Lester: Remember when I was a cadet, I was up here on a cadaver search. Instructor gets on the radio to say "We're looking for one body in particular. If you go grabbing every one you see, we'll be here all day."

Lester: Tell me something, Jimmy. How exactly do you think it all ends?
McNulty: What do you mean?
Lester: 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.
McNulty: I dunno, a good case--
Lester: Ends. They all end. The handcuffs go click and it's over. The next morning, it's just you in your room with yourself.
McNulty: Until the next case.
Lester: Boooooy, you need something else outside of this here.
McNulty: Like what, dollhouse miniatures?
Lester: 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.

Levy: [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.

Levy: You are amoral, are you not? You are feeding off the violence and the despair of the drug trade. You're stealing from those who themselves are stealing the lifeblood from our city. You are a parasite who leeches off--
Omar: Just like you, man.
Levy: --the culture of drugs... Excuse me, what?
Omar: I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase. It's all in the game, though, right?

Man On Stoop: I'm sayin', every Friday night in an alley behind the Cut Rate, we rollin' bones, you know? I mean all them boys, we roll til late.
McNulty: Alley crap game, right?
Man On Stoop: Like every time, Snot, he'd fade a few shooters, play it out til the pot's deep. Snatch and run.
McNulty: What, every time?
Man On Stoop: Couldn't help hisself.
McNulty: Let me understand. Every Friday night, you and your boys are shooting craps, right? And every Friday night, your pal Snot Boogie... he'd wait til there's cash on the ground and he'd grab it and run away? You let him do that?
Man On Stoop: We'd catch him and beat his ass but ain't nobody ever go past that.
McNulty: I gotta ask ya: If every time Snotboogie would grab the money and run away, why'd you even let him in the game?
Man On Stoop: What?
McNulty: If Snotboogie always stole the money, why'd you let him play?
Man On Stoop: Got to. This America, man.

Marla Daniels: You cannot lose if you do not play.

Marlo: [after finding out Omar jumped from a 5th floor balcony] Don't seem possible.
Chris: It don't.
Marlo: That's some Spiderman shit there. We missed our shot. Now he goin' be at us.

Marlo: [to Herc] But you know cameras. Kinda like pigeons in the storm. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes they come back, sometimes... but I'll keep an ear out on it.

Marlo: Man, I don't talk on no cell phones.
Spiros: Here. To call for lunch, you can talk. To call your girl, you can talk. To call your lawyer even, you can talk--the law says that is between you and the lawyer. Alright? To find out what movie is playing down the street, you can talk. All of that is good because all of that tells them... there is nothing good to hear.

Marlo: That's my money.
Omar: Man, money ain't got no owners. Only spenders.
...
Omar: [to Marlo] I like that ring too. [pause] Boy, you got me confused with a man who repeat himself.

McNulty [about the two hookers in the sting operation] There were two of them. I was outnumbered.

McNulty: [about Omar] He play you hard?
Bubbles: I go at him respectable. He put that goddamn shotgun in my face, man. I'm looking at two goddamn tubes of the Harbor Tunnel staring right at me. [McNulty laughs] Each one about yea-big. I damn near piss my pants.

McNulty: [after Sydnor comes out in disguise] Where's ya' mic?
Sydnor: Down at my dick man. I figured they ain't gonna go down there anyway right?
Carver: I don't know Sydnor, the way you twirlin' around, it might be the first place they look.

McNulty: [standing over Stringer's body, talking to Bunk] I caught him, Bunk. On the wire. I caught him. He doesn't fuckin' know it.

McNulty: [to Pearlman] They're gonna do me, Ronnie. I love this fucking job, and they're gonna do me.