The Wire quotes

D'Angelo

All my people, man, my father, my uncles, It's just what we do. You just live with this shit, until you can't breathe no more. I swear to God, I was courtside for eight months, and I was freer in jail than I was at home.

Rhonda

What are you looking for?

D'Angelo

I want it to go away.

Rhonda

I can't...

D'Angelo

I want what Wallace wanted. I want to start over. That's what I want. I don't care where. Anywhere. I don't give a fuck. I just want to go somewhere, where I can breathe like regular folk. You give me that... And I'll give you them.

Daniels

[To Carver] Couple weeks from now, you're gonna be in some district somewhere with 11 or 12 uniforms looking to you for everything. And some of them are gonna be good police. Some of them are gonna be young and stupid. A few are gonna be pieces of shit. But all of them will take their cue from you. You show loyalty, they learn loyalty. You show them it's about the work, it'll be about the work. You show them some other kinda game, then that's the game they'll play. I came on in the Eastern, and there was a piece-of-shit lieutenant hoping to be a captain, piece-of-shit sergeants hoping to be lieutenants. Pretty soon we had piece-of-shit patrolmen trying to figure the job for themselves. And some of what happens then is hard as hell to live down. Comes a day you're gonna have to decide whether it's about you or about the work.

Rawls

[To McNulty] Great work you all did. And the number of clearances I'm looking at here? I mean, Christ, for the first time this year, we got the clearance rate up over 40%. That's on the one hand. On the other hand, I know the Deputy Ops got a call from the First Deputy U.S. Attorney this morning asking whether an asshole such as yourself really works for us. And, of course, this is the first the deputy hears his troops are creeping behind his back, trying to take a case federal when they've already been told the case is closed. You're a good detective. And I've got to admit you got some stones on you. Did you actually call the first deputy an empty suit? [Chuckles] I want to see you land okay, Jimmy. So, tell me, where don't you wanna go?

Omar

All in the game yo... [laughs] All in the game.

Rawls

Sergeant! Your floater's come back. County boards are puttin' her on our side of the bridge.

Landsman

No fuckin' way.

Rawls

Yeah, some useless fuck in our marine unit faxed 'em a report on the early morning tides and wind currents. Shows the body went into the water west of the bridge and drifted out.

Landsman

McNulty.

Rawls

[laughs] Fuckin' Jimmy. Fuckin' with us for the fun of it. I gotta give the son of a bitch some credit for wit on this one. [laughs] Cocksucker.

Landsman

Motherfucker.

Herc

How about you come on the raids tomorrow? Take a few doors for ol' time sake.

Kima

You takin' doors?

Herc

Yeah. Two houses an' a bar on Kane Street. C'mon Kima, mount up wit' us. I know you miss it.

Kima

I'm done rollin' around the gutter. I am inside now.

Herc

Oh, you're a house cat now, huh?

Kima

I made a promise.

Herc

I gotta say Kima, if you were a guy, and actually in some ways you're better than most of the guys I know. But if you were a guy, friends would buy you a beer and let you know.

Kima

Let me know what?

Herc

You're fuckin' whipped.

Kima

Whipped?

Herc

Pussy whipped within an inch of your life. I kid you not.

Damn, Frank.

We just sat here and watched Nat Coxson take a shit all over you.

And the shrivelled dick motherfucker that you are, you take it.

Sobotka

For your information, I wake up every morning with an angry blue vein diamond cutter. I was gonna enlighten the President of the local 47 on this particular point, and he chose to depart. Blue steel gentlemen. Three and a half inches of hard blue steel.

We done gone so far from Baltimore, we're losing the station. Yo', try a Philly station or some shit like that.

Bodie

The radio in Philly is different?

Nigga, please. You gotta be fucking with me, right? You ain't never heard a station outside of Baltimore?

Bodie

Yo' man, I ain't never left Baltimore except that Boys Village shit one day, and I wasn't tryin' to hear no radio up in that bitch.

Landsman

It's all about self-preservation, Jimmy. Something you never learned.

Herc

Fucking white boys, I love 'em. I fucking love 'em.

Kima

Yeah?

Herc

Dumb as a box of rocks.

Kima

Who?

Herc

White boys. Talking about the brain-deads in my Kane Street case. I call him up, I tell him I wanna buy some drugs. You know what he says? Says "Okay, I'll sell you the drugs. How much drugs do you want?" I swear to God, Kima, they don't code it, they don't ask for a meet, nothin'. And then when you make the deal, there's no runner, no bullshit. It's the guy himself walking up to you in the parking lot, saying: "I brought the drugs. Did you bring the money?" [Kima chuckles] I'm not kidding. I have much respect for black people after working with these idiots for two weeks. Seriously, white boys wanna sell drugs in Baltimore, they'll have to make different laws for it. Like even it out for them.

Kima

Affirmative action.

Herc

Leave no white man behind.

Bunk

You got these off the boat?

McNulty

What, in winter? In a couple of months... fringe benefit. Can't catch crabs in homicide, right?

Bunk

Uh-uh... except maybe the occasional emergency room nurse every now and then.

Frank Sobotka

Why the fuck didn't you tell me what was in that motherfucking can?

Spiros

Now you wanna know what's in the cans? Before you wanted to know nothing. Now you ask. Guns, OK? Drugs, whore, vodka, BMWs. Beluga caviar, or bombs, maybe? Bad terrorists with big nuclear bombs. I'm kidding you, Frank, it's a joke. But you don't ask ... because you don't wanna know.

Bunk

Jimmy, the look on Jay Landsman's face, he nearly cried!

Lester

And Rawls! All afternoon, he just stays in his office with the door closed.

McNulty

Careful, you're giving me an erection!

McNulty

Fuck it, they chew you up, they gotta spit you back out.

Mike, I thought we was friends.

Did you fuck up the last two packages?

...sorta.

And are you beat to shit?

No?

Take a walk, my friend.