We're good at this Lester. In this town, we're as good as it gets.
Natural police.
Fuck yes. Natural police.
...
You know something, Lester? I do believe there aren't five swinging dicks in the entire department who can do what we do.
S3 E9Slapstick
What I'm sayin' is, come tomorrow, if I don't have a shooter in bracelets, the Hamsterdam thing is over, finished. It's back to the corners for all of us and fuck y'all any way we can. You hear me? It was good while it lasted. For y'all it was cash on the barrel and no one needs no bail money. For me, I had clean corners damn near everywhere I looked. But that's all gone tomorrow unless y'all bring me my shooter.
[after Brianna confronts him about D'Angelo's suspicious suicide in prison] The fuck you even thinking? That I had something to do with it? That I could do that to my own kin? Is that what you think? The fuck is in your head Brie? I ain't do nothing to Dee. I ain't have shit to do with it.
BBrianna
To do with what?
S3 E10Reformation
[to Stringer] The feeling is it ain't right for you to be at the head of our table, when you can't call off your dog. Call it a crisis of leadership.
Make this quick, I got a meet.
FRFatface Rick
Oh, fuck your meet! You're harder to get at than my fat wife's cunt.
You know, Avon, you gotta think about what we got in this game for, man. Huh? Was it the rep? Was it so our names could ring out on some fucking ghetto streetcorner, man? Naw, man. There's games beyond the fucking game.
Bunny, you cocksucker, I got to give it to you, a brilliant idea. Insane and illegal, but stone fuckin' brilliant nonetheless. After all my puttin' my foot up people's asses to get the numbers down, he comes along and in one stroke, gets a 14 fuckin' percent decrease. Fuckin' shame it's gonna end our careers, but still.
I feel like I don't even belong to any world that even fucking matters.
'Cause you're a cop?
Nah, it's not just that. It's like, I went to meet her once; she was in a hotel room on the top floor. I punched the button on the elevator and it doesn't even go there. You gotta have some kind of special key to even get to that special fucking floor. So I go to the front desk, some sneering fuck calls upstairs, gives me permission to go and get laid. I listen to the shit she talks about and it's the first time in my life I feel like a fucking doormat. Like anyone else with any smarts would do something else with his life, you know? Earn money, or ... get elected. Like I'm just a breathing machine for my fucking dick. I'm serious; I'm the smartest asshole in three districts and she looks at me like I'm some stupid fuck playing some stupid game for stupid penny-ante stakes. She fucking looks through me, Kima.
This drug thing, this ain't police work. I mean, I can send any fool with a badge and a gun to a corner to jack a crew and grab vials. But policing? I mean you call something a war, and pretty soon everyone is going to be running around acting like warriors. They gonna be running around on a damn crusade, storming corners, racking up body counts. And when you at war, you need a fucking enemy. And pretty soon, damn near everybody on every corner is your fucking enemy. And soon, the neighborhood you're supposed to be policing, that's just occupied territory. You follow this?
Think so.
Okay The point I'm making is this: Soldiering and policing, they ain't the same thing. And before we went and took the wrong turn and start up with these war games, the cop walked a beat, and he learned that post. And if there were things that happened on that post, where there be a rape, a robbery, or a shooting, he had people out there helping him, feeding him information. But every time I came to you, my DEU sergeant, for information, to find out what's going on out on them streets... all that came back was some bullshit. You had your stats, your arrests, your seizures, but don't none of that amount to shit when it comes to protecting the neighborhood, now do it? [sighs] You know, he worst thing about this, so-called drug war, to my mind...it just, it ruined this job.
S3 E11Middle Ground
We don't need to dream no more.
LLevy
[to Stringer] A guy says if you pay him, he can make it rain. You pay him. If and when it rains, he takes the credit. If and when it doesn't, he comes up with reasons for you to pay more. Clay Davis rainmade you ...... It's an old game in this town, and Clay Davis? That goniff was born with his hand in someone's pocket.
[when Stringer asks him to kill Clay Davis] Shit, murder ain't no thing, but this here is some assassination shit!
[to Avon, leading Avon to give up Stringer] What got you here is your word and your reputation. With that alone, you've still got an open line to New York. Without it, you're done.
[Omar and Brother Mouzone have trapped Stringer]
I ain't strapped. I ain't involved, yo. I ain't involved in none of that gangster bullshit.
[Both gunmen are silent, Stringer is breathing hard from running]
What y'all niggers want, man? Huh? Money?
[Silence]
IS THAT IT? Cause if it is, I can be a better friend to y'all alive.
You still don't get it, do you? This ain't about your money, bro. Your boy gave you up. That's right. And we ain't had to torture his ass neither!
[Stringer is silent, realizing both men have come for retribution]
[ruefully] Well it seem like... I can't say nuttin' to change y'all minds.
[long silence]
Well, get on with it, motherfu...
[Omar and Mouzone shoot him to death]
We ain't gotta dream no more, man.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's The Wire pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.