? A shining Jimmy-McNulty-day moment, when you bring in a case sooooo sweet everybody gets together and says, "Aw, shit! He was right all along. Should've listened to the man." The job will not save you, Jimmy. It won't make you whole, it won't fill your ass up.
I dunno, a good case--
Ends. They all end. The handcuffs go click and it's over. The next morning, it's just you in your room with yourself.
Until the next case.
Boooooy, you need something else outside of this here.
Like what, dollhouse miniatures?
Hey, hey, hey, a life. A life, Jimmy. You know what that is? It's the shit that happens while you're waiting for moments that never come.
[to Stringer] Sunday truce been there as long as the game itself ..... I mean, you can do some shit and be like what the fuck, but hey, never on no Sunday.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's The Wire pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.