D'Angelo: Yeah, but, Stringer, if you don't pay a nigga, he ain't gonna work for you.
Stringer: What, you think a nigga's gonna get a job? You think...you think it's gonna be like, 'Fuck it, let me quit this game here and go to college'? No, they're gonna buck a little, but they ain't gonna walk. And in the end, you gonna get respect.

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.

Daniels: Motherfucker, why didn't you call in sick?
McNulty: I'm not sick.
Daniels: Yeah, you are. Write me up a 95 on why you are physically unable to participate in today's activities.
McNulty: You want me to lie so you can save face?
Daniels: Go on. "I can't jump off with the rest of my unit because my tummy hurts."

Freamon: I don't wanna go to no dance unless I can rub some tit.

Herc: What the fuck was that?
Carver: That was my Korean counterman.
Herc: Sounded Chinese.
Carver: Like you can fucking tell the difference.

Judge Phelan: McNulty, I hold you in contempt.
McNulty: Who doesn't?

Kima: Fighting the war on drugs... one brutality case at a time.
Carver: Girl, you can't even think of calling this shit a war.
Herc: Why not?
Carver: Wars end.

Kima: How complex a code can it be if these knuckleheads are usin' it? Then again, what does it say about us if we can't break it?

Kima: You saw the murder?
Omar: Yeah.
Kima: You can ID this man Bird as the shooter of William Gant? And you ain't afraid to go into court downtown and testify against one of Barksdale's people?
Omar: Omar don't scare.

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.

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

McNulty: All I did was answer the guy's questions, he's a fucking judge.
Landsman: And the Deputy's the fucking Deputy, and he, not the judge, has what's left of your be-shitted career in his hot little hands.

McNulty: I'm late for soccer practice.
Bubbles: Suck what?