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The Wire 5×10

Mayor Thomas 'Tommy' Carcetti: But if we... But how can... Jesus Christ. So this means that...

Mayor Thomas 'Tommy' Carcetti: Hey, Norman, this is my ass here.
Norman Wilson: That's true, boss. But it does have a certain charm to it. They manufactured an issue to get paid, we manufactured an issue to get you elected governor. Everybody's getting what they need behind some make-believe.

Chief of Staff Michael Steintorf: Deputy, Counselor... if you two will excuse us, we are going to discuss this first as a matter of public policy. Until we can reason the best way to address this, do nothing and speak to no one about any of this. If this becomes public in the wrong way, a lot of people who were legally responsible for the situation, good people who were, nonetheless, in a supervisory role here... are going to suffer. And that's not the outcome that anyone wants.
Norman Wilson: What Mike is saying is that we need to be very careful about how to proceed.

Norman Wilson: I wish I was still at the newspaper so I could write on this mess. It's too fucking good.

Sgt. Jay Landsman: Motherfucker, you were the one who was all semper fi for this serial killer and now you're fuckin' the dog.
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: I'm ready to work the case. But short of any new leads, what the fuck do you want me to do? I can't make shit up, can I? It is what it is.

Det. William 'Bunk' Moreland: Shit is like a war, ain't it? Easy to get in, hell to get out.

Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: Deputy.
Deputy Commissioner Cedric Daniels: .............. To be continued.

Walon: Read it.
Reginald 'Bubbles' Cousins: "You can hold back from the suffering of the world, you have free permission to do so and it is in accordance with your nature. But perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could have avoided." Fran-zee Kafka. Who's he?
Walon: Some writer.
Reginald 'Bubbles' Cousins: You read his books?
Fuck, no.

City Editor Augustus 'Gus' Haynes: You ever notice that the guys who do that, the Blairs, the Glasses, the Kelleys, they always start with something small, just a little quote that they clean up. And then it's a whole anecdote, and, pretty soon, they're seeing some amazing shit. They're the lucky ones who just happen to be standing on the right street corner in Tel Aviv when the pizza joint blows up and the human head rolls down the street with the eyes still blinking.
Managing Editor Thomas Klebanow: The pictures were sent to him. The police have confirmed...
City Editor Augustus 'Gus' Haynes: It always starts with something true, something confirmed. ...

Det. William 'Bunk' Moreland: How are you not in jail?
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: I don't know. The lie's so big, people can't live with it.
Det. William 'Bunk' Moreland: Jesus fucking Christ, Jimmy. I told you. I fuckin' told you it was going to come to this. You played with fire, didn't you? And now we're all getting burned...

Commissioner William A. Rawls: Oh, yeah. The mayor knows your name. So this is your last case. Work it. If you're half the detective you think you are, you'll put this one down fast and take us all off the hook. The longer this goes on, the worse the payback's gonna be.

Council President Nerese Campbell: I'm not stuck with anything. Daniels either comes around or he's done.
Chief of Staff Michael Steintorf: We just apointed him. We can't go back on that now. He knows it.
Council President Nerese Campbell: Either he learns his place or he'll be offering to resign. You ain't the only one knows how to play this game.

Sgt. Jay Landsman: He was the black sheep, the permanent pariah. He asked no quarter of the bosses and none was given. He learned no lessons, he acknowledged no mistakes. He was as stubborn a Mick as ever stumbled out of the Northeast parishes to take a patrolman's shield. He brooked no authority. He did what he wanted to do and he said what he wanted to say and, in the end, he gave you the clearances. He was natural police... I don't say that about many people, even when they're here on the felt. I don't give that one up unless it happens to be true. Natural poh-leece.

Sgt. Jay Landsman: But Christ, what an asshole. And I'm not talkin' about the ordinary, gaping orifice that all of us possess. I mean an all-encompassing, all-consuming... out of proportion to every other facet of his humanity chasm. From whose bourn, if I may quote Shakespeare, "No traveler has ever returned."
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: The fuck did I do?
Sgt. Jay Landsman: Shut the fuck up. You're dead to us now.

Deputy Commissioner Cedric Daniels: She wants me to juke the stats for Carcetti, this quarter and the next, hide the crime, get him elected as governor and make her the Mayor.
Marla Daniels: So do it. Burrell juked them before you. Warren Frazier before him. And, after you're gone, Rawls or whoever will juke them. So what?
Deputy Commissioner Cedric Daniels: I'll swallow a lie when I have to. I've swallowed a few big ones lately. But the stat games, that lie, it's what ruined this department. Shining up shit and calling it gold, so majors become colonels and mayors become governors. Pretending to do police work while one generation fucking trains the next how not to do the job, and then... I looked Carcetti in the eye. I shook his hand. I asked him if he was for real. This is the lie I can't live with.

Marla Daniels: The tree that doesn't bend breaks, Cedric.
Deputy Commissioner Cedric Daniels: Bend too far, you're already broken.

Ricardo 'Fat Face Rick' Hendrix: Shit, nigger, we was good when your uncle had it. You had to go ahead and put up with Marlo.
Melvin 'Cheese' Wagstaff: See that? See now, that's just the wrong way to look at it cause Joe had his time and Omar put an end to that. Then Marlo had his time, short as it was, and the police put an end to that. And now, motherfucker, it's our time. Mines and yours. But instead of just shutting up and kicking in, you gonna stand there cryin' that back-in-the-day shit.
Ricardo 'Fat Face Rick' Hendrix: Cheese...
Melvin 'Cheese' Wagstaff: There ain't no back in the day, nigger. Ain't no nostalgia to this shit here. There's just the street and the game and what happen here today. You right. When it was my uncle, I was with my uncle. When it was Marlo, I was with him. But now, nigger...

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