Snoop: God-dayumn.
Salesman: I see you've got the DeWalt cordless. [pause] Your nailgun. DeWalt four-ten.
Snoop: Yeah. Trouble is, ya leave it in the truck for a while, and need to step up and use da bitch, da battery don't hold up, ya know?
Salesman: Yeah. Cordless'll do that. You might want to consider the powder-actuated tool. The Hilti DX460MX or the Simpson PTP. These two are my Cadillacs. Everything else on this board is second best, sorry to say. Are you contracting or just doing some work around the house?
Snoop: Nah, we work all over.
Salesman: Full time?
Snoop: Nah, we had about five jobs last month.
Salesman: At that rate, the cost of the powder actuated gun justifies itself.
Snoop: You say ‘power'?
Salesman: Powder.
Snoop: Like gunpowder.
Salesman: Yeah. The DX460 is fully automatic, with a 27 caliber charge. Wood, concrete, steel to steel, she'll throw a fastener into anything. And for my money, she handles recoil better than the Simpson or the P3500. You understand what I mean by recoil?
Snoop: Yeah. The kickback. I'm wit cha.
Salesman: That's right.
Snoop: 27 caliber, huh?
Salesman: Not large ballistically, but for driving nails, its enough. Any more and you'd add to the recoil.
Snoop: Aw shit, I seen a tiny ass .22 round nose drop a nigga plenty a days, man. Motherfuckers get up in ya like a pinball, rip your ass up. Big joints though? Most the time they just break a bone and they just say “fuck it.” I'ma go with this right here, man. How much do I owe you?
Salesman: Six-sixty-nine, plus tax.
[Snoop counts out money]
Salesman: No no, just pay at the register.
Snoop: No man you handle that for me, and keep the rest for your time.
Salesman: This is $800.
Snoop: So what man? You earned that bump like a motherfucker, man. Keep that shit.

Bunny Colvin: Somewhere back in the beginning of time, this district had itself a civic dilemma of epic proportions. The city council had just passed a law that forbade alcoholic consumption in public areas; on the streets and on the corners. But the corner is, it was and it always will be the poorman's lounge. It's where a man wants to be on a hot summer's night. It's cheaper than a bar. Catch a nice breeze and watch the girls go on by. But the law is the law so what are the western cops gonna do? They arrest every dude for tipping back a High Life, there'd be no time for any other kind of police work. And if they look the other way, they open themselves up to all kinds of flaunting, all kinds of disrespect. Now, this is before my time but somewhere back in the 50's or the 60's, there was a moment of goddamn genius by some nameless smokehound who comes out the Cut-Rate one day and on his way to the corner he slips that just bought pint of elderberry into a paper bag. A great moment of civic compromise. That small wrinkled ass paper bag allowed the corner boys to have their drink in peace and gave us permission to go and do police work. The kind of police work that's actually worth the effort, that's actually worth taking a bullet for. Dozerman got shot last night buying three vials. Three. There has never been a paper bag for drugs. Until now.

Chris Partlow: Omar tried calling you out by name, but shit, no one --
Marlo Stanfield: What he say about me?
Chris Partlow: Nothing, man. Just talking shit.
Marlo Stanfield: He used my name? In the street?
[Pause]
Marlo Stanfield: Talk, motherfucker!
Monk: He just, you know, say that you need to step to and that . . . I don't know. He just running his mouth some.
Marlo Stanfield: He call me a punk?
Chris Partlow: It was bullshit, man. You ain't need that on your mind.
Marlo Stanfield: What the fuck you know about what I need on my mind, motherfucker? My name was on the street? When we bounce from this shit here, y'all going to go down on them corners and let the people know: Word did not get back to me. Let them know Marlo step to any motherfucker -- Omar, Barksdale, whoever. My name is my name!

Bodie: [about Marlo] He's a cold motherfucker.
Poot: It's a cold world Bodie.
Bodie: Thought you said it was getting warmer.
Poot: The world goin' one way, people another yo'.

Chris: We good?
Snoop: Yeah, man. Man say if you wanna shoot nails, this here the Cadillac, man. Meant Lexus but he ain't know it.
Chris: Hold a charge better?
Snoop: Man, fuck a charge, this here's a gun powder activated, 27 caliber, full auto, no kickback, nail-throwing mayhem man. Shit right here's tight.
[Chris laughs]
Snoop: Word. Fuck this nailin' up boards, we could kill a couple mother fuckers with this right here.

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.

Carcetti: Did you vote for me Norman?
Norman: [laughing] The sanctity of the voting booth is a cornerstone of American democracy.

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.

D'Angelo: Where's Wallace at? ... Where's the boy, String?
Stringer: D'Angelo, shut your mouth.
D'Angelo: Where's Wallace? That's all I wanna know.
Levy: Kid, you better think...
D'Angelo: Where's Wallace? Where the fuck is Wallace? Huh? Huh? String? String? Look at me! Where the fuck is Wallace? HUH!? I don't want this Payless-wearing motherfucker representing me. I'ma get my own man. So just get back in your car and get the fuck back down south.
Stringer: A'ight, you stupid motherfucker, you made your decision.
D'Angelo: Yeah, I made my decision. Where's Wallace at? Where the fuck is Wallace? Where's Wallace, String? String! Where the fuck is Wallace? Huh? Stringer?!

Beadie: All the guys at the bar, Jimmy, all the girls; they don't show up at your wake. Not because they don't like you. But because, they never knew your last name. Then a month later, someone tells them, "Oh, Jimmy died." "Jimmy who?" "Jimmy the Cop." "Ohhh," they say, "him". And all the people on the job, all those people you spent all the hours in the radio cars with, the guys with their feet up on the desk, tellin' stories, who shorted you on your food runs, who signed your overtime slips. In the end, they're not gonna be there either. Family, that's it. Family, and if you're lucky, one or two friends who are the same as family. That's all the best of us get. Everything else is just...

Brother Mouzone: [to Cheese, after shooting him] Pellets in plastic. Rat shot. What you need to be concerned about is what's seated in the chamber now: a copper-jacketed, hollow point 120-grain hot street load of my own creation. So you need to think for just a moment and ask yourself: what do I have to do before this man raise up his gun again?

Bunk: A different look for our boy.
McNulty: Yeah, Perry Ellis, or something.
Bunk: Now, how would a just-rolled-out-of-bed-looking motherfucker like you, know the designer?
McNulty: [pauses] Okay, I'm guessing.
Bunk: It's a Joseph Abboud. He puts dark buttons instead of brass on his blazers. That's the Abboud signature.
McNulty: You know what they call a guy who pays that much attention to his clothes, don't you?
Bunk: Mm-hmm, a grown-up.

Avon: Ayo what's up playboy? How come you wearin' that suit, B? For real its 85 fuckin' degrees out here and you try'na be like fuckin' Pat Riley
Proposition Joe : Look the part, be the part, motherfucker.

Sergei: Family cannot be helped.
Proposition Joe: Who you tellin'? I got motherfuckin' nephews and in-laws fucking all my shit up all the time and it ain't like I can pop a cap in their ass and not hear about it Thanksgivin' time. For real, I'm livin' life with some burdensome niggers.
...
Nick: Thanks for bein' straight on this.
Proposition Joe: Fool, if it wasn't for Sergei here, you and your cuz' both would be cadaverous motherfuckers.

Slim Charles: But what if they don't cop our re-up, though?
Stringer: Well, I'ma worry about that when it happen. Until then, Mr. Charles, we're going to handle this shit like businessmen, sell the shit, make the profit and later for that gangsta bullshit. [Poot raises his hand.] Yeah.
Poot: Do the chair know we gonna look like some punk-ass bitches out there?
Stringer: Motherfucker, I will punk your ass for sayin such shit!
Shamrock: Yo, String, Poot did have the floor, man.
Stringer: Shut the fuck up, this nigga too ignorant to have the fuckin' floor!