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Homicide: Life on the Street

Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999) was a television drama about a police homicide unit that investigates violent crimes in the city of Baltimore. The series was originally based on David Simon's book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991).

Gone for Goode

 * Lewis: If I could just find this damn thing, I could go home.
 * Crosetti: Life is a mystery. Just accept it.
 * Lewis: You're in your own world Crosetti.
 * Crosetti: The quest for life... not finding... looking. I read about it in this book.
 * Lewis: Now since when did you ever read a book?
 * Crosetti: I read this book... an excerpt in this book.
 * Lewis: You said you read a book but you didn't read nothing but an excerpt.
 * Crosetti: It says you never find what you're looking for because the whole point is looking for it. You find it, it defeats its own purpose.
 * Lewis: Y'know you're in your own little world because don't no one wants to live in there with you.
 * Crosetti: You try to explain everything, but there are things you cannot explain.
 * Lewis: Y'know what you are? You are a little fat head guinea. A little Italian Salami-brain.
 * Crosetti: You'll regret that.
 * Lewis: Man, lets c'mon back tomorrow and look for this projectile.
 * Crosetti: All right.

 * Bayliss: Let me just say something, sir; this is where I've always wanted to be. You know what I'm saying? Homicide. Thinking cops. Not a gun. [Taps his temple] This.
 * Giardello: [Slightly bemused] That's very poetic.

 * Felton: Amazing. Life is amazing.
 * Pembleton: Really?
 * Felton: This must be a mistake. Am I actually going on a routine call with Frank Pembleton?
 * Pembleton: You're right. It's a mistake.
 * Felton: Frank Pembleton only works the big investigations. This is just some dead guy.
 * Pembleton: See what happens when I come into the office?
 * Felton: Imagine - handling a routine call with Detective Frank Pembleton.
 * Pembleton: I'm slumming.

 * [Bayliss has just asked to watch Pembleton interrogate a suspect]
 * Pembleton: What you will be privileged to witness will not be an interrogation, but an act of salesmanship - as silver-tongued and thieving as ever moved used cars, Florida swampland, or Bibles. But what I am selling is a long prison term, to a client who has no genuine use for the product.

 * Munch: You're saving your really good lies for some smarter cop, is that it? I'm just a donut in the on-deck circle.  Wait until the real guy gets here. Wait until that big guy comes back.  I'm probably just his secretary.  I'm just Montel Williams.  You want to talk to Larry King.
 * Criminal: I'm telling you the truth.
 * Munch: I've been murder police for ten years. If you're going to lie to me, you lie to me with respect. What is it? Is it my shoes? Is it my haircut? Got a problem with my haircut? Don't you ever lie to me like I'm Montel Williams. I am not Montel Williams. I am not Montel Williams! I am not Montel Williams!
 * Criminal: Who is Montel Williams?
 * Munch: I'm not Montel Williams. Do you hear me, I am not Montel Williams!

Ghost of a Chance

 * Munch: Mrs. Doohen, if you and your husband were so unhappy, why didn't you just get a divorce?
 * Mrs. Doohen: We talked about it, but we decided to wait until after the children died.

 * Howard: Your conscience is going to gnaw at you. Gnaw at you like a. Like a ...
 * Felton: Chipmunk.
 * Howard: Yeah, like a chipmunk.

 * Bolander: [to Dr. Blythe] Detective Lewis says you tend to have crabs...at the restaurant.

 * Bolander: This lady says to me, "Some of the men I know think its perverse; but I like to make love iguana style."

 * Howard: Let me tell you what happened last night.
 * Felton: Is this about sex?
 * Howard: No.
 * Felton: Forget it.
 * Howard: I'm lying in bed...
 * Felton: Ooh, what were you wearing?
 * Howard: Stop it.

Son of a Gun

 * Lewis: Murderers lie cuz they got to, witnesses lie because they think they got to, and everyone else lies for the sheer joy of it.

 * Pembleton: [about Bayliss] He's okay, he's thorough, he learns, but he's a snail!
 * Giardello: Frank, if you were a homicide, who do you think I'd assign the case to? The snail.

 * Lewis: Refresh my memory. Was the name Abraham Lincoln up on the board today?

 * Lewis: What's that?
 * Crosetti: I... it's a rosary, alright? I'm praying.
 * Lewis: Praying because you didn't break your hand?
 * Crosetti: I'm praying for Chris.
 * Lewis: Well that's fine praying for Chris, but you didn't even pray for yourself when you got shot.

 * Bolander: I like that. He dies at home of a broken heart. It's refreshing.

A Shot in the Dark

 * Bolander: You got two things right, you got a drug deal and a shootout, but not between those two guys! Lowe is lying wounded on the floor, and Cole is lying dead on top of him on his back!
 * Munch: ...They shoot each other! [holds out his finger, mimicking a gun] BANG! BANG! Cole gets shot in the chest, then he spins around, falls over on Lowe!
 * Bolander: Okay, where's Cole's gun? We only recovered ONE gun!
 * Munch: So far...
 * Bolander: [angry] What'd he do, SWALLOW it?

 * Bolander: [to Munch] The depth of your stupidity frightens me sometimes.

 * Pembleton: Tim, will you stop beating that horse? It's dead, it's dog meat, it's glue.

 * Pembleton: Felton, Felton, Felton!
 * Felton: What?
 * Pembleton: Help me out here, will ya?
 * Felton: Frank's a serious guy.
 * Orville: And not very well-tempered either.

 * Bayliss: Why should the killer even stay in Baltimore anymore?
 * Munch: Well, if he is from Baltimore, he won't go. He'll talk about it, but he won't do it.

Three Men and Adena

 * Risley Tucker: You got your dark side, and it terrifies you, and it frightens you. It scares you cause it's powerful and it makes you capable of doing anything. Anything. Without it, you look in the mirror, and all you see is an am-a-teur.

 * Crosetti: You got toilet paper over there?
 * Lewis: No.
 * Crosetti: You got five ones for a five?

 * Pembleton: You want to trust me. I know that. But you're holding back that little bit. Tell me what happened. I'm not going to write it down or anything. I'm going to sit right here. You see no...I have no pen in my hand. Nothing up my sleeve. Please, don't look at me as a cop. Look at me as a friend. Look at me as a friend. Cause that's how I'm looking at you. As a friend. Not as somebody that committed murder. Not as a really vicious person. Because you're not. I think a lot of you. You told me about your drinking and about being an Araber and everything else. I got problems too. Hell, we all got problems. Tell me what happened. I'll believe anything that you say.

 * Risley Tucker: [to Tim Bayliss] You from Baltimore, right? Do you say BAWL-mer or BALL-di-more? Come on, say it. I'll tell you which neighborhood you're from. I rode the streets. I talk to people. Say Baltimore, and I'll tell you within ten blocks where you were born. Yeah, you from here. You got that home grown look. The not too southern, not too northern, not on the ocean but still on the water look. With maybe a touch of inbreeding.

 * Pembleton: I had my doubts but you're right. I am now convinced that Tucker killed Adena Watson.
 * Bayliss: Really? I'm not so sure he did anymore.

A Dog and Pony Show

 * Pembleton: Jake... Jake, what kinda name is that for a dog, especially a police dog?... Jake...
 * Bayliss: Jake is a good name, uh, solid, dependable, easy for a dog to respond to.
 * Pembleton: Naw naw naw, a dog should be named, um... Rex.
 * Bayliss: Rex... you know I had an Irish Setter one time and his name was Molly.
 * Pembleton: [laughs] An Irish Setter?
 * Bayliss: Molly was a beautiful dog!

 * Pembleton: I owned a Komondor. You with that Molly, you wouldn't have a clue; would you?
 * Bayliss: You had a Komondor? One of them foul-smelling sheep dogs from Hungary? You want me to be impressed?
 * Pembleton: Well, compared with an Irish setter, my dog is a genius; an Einstein.
 * Bayliss: Genius? And this genius's name was Rex.

 * Danny Blythe: Eh Stan, anyone ever jump off this balcony? [glances out a huge window onto the street] You know, did you ever have a killer, and you were just about to put him away, and he, like, made a break for it and he runs out the doors... AND OFF THE BALCONY ONTO THE DECK! [rushes forward excitedly, screaming and laughing] Ah, that's cool, man! That ever happen?
 * Bolander: No... no.
 * Munch: We got a call... Barney Street, shooting.
 * Bolander: Okay.
 * Danny Blythe: That's cool, man! Let's do it, let's do it, c'mon... fresh...
 * [Danny wanders away, leaving Bolander smiling and Munch looking worried]
 * Bolander: Did he say things are gonna be 'fresh'?
 * Munch: [nods his head] ... 'Fresh'.
 * Bolander: [confused] You wanna tell me what that means?
 * Munch: It means... uh, neato, keen.
 * Bolander: 'Neatokey'? I'm glad you understand these things.

 * Pembleton: Life would be perfect, if it was only kids and dogs.

And the Rocket's Dead Glare

 * Danvers: The jury's coming back.
 * Felton: That was fast.
 * Howard: Is that good or bad? I can't remember.
 * Felton: Of course it's good! We can go eat dinner soon.

 * Munch: Have you ever been high, Stan?
 * Bolander: Be serious, Munch.
 * Munch: I am being serious. They call it a high for a reason.

 * Bolander: Have you ever smoked dope, John?
 * Munch: I don't have to answer that.
 * Bolander: Nurse, can I have a cup over here? I'd like to test this man's urine.

 * Giardello: Bayliss, where's Pembleton?
 * Bayliss: Uh, I don't know, Gee.
 * Giardello: Don't say, "I don't know." He's your partner, you should know his every move, his every breath. Like a lover, he should never be far from your thoughts.
 * Bayliss: That was poetic.
 * Giardello: I'm in no mood for sarcasm.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

 * Howard: Smoking causes mouth, lung cancer, emphysema....
 * Felton: Oh my god, you quit smoking. You committed this madness without consulting me first? Are you nuts? You're selfish. You ex-smokers are more relentless than AA or the Moonies or those born-again vegetarians. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not gonna let you bully me about this. I don't wanna hear about how your lungs are pinker than a newborn baby's or how you're free of mucus and phlegm. It's all a bunch of nonsense. It's all a bunch of crap. I don't want you counting the number of days you've gone without a cigarette when you're supposed to be watching my back. You put my life on the line. I'll put in for hazard pay. No, you know what? I'll put in for another partner.

 * Pembleton: So you went out to dinner, then back to your place and after a night of hot, steamy, sweaty bone-rattling you laid back to light a cigarette. He got on your case about the cigarettes. It's about the smoking. It's about love, isn't it?
 * Howard: It shows, huh? I feel tawdry just thinking about it. I must be crazy, certifiable. I should see the department shrink about it. Frank...
 * Pembleton: What?
 * Howard: Frank, Ed Danvers is an alpha male. A stallion among ponies. A man larger than life itself.
 * Pembleton: You mean large as in large?
 * Howard: Why else do you think I quit a two pack a day habit?
 * Pembleton: Wait a minute, we're talking about Ed Danvers right? The midget dweeb? C'mon, cut it out.
 * Howard: No, he drives me insane; I see stars. I walk around feeling all this sweet pain.
 * Pembleton: I shouldn't be hearing this.
 * Howard: How do you talk about something like this? And he's constant. I mean anywhere, all day, all night, in the park, in the movie theatre.
 * Pembleton: Howard...
 * Howard: I had to set some ground rules. He can't touch me in restaraunts or the church.
 * Pembleton: Howard, I think you're going too far.
 * Howard: Frank, I was only kidding. I didn't give up cigarettes for Ed, I gave them up for me.
 * Pembleton: You were kidding? About everything?
 * Howard: Yes. No.
 * Pembleton: C'mon, Howard.
 * Howard: See, I guess you'll never know.

 * [Fooling a suspect that a photocopier is an 'Electrolyte Neutron Magnetic Test Scanner']
 * Munch: Detective Bolander, continue the interrogation. Me, I gotta get outta here, because I cannot afford to lose any more of my sperm count.

 * Lewis: I know this probably doesn't say much for me; but you're probably the closest thing I have to a best friend. So without further ado, I want you to see my baby.
 * Crosetti: Ohh, Meldrick.
 * Lewis: She's a beauty, huh?
 * Crosetti: I think she looks like an engine.
 * Lewis: Not just an engine, Crosetti. It's a high-riser, 427- overhead V-8 with dual Holley carbs. 600 horses of power, baby, she flies like the wicked witch of the West. I'm gonna hafta move to Nevada.
 * Crosetti: Hold on, let me see it again. Where are the doors and the tires?
 * Lewis: See, this is the petty-minded details. What you have in your hand is the heart and soul of the Cobra that I am building.
 * Crosetti: Let me tell ya. That doesn't play with me, see when you buy a house, you don't buy a pile of dirt with a toilet on top of it. You get 4 walls which constitutes a dwelling. You - if you look very closely - have squat here.
 * Lewis: See, you're makin' fun of me and I appreciate that; but what I have there is the foundation of a classic sportscar. What you have on your tie there is ink. [phone rings] Homicide, Detective Goodwrench.

 * Felton: It's impossible to partner with someone when they're trying to quit smoking.
 * Pembleton: It's the guilt trip they run, right?
 * Felton: I feel like I gotta post bail everytime I take a cigarette out. Every time I take one out, I can feel Howard's eyes burning a hole through the back of my head, like I just abandoned her.
 * Pembleton: I quit smoking once. Gonna quit again. Someday for good.
 * Felton: Me too.
 * Pembleton: I quit for 3 months once.
 * Felton: 8 months.
 * Pembleton: 8 months? That's impressive. 8 months?
 * Felton: Well, not straight, no. Over the years, I quit smoking 10 times for a total of 8 months.
 * Pembleton: We should stop smoking.
 * Felton: Our partners, they know what they're doing.
 * Pembleton: They do; don't they? Self-righteous bastards.

Night of the Dead Living

 * Felton: We've been on the night shift, what, a week? Every night someone lights this candle by the board.
 * Giardello: You're a detective. Solve it.
 * Felton: A homicide detective. If the candle killed someone, I'd close the case.

 * Bolander: When I was young, a codependent relationship was a good marriage. Sometimes I wanna call my wife just to hear the sound of her voice; but I know that five minutes into that phone call, my blood pressure is going through the roof, the phone is sailing across the room, and I'm wishing that she's on a plane falling out of the sky. It's over. I know it's over. But I had to replace six telephones before I really got the hint.

 * Pembleton: Uh, Tim, I'm the secondary on this case. If you have something, I think you should share.
 * Bayliss: You should talk about sharing.

 * Pembleton: You said summer was hell.
 * Bayliss: Well... it was.
 * Pembleton: It's all mind over matter, Bayliss.
 * Bayliss: No, no, it's more than mind over matter. I know my mind and my mind remembers my ass melting into the tops of my shoes, all right? Summer was hell.
 * Pembleton: There's no humidity in hell.
 * Bayliss: What, you do a field report?
 * Pembleton: By all reliable accounts, there's not a single drop of water to pass between heaven and hell. Hell is a dry heat.
 * Bayliss: Oh. Well, book me a flight.

 * Munch: [to Bolander] All I was gonna say is, what are you gonna call Dr Blythe for? Say you go out. You're a saint. You're everything you can be in a perfect world. So you sleep together. After the third time you do it, it's actually good instead of just saying it is. But how could it not be good? It's sex. So you get intimate. You get real close. You talk about your childhood, your parents, your broken dreams. You talk about relationships that didn't work out. You get so intimate you tell her your problems. You get loose, rude, a little insensitive. You're not a saint anymore. And one day, she goes, "I don't know who you are. You're not the guy I got involved with." You apologize. You realize you've actually spent the last six months apologizing for who you were the first two weeks. Then, in the middle of some night, she leaves you. In the dark. Nice, huh? Is that what you want?

Bop Gun

 * Robert Ellison: The instant they pulled the trigger I lost my wife, but I joined a club. It's a very exclusive club. But the funny thing about the club is that none of the members want to belong. It's like some sort of secret society where only the initiated can recognize the other members.

 * Robert Ellison: There's thousands of us. And it's growing every year. We all end up talking to some poor Homicide detective like you and we all ask "Why me?". The truth is it's not "Why me?" anymore. It's "When me?"

 * Felton: Marvin, you have the right to remain silent, although personally I don't feel remaining silent is all that it's cracked up to be.

See No Evil

 * Bolander: Why is it when a guy leaves 5 drops of coffee painting the bottom of the pot, he thinks he's immune from brewing a fresh pot of coffee?
 * Felton: Sorry.
 * Bolander: I mean, everybody is lookin' to duck something.
 * Felton: I said I was sorry.
 * Bolander: Why when you go in the john, there's always one piece of toilet paper stuck to the roll? Cause some guy thinks that if he technically didn't finish it, he's not responsible for replacing it?
 * Munch: Society is based on technicalities. It's the hallmark of late capitalism, Stanley. Figure it out.
 * Bolander: Same thing with milk.
 * Felton: Stan, I'm brewing more coffee.
 * Bolander: How come every time I open that refrigerator, there's one drop of milk left in the carton? So who has to go to the 7-11 and replace the carton of milk?
 * Munch: Me.
 * Bolander: That's beside the point. He's doing that on my behalf. He could be doing something else for me.

 * Lewis: [Crosetti thinks a shooting death is a suicide] There's no note.
 * Crosetti: Maybe he wasn't the literary type.

 * Munch: Maybe I'll just get a van and drive all around this country and wherever that van breaks down, I'll just throw open the back door and perform puppet shows!

 * Lewis: You go when it's time to go, and all the rest is homicide.

 * Howard: Most of the people who kill are men, and most of the people who get killed are men. I'm surrounded by men solving crimes by men.

Black and Blue

 * Pembleton: You know, being cops, I kind of hoped they'd be better liars.

 * Pembleton: [Having persuaded an innocent man to confess to a crime he didn't commit on Giardello's urges] He would have stood a better chance in the back of a paddywagon with the jackboots and clubs. He would have gotten a fair shake.

A Many Splendored Thing

 * Munch: You know, Stanley, this woman, you gotta respect her. Why she goes out with you, I'll never know. As far as I'm concerned, your good fortune hangs right there with the great mysteries of life, right alongside the whereabouts of the lost tribes of Israel and the true meaning to the lyrics of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."
 * [Linda laughs]
 * Munch: I think I'll go look for a couple of those lost tribes right now... [walks away]
 * Bolander: I'm sorry 'bout him...
 * Linda: Oh, he's alright, Stan... you just don't understand him at all, do you?
 * Bolander: Nope, I don't... but then again, I don't need to.

 * Munch: Where's my old Stanley?
 * Giardello: Oh my god...
 * Munch: I can't wake up in the morning, I can't face the day unless I know he's gonna be more miserable than me! The whole world's outta whack, G! You gotta do something!
 * Giardello: Like what?
 * Munch: Order him to be miserable again!
 * Giardello: Aw, stop it...
 * Munch: Look Boss, it's for his own good, it's a safety issue, the guy's DANCING IN TRAFFIC... there's gotta be something in the books to forbid happiness... it's UNPROFESSIONAL!

 * Munch: We have the city of Angels, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, The city of Brotherly Love, and now, Baltimore, City of the Broken-Hearted. She asked me to marry her. Twice. She asked me. But I love Felicia beyond the immediate moment. I love her for all of eternity and so I know, she's too young. I tell her and here I see you, dallying with Linda. It is Linda, isn't it? My heart sinks to the floor to see your youth. Your fleeting youth. Come autumn, and autumn does come, doesn't it, Kay? You'll be sitting in that big bay window of yours...
 * Howard: What bay window?
 * Munch: Some other window you got. Whatever looks out onto the street.
 * Howard: Oh.
 * Munch:The rains will be falling; those first hard, vicious rains of the season and you'll wonder what exactly it was that broke you and Danvers up...
 * Danvers: Wait a minute.
 * Munch: You know what I'm saying Danvers. I can tell by your tone of voice, you know. You've been in that window, looking down, haven't you? Everyone will be outside, holding hands, being in love, and you'll wonder why you and Danvers are now just good friends. And you'll be standing somewhere by yourself, and there will be that song, that song. Doesn't matter when you hear it, when it comes on, it'll make you think of all those silly little things you did together. You'll break up, get back together, break up, get back together... Call it off for good, find yourself sitting up in bed next to her on one last desperate evening saying to yourself, I miss her. And she's laying in bed next to you thinking the same thing about you...
 * Bolander: Munch, if you don't shut up and shut up fast, I'll gut ya.
 * Munch: Truth hurts; doesn't it, Stanley?
 * Howard: Life is so depressing. Love is hopeless.
 * Danvers: C'mon, Kay. I'll take you home.
 * Howard: No, Ed. I need to be alone tonight. Goodnight.
 * Danvers: Thanks a lot, Munch.
 * Bolander: C'mon, Linda. Let's go too. [to Munch] I'll deal with you in the morning, and don't look forward to it.

 * Pembleton: Listen, let me tell you something. We're all guilty of something, cruelty, or greed, or, or going 65 in a 55 mile per hour zone. But you know what? You wanna think about yourself as the fair-haired choir boy? You go AHEAD.
 * Bayliss: All right. Okay, so, uh, what are you saying, huh?
 * Pembleton: I'm saying you got a darkness, you, Tim Bayliss, you got a darkness inside of you. You gotta know the darker, uglier sides of yourself. You gotta recognize them, so that they're not constantly sneaking up on you. You gotta LOVE 'EM, 'cause they're part of you, because along with your virtues, they make you who you are. Virtue isn't virtue unless it slams up against vice. So consequently, your virtue's not real virtue. Until it's been tested. . . tempted.

 * Crosetti: Either it's murder, or this library has a very strict overdue policy.

Nearer My God To Thee

 * Bayliss: You guys think I'm a jerk, don't you? You think that I'm this naive rookie? Listen, if you wanna talk about me behind my back, that's fine. You go right ahead. But when I ask you to cop to it, please don't give me some lame story, alright?

 * Howard: Your wife called, lookin' for you. Where were you?
 * Felton: Beth called you tonight?
 * Howard: Yeah, she said you told her we were working late on a case.
 * Beau: What did you tell her?
 * Howard: I told her you were in my bathroom washing up after some great sex.

 * Pembleton: You're not Catholic and you took communion?
 * Bayliss: Yeah, is that wrong?
 * Pembleton: If my God wins, you're screwed.

 * Bayliss: [to Pembleton] Where the hell was God when this woman needed Him? Why doesn't Mr. God protect people like Katharine Goodrich or Adena Watson?

Fits Like a Glove

 * Pembleton: The Jesuits taught me how to think - I haven't felt safe since.

 * Lewis: Alright, John. I got a couple of questions for you and I want you to answer absolutely and honestly.
 * Munch: Of course.
 * Lewis: Question #1. Have you ever been arrested for a felony or a misdemeanor?
 * Munch: No. Next.
 * Lewis: C'mon John. Think back. Think way back to the hazy days of the summer of love. Your callow youth.
 * Munch: Oh, yeah. -- No.
 * Lewis: John, this is very important, ok? The liquor board gets the report from the state police, so if you have any demons in your closet, now is the time to set them free.
 * Munch: Are you implying that in my college years I was engaged in activities of a criminal nature?
 * Lewis: Yes. Everybody knows you were a major pothead. C'mon, man. I don't care if you smoked the stuff, I don't even care if you sold it. What I need to know is, were you ever caught?
 * Munch: Never.
 * Lewis: Okay. Great.
 * Munch: Can I go now?
 * Lewis: I have a few more questions for you.
 * Munch: Can I have an attorney present?

 * Pembleton: With God on our side, who can stand against us?

 * Munch: This is just a stupid formality. We gotta go all the way down there just so some bureacrat, some puny bureacrat who's overfed and probably got bad skin, so he can feel important?
 * Lewis: Don't open your mouth.
 * Munch: Me? Open my mouth?
 * Lewis: No, no. Promise me. I gotta hear it from you. Say, I'll be good.
 * Munch: I promise I'll be good.
 * Lewis: Oh, and there's one other thing. Don't wear that tie with the little bhuddas on it. It's ugly.
 * Munch: And what's wrong with that tie?
 * Lewis: I wouldn't give directions to a guy wearing a tie like that.
 * Munch: Well, guess what? That just happens to be my lucky tie. I love that tie. Felicia gave me that tie.
 * Lewis: Well, there you go. I rest my case.

 * Liquor Commissioner: The other guy should be here.
 * Lewis: But we don't have to reschedule. I called ahead.
 * Liquor Commissioner: But it seems we have a little problem here.
 * Lewis: No, we don't. What you have there is everything. Signed, sealed and delivered.
 * Liquor Commissioner: Your pal has a conviction. Misdemeanor gambling from '84.
 * Munch: I don't... Wouldn't I remember that?
 * Liquor Commissioner: It's this other guy, Bayliss.

Extreme Unction

 * Pembleton: Damn Him!
 * Bayliss: The killer?
 * Pembleton: God.
 * Bayliss: Frank, I don't think you can ask God to damn Himself. And if you do, don't stand next to me because I don't want to get hit by lightning, this is a new suit.

 * Danvers: She has Multiple Personality Disorder. That helps her, not me.
 * Munch: I got it! Why don't we charge one of the personalities with harboring a fugitive?

 * Nun: I know that Katherine Goodrich would have, with her dying breath, forgiven her attacker.
 * Pembleton: What about the others? Who speaks for them? What right do any of us have to forgive in their name?

 * Pembleton: [to the nun] I don't pray anymore. I used to. I used to pray for answers. A clue, a sign of what I should do, how to find something precious in this life. There was a time when I thought it was my job. But is it? Nothing in this world changes because of what I do. The hurt goes on and on. God has… God has given up on us. He doesn't hear us any more, sister.

 * Pembleton: I don't believe you have MPD. But I don't care if you really do or don't. I also don't care how many personalities you may or may not have. Because of you there are eight personalities who will never speak again. You had no right to kill them. Especially in God's name. And I gotta believe, even if you walk outta here scot free, God is gonna make you pay one way or another.
 * [Pembleton leaves room.]
 * Wilgis: I'm sure he will.

A Model Citizen

 * Lennox Young: My brother got shot.
 * Munch: But all you heard was a bang?
 * Lennox Young: I got ears like a dog.
 * Munch: And you've been using us like fire hydrants.

 * Felton: Romper, stomper, bomper, blue. I see Jimmy and Julie. Except she never saw me. I spent years in front of that friggin' tube and she never once saw Beau in the magic mirror. That BITCH!

 * Munch: But what if they make me take a test? I can't take tests. I always clutch. What if I take it and fail and all our dreams come crashing down?
 * Bayliss: Well, then it's simple. Meldrick and I will harm you.

 * Felton: Oh, so that's what cous-cous is.
 * Lewis: Where is it written a man can't try something new every now and again?
 * Bolander: Who's the dolly? Who's the dolly?
 * Lewis: What?
 * Bolander: I've never seen a man eat cous-cous unless a woman was involved. Who is she?
 * Felton: Lewis is in love with Emma Zoole. Let me clue you in on something, pal. Cous-cous is not gonna make a difference. I've gone the health food route. Stir-fry this, low-fat that; what this is really about is control. If you allow her to control what it is you eat, it's curtains. How much more primary, how much more basic can you get than what a man puts into his stomach? Munch and crunch all the veggies you want, but in the end, new girl or not, you're out. Because you did not take a stand and that's what this is about. Not health, not love, not living fat-free. This is about women trying to dominate men.
 * Lewis: It's just cous-cous, man.

 * Bolander: How was it?
 * Bayliss: How was--how--how--was what?
 * Bolander: Your date with Emma. I heard you took her to an art gallery.
 * Lewis: DATE?! You had a date with Emma?! You went behind my back with Emma?!
 * Bayliss: Me? Meldrick, look at-- No, no, I would not do that.
 * Howard: Hey Bayliss, Beau says you slept with Emma Zoole in a cuffoon or something?
 * Lewis: What is she-- You went to bed with Emma?
 * Bayliss: No, Meldrick, no. We did not go to a bed together.
 * Lewis: You slept with MY Emma?!
 * Gee: I thought I smelled sex around here.
 * Bolander: What is a cuffoon?
 * Howard: I don't know. Beau was laughing so hard when he said it, he had to sit down.
 * Lewis: You are a disloyal son of a bitch and I don't want anyhing to do with you.

Happy To Be Here

 * Pembleton: It's till death do you part. You die - you part.

 * Pembleton: Finding love is like solving the perfect crime: you look at every shred of evidence, you talk to every witness, follow up every lead, but more often than not, what wins in the end is just pure, dumb luck. And you my friend, are just not lucky.

Crosetti

 * Bolander: I didn't know Crosetti at all. I didn't want to. What ticks me off that I'm beginning to realize how little I know about myself. I don't know enough about who I am or how I do the job that I do to ask the right questions from my fraternal brothers to figure out what one of us is about. I keep trying to remember Crosetti. His desk was 3 feet away from mine and I can't even remember if we said any more than "hi ya" to each other for a whole entire year.

 * Lewis: I watched them slice up my partner in the morgue. Scheiner took the electric saw; sliced off the top of his head, took his heart, weighed it, and tossed it into a steel container like the kind you find in a restaurant kitchen. How many times I been to the M.E.? How many times I've seen him slice the top of somebody's head off? Couple hundred times maybe, maybe more. But I never really noticed, I never really watched. Till I saw Steve.

 * Bayliss: So you're a homicide detective and your brother is an undertaker. Between the two of you, the holiday dinner table must be a riot.
 * Munch: Just one life-affirming story after another.

 * Giardello: I know everybody is on you to do right by Steve. To make sure it doesn't come out a suicide.
 * Bolander: That what you're asking, Lieutenant? To make it a murder? A murder with no murderers? A murder that can't be solved? If you want me to do it; I'll do it. Hell, my clearance rate is so low these days, one more open case isn't gonna make any difference. Everybody says 'do it for Steve'. And I keep thinking, I mean, if he chose to commit suicide, what right do I have, what right does any of us have, to make that go away? I don't agree with what he did, but if that's his final statement, should I wipe that clear, just for our peace of mind? I mean, nobody wants to admit it, but everybody knows what really happened.

 * Bolander: The Italians are an unforgiving lot.
 * Giardello: I know. But we make great pasta. It balances out.

The Last of the Watermen

 * Munch: What happened to the good old bar where you just go in and talk to the bartender, you think, you get depressed, and you drink, and you go home and puke?
 * Lewis: It's outdated, Munch.

 * Pembleton: Where I come from, EVERY life has meaning... even yours, Felton, even yours.

 * Chick: [angry] Is this what you learned in Baltimore? Not to trust the people you love?
 * Howard: ...What I learned in Baltimore is that people get murdered for all kinds of reasons, but a dead body is still stone-cold.

All Through the House

 * Lewis: [answering the phone, at Christmas] Merry Christmas, Homicide.
 * Munch: [answering the phone, at Christmas] Ho-Ho-Ho-Homicide.
 * Munch: [answering the phone, at Christmas] Ho-Ho-Ho-Homicide.

 * Bolander: All I'm saying is that you are a pessimist, Munch!
 * Munch: A pessimist?
 * Bolander: Yeah, you're always seeing the worst in everything! You never see anything good, a moment of redemption! You don't believe in anything.
 * Munch: Sure I do.
 * Bolander: Oh, yeah?
 * Munch: Yeah.
 * Bolander: What do you believe in?
 * Munch: I believe that one day I'll be sitting at a bar in Hong Kong and this incredibly attractive and submissive woman with an abiding interest in art and existential philosophy will come up to me and say, "Take me home and ravish me."

 * Munch: How come all the miracles that have happened, happened in the past?
 * Bolander: What are you talking about?
 * Munch: Name one miracle that's happened in your lifetime.
 * Bolander: How 'bout the fact that I haven't killed you yet?

 * Fidel: You've got a weird way of talking.
 * Munch: Don't start with me again, Fidel.
 * Fidel: It's like you hafta use all these weird words, its like you're listening to the words like they were in a cartoon coming out of your mouth and you're watching them thinking "I'm cool, I'm cool."

 * Giardello: Let me give you some advice Tim. Never try to hustle a Sicilian.

Every Mother's Son

 * Pembleton: One time, one time I'd like to hear about a murder that makes any sense. One time, for any reason.

 * Pembleton: You know, every day I get out of bed and drag myself to the next cup of coffee. I take a sip and the caffeine kicks in, I can focus my eyes again, my brain starts to order the day. I'm up, I'm alive. I'm ready to rock. The time is coming when I wake up and decide I'm not getting out of bed. I'm not getting up for coffee or food or sex. If it comes to me, fine; if it won't, fine. No more expectations. The longer I live the less I know. I should know more. I should know that coffee's killing me. You're suspicious of your suspicions? I'm jealous, Kay. I'm so jealous. You still have the heart to have doubts? Me, I'm going to lock up a fourteen-year-old kid for what could be the rest of his natural life. I gotta do this; this is my job. This is the deal, this is the law, this is my day. I have no doubts or suspicions anymore. Heart has nothing to do with it anymore. Its all in the caffeine.

 * Older Waitress Applicant: One rule I don't abide by is, "The customer is always right." The customer is never right.

 * Pembleton: You know now, don't you? You got the fear, now. Don't you? Son, I don't usually find myself giving advice, especially to 14 year old killers, but please, please listen to me. Just this one time. Keep your ass to the wall. Don't trust anybody, don't believe anybody, don't help anybody, don't ask anybody for anything. Do you understand?

 * [Munch and Lewis are talking about a historic building they plan to turn into a bar]
 * Penelope Smith-Haddon: Surely you can understand our desire to protect that history, especially in connection to George Washington.
 * Munch: George Washington?
 * Penelope Smith-Haddon: George Washington... In 1793, he was traveling from Mount Vernon to Philadelphia. He stopped here.
 * Munch: He stopped here?
 * Penelope Smith-Haddon: Of course, it was a residence at the time.
 * Lewis: George Washington slept here?
 * Penelope Smith-Haddon: Well, no...
 * Munch: He had dinner?
 * Penelope Smith-Haddon: No.
 * Lewis: So what did he do here?
 * Penelope Smith-Haddon: Apparently the President, just coming from a dinner party where he had consumed quite a bit of wine, was in something of a bind. He had no time to seek out a public chamber pot.
 * Munch: Are you telling us the reason we can't tear down the bathroom is that it's where George Washington once took a whizz?
 * [She nods]

Cradle to Grave

 * Lewis: Hey, look, are you capable of giving us a straight answer, or do we need to drag your narrow behind downtown, and you can finish your lunch at the stationhouse.
 * Preacher: You got Natty Bo on tap at your office, I'm in.

 * Bayliss: So, you're just gonna walk out on me?
 * Pembleton: I didn't walk out on you Tim. We're not engaged; so don't act like I left you at the altar.

Partners

 * Giardello: How does your partner end up bumping his head if he was wearing a seatbelt and you were driving slowly?!?
 * Lewis: Well...you know Bayliss.

 * Bayliss: Do you know what it is like, Frank, to work with Lewis? The man is a demon from another dimension!

 * Pembleton: God have mercy on a man who doubts what he's sure of.

 * Pembleton: You want me to come back? Why? Because we're friends? That's not true.
 * Giardello: You're right. I've never been to your house, I've never met your wife. We are not friends. It ticks me off because you say what you think and you don't give a damn what I think about what you think. But there's one thing I know for certain, you change red names to black. And for that reason, and that reason alone, I want you back.

The City That Bleeds - I

 * Felton: Stan, where's your grass skirt? I heard you looked fabulous.
 * Bolander: You want me to snap on you, Felton? I'll snap on you right now.
 * Felton: Easy, Big Man. Can't you take a compliment?

 * Giardello: Pembleton, Bayliss, Lewis- get over to Madison and St. Paul.
 * Lewis: What's up Gee?
 * Giardello: We've got detectives down.
 * Pembleton: Which detectives?
 * Giardello: Bolander, Felton, and Howard.
 * Lewis: What?
 * Giardello:  I'm on my way to Shock Trauma. They've been shot. Frank,you're the primary.

 * Landlord: This ain't right.
 * Lewis: What?
 * Pembleton: Yeah it is, 201, open it up.
 * Landlord: No, Holton's in 210.
 * Pembleton: 2-1-0?
 * Landlord: Yeah, 210, down there.
 * Lewis: They went to the wrong door.

 * Munch: My shoes are wrecked. I've got their blood all over my shoes.

 * Pembleton: Like I said, I'm fine.
 * Giardello: Feeling a little freaked?
 * Pembleton: No.
 * Giardello: Scared?
 * Pembleton: No.
 * Giardello: Guilty?
 * Pembleton: No. That's Bayliss. Not me.
 * Giardello: Oh, I get it. You don't feel anything at all. You're the type of guy that two weeks from now, you'll be stopped at a traffic light and all this will hit you and when it hits, it'll hit hard. It'll hit you so hard that your heart will burst into a hundred pieces.

Dead End - II

 * Giardello: Let him talk; he'll talk all he wants. The more he talks, the deeper he steps into the crap.

 * Det. Walker: Mrs. Holton, we need to ask you a few more questions.
 * Mrs. Holton: Who's he?
 * Lewis: Detective Lewis. Homicide.
 * Mrs. Holton: A good-looking Police Officer? How come you never brought nobody good-looking with you before?
 * Det. Walker: Good-looking? You need glasses, Mrs. Holton.

 * Lewis: [advising Felton] Just keep goin' on.
 * Felton: Meldrick, that's like the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my whole life.
 * Lewis: Now you're just spittin' on my advice. You ask me down here and I open up my heart to you and you gonna spit on my advice, just like that?
 * Felton: Basically, yeah.
 * Lewis: Gimme back the giraffe.
 * Felton: No.
 * Lewis: You don't want my advice, then gimme back the damn giraffe!

End Game - III

 * Lewis: I feel real good. I feel good that any fucking asshole can go down to the corner store and buy himself a semiautomatic weapon and start blasting. You know what else I feel good about? I feel good about you people; you media motherfuckers. Gonna take this shit and put it on the evening news. Your ratings are gonna be good. You vultures oughta be ashamed of your goddamned selves.

 * Pembleton: He who loses control, loses!

 * Reporter Dawn Daniels: How do you feel now?
 * Munch: Sad, angry...
 * Reporter Dawn Daniels: Stressed?
 * Munch: Life is stress by definition.

 * Russert: What are you doing back here, Tim?
 * Bayliss: I think the real question is, why would I ever leave here? Because unlike Frank, I love my job. I love it here, I love it here so much, that I think I'll just stay here forever.

 * Bayliss: I love it here, I just love it here. I love it here! Criminology, that's my specialty. Tim Bayliss, Homicide...

Law and Disorder

 * Logan: Detective Frank Pembleton? Mike Logan, NYPD. This is your prisoner, R. Vincent Smith.
 * Pembleton: So, whenever you decide to show up, I'm supposed to be here?
 * Logan: Hey, you're on the clock same as me, what difference does it make?
 * Pembleton: Typical Big Apple attitude.
 * Logan: Anyway, Mr. Smith here has agreed to waive extradition on a felony warrant for second-degree murder. So they call this Charm City, huh? Sounds like something you get out of a box of Cracker Jacks. Who'd want to stay in this land of enchantment?
 * Pembleton: Plenty of New Yorkers ran down here to Baltimore. Dorothy Parker, for one.
 * Logan: Dorothy who?
 * R. Vincent Smith: Parker, you illiterate.
 * [Logan slaps the back of Smith's head]
 * Pembleton: Dorothy Parker was the wittiest woman in America. The toast of Manhattan. She dies, she's cremated. Her ashes sit in a jar in some Wall Street lawyer's office for twenty years - twenty years - while all the New York sophisticates ham and haw, 'whatsoever shall we do with poor Dorothy's ashes?' And where does she end up? Baltimore!
 * Logan: I got two words for you guys. Babe Ruth. The Babe. King of Swing, Sultan of Swat, born right here in Baltimore. But where does he go to get his fame and fortune? New York City.
 * R. Vincent Smith: Edgar Allen Poe. Edgar Allen Poe hated New York so much he had to come to Baltimore to die! That's what New York does to its poets.
 * Logan: What did he die of, the local crab cakes? Enjoy your stay, Shakespeare.
 * Pembleton: You're going to jail for this murder. But thank your lucky stars it's not gonna be in New York.
 * R. Vincent Smith: Why do you think I didn't fight extradition? I may be guilty, but I'm no fool.

 * Lewis: I gotta hand it to you, baby. You got some nerve on you. Do me a favor, would ya? Would you autograph this for me?
 * Munch: What are you talking about?
 * Lewis: And put the date and something personal. Never know; could be valuable in the future.
 * Munch: What is going on around here?
 * Lewis: You don't know?
 * Munch: No, I don't.
 * Lewis: You ain't been across the street?
 * Munch: No, I haven't. Is there something across the street I should know about?
 * Lewis: Yeah, you need to take a look at the photo exhibit at the gallery over there.
 * Munch: I do?
 * Lewis: Yeah. Absolutely. Go way in the back, up against the wall, you'll... you'll know what I'm talking about. You know, I would've never had the nerve to do something like that. And I thought you were all talk, ya big fella. Ohhh, Munchkin. Whoops, guess we can't call him that anymore, huh?

 * Pembleton: [About suspected cop shooter Pratt] All I know is, he was driven, in his own perverted mind, to make the world a better place for losers like himself; made his poison more dangerous than most.

 * Giardello: Maybe you can tell me about the Battisto case.
 * Lewis: Well, we're moving along slowly but surely, we're trudging through it. Uncky Frank is on top of things.
 * Pembleton: You know, it might help if I had a partner who didn't whine so much, but hey, let's not get caught up in the details.

 * Munch: [after seeing a picture of himself in an art gallery] I'm naked! My dingle is blowing in the wind!

The Old and the Dead

 * Bolander: You think the old partner's a few bricks shy of a load, huh?
 * Munch: Stan, you're a load. Trust me.

In Search of Crimes Past

 * Lewis: I'll come with you, Stan. Besides, I kinda like working with you Big Man. You're like a father figure to me.
 * Bolander: A father figure?
 * Lewis: Yeah, a father figure.
 * Bolander: You ever repeat that, I'll gut ya.

 * Munch: We need new customers or we're not gonna have a bar.
 * Lewis: So what? Ladies night? Wet T-shirt contest, what?
 * Bolander: Turtle races. I've always enjoyed them.
 * Munch: We're sinking here, Stan and you're talking about turtle races.
 * Bolander: Fix me a drink. Scotch
 * Munch: You sure you should be drinking? You just got outta the hospital a month ago.
 * Bolander: Are you gonna pour me a drink or do I hafta wreck this place again?!!!
 * Munch: Let destiny be your guide, Big Man.

Nothing Personal

 * Bolander: A woman can affect a man totally. How a woman feels about a man, that's how he is gonna feel about himself, his friends, his job...

Colors

 * Bolander: Nothing is real.
 * Pembleton: What do you mean, nothing is real?
 * Bolander: There is no reality.
 * Pembleton: Really...
 * Bolander: Take the color green. You see green, I see green. We call it "green" because as a society we have agreed that this thing, this color, is green.  We think we're having the shared experience of green, but how do we know?  Maybe my green is actually greener than your green.
 * Pembleton: You mean, maybe my green is red?
 * Bolander: Maybe. Take colorblind people, they carry with them a stigma --
 * Pembleton: A stigmatism.
 * Bolander: Because they don't see what the rest of us see as green. But maybe, just maybe, their perception is correct.  Maybe a colorblind person is actually seeing pure green, the real green.
 * Pembleton: Man, this is just my luck. I get a call. My partner's off tonight. So I look around the Squad Room. I see Munch. No. I see Howard. No. Felton. Lewis. No. No. I think Bolander. I'll take Bolander. He's the only one who won't drive me crazy.
 * Bolander: I'm driving you crazy?
 * Pembleton: Philosophizing. You're not known as the philosophical type, Stan.
 * Bolander: You get shot in the head, it makes you think.

 * Pembleton: Okay. Theoretically,a woman can lead a man on, go up to his room, take off her clothes, jump into bed -- it becomes rape the moment she says stop. Jim may have feared for his life at some point during the confrontation, but he wasn't afraid at the moment he fired the fatal bullet.
 * Bayliss: He made a bad judgment call. You're gonna crucify him for making a mistake?
 * Pembleton: This is more than a bad judgment call. He killed Gersel for some other reason.
 * Danvers: What other reason?
 * Pembleton: I think it's racially motivated.
 * Bayliss: Why does that not surprise me, Frank? Why am I not stunned that you've unearthed yet another racial injustice?
 * Pembleton: I guess you know me too well, Tim.
 * Bayliss: Danvers, will you put a stop to this nonsense?
 * Danvers: I could deem the incident accidental, a misunderstanding established by circumstances. I could decide that the suspect not be charged. But I'm not sure I should take on the burden of determination... I'm going to recommend we go before a Grand Jury --
 * Bayliss: On what charge?
 * Danvers: Manslaughter.
 * Bayliss: What? Why?
 * Danvers: Because you're a cop. Because your cousin's white. I don't want it to look like we're showing any favoritism.
 * Bayliss: Oh, I see. In an effort not to show favoritism, Jim's being overly prosecuted.

 * Umut Gersel: My son, he loved everything American. Growing up, he'd watch your movies and TV shows and rock n' roll. But mostly he loved what America stood for. Many of us believe there is too much repression in my country. We are not allowed to think or move as freely as you are, but if that freedom means getting away with killing an innocent boy, perhaps we are better off...

 * Bolander: Munch, let's go.
 * Munch: What've we got?
 * Bolander: Skeleton found buried in the basement of a house over on Gough Street. A couple's renovating the house, the contractor dug up bones. They're turning the cellar into a playroom.
 * Munch: Nice.
 * Bolander: My bet, the skeleton's at least a hundred years old.
 * Lewis: Why's that, Big Man?
 * Bolander: Every year or so someone digs up bones in a basement in Fell's Point. It usually turns out to be some poor sailor who got a night's leave off some nineteenth century schooner docked in the harbor. The sailor came into town for a drink or some poker, got rolled for his pay, got stuffed in the basement. Meanwhile, up in Maine or England or even China, some young bride walked the shore, peering out into the sea, waiting her whole life for him to return.
 * Munch: Jeez, Stanley, more and more I see the poet in you.
 * Bolander: That ain't poetry, Munch. Them's the hard, cold facts.
 * Howard: Life was simpler a hundred years ago.
 * Bolander: Death was simpler.

 * Bayliss: You're not going to say anything to me, are you?
 * Pembleton: What would you like me to say?
 * Bayliss: For a start, "I'm sorry"...
 * Pembleton: I'm not sorry. I did my job.
 * Bayliss: You still believe that my cousin killed that boy because he was an Arab?
 * Pembleton: Hikmet was not an Arab. Turks are not Arabs --
 * Bayliss: My cousin could not consciously kill someone.
 * Pendleton: I don't think it was premeditated. I think it was inherent. Jim's racism is so much a part of him, that he didn't have a chance to think about what he was doing. Jim is worse than a Klansman. 'Cause at least in their white sheets, they are recognizable. But your cousin's brand of bigotry is more frightening because, like still water, it runs deep.  He doesn't even see it himself.
 * Bayliss: You are wrong, dead wrong.
 * Pembleton: The only one "dead wrong" is Hikmet Gersel. Did you see what happened when the verdict was announced? They applauded.  Those law-abiding citizens, those good people applauded the death of a child. Let me ask you something, Tim -- then you tell me whether or not it was racially motivated -- if that boy had been American, if that boy had been white -- do you think would have cheered?

The Gas Man

 * Pembleton: Luck had nothing to do with it. God reached down and graced a fool with wisdom.

Fire (Part 1)

 * Bayliss: Man, I hate arson fires. There's never any evidence, no witnesses, nothing.
 * Pembleton: Well, look at the upside.
 * Bayliss: I don't see an upside.
 * Pembleton: I'm the primary on this case. If we don't close it, Gee will cast his long, doleful, accusing glance in my direction, not yours.

 * Pembleton: So, what's the cause of death?
 * Scheiner: For an absolute certainty, I can't tell you.
 * Pembleton: You can't tell us?
 * Scheiner: Don't look at me that way; it happens.

 * Pembleton: This may come as a shock to you, Kellerman, but I don't always like being right.

 * Kellerman: What do you do for fun, Frank?
 * Pembleton: Define "fun".
 * Kellerman: Fun is when you do something exciting, maybe dangerous, with the possibility that you're gonna feel really good before it's all over.
 * Pembleton: Oh, you mean work.
 * Kellerman: No, I don't mean work. I mean... sucking unfiltered Camels until you get headaches and snagging a 50-pound marlin on the line, and guzzling Wild Turkey until you puke, and running around the block all night and shooting pool for money against mentally defective bikers. Stuff like that.
 * Pembleton: I don't have time for fun.
 * Kellerman: Then what the hell gets you up in the morning? You gotta believe in something.
 * Pembleton: Well, you can't believe in fun. That's not a faith.
 * Kellerman: Fun is my god, Frank. I worship fun, I live for fun, and when I die, I hope that I'm having fun. Like that upstate car dealer, -- You remember him? He had a heart attack while nailing his beautiful, young mistress. Came and went. Now, that's the way to die.
 * Pembleton: Smoke a cigarette, please.

 * Giardello: I sent Bolander and Felton on that conference because I thought it'd be good for them. How was I to know that when they got there they'd turn into Dumb and Dumber?!

Fire (Part 2)

 * Kellerman: There's no absolutes in life; only in vodka.

 * Giardello: You found the whorehouse?
 * Bayliss: On wheels.
 * Kellerman: Sort of a good-humor truck for sex. Wonder if they ring a bell.

 * Giardello: There are no real masterminds out there. Mostly we're dealing with people who think they are. If they think at all. Problem is, there's so many of them.
 * Kellerman: I don't get it.
 * Giardello: You don't hafta get it. You'll sleep better if you don't know. Give me the where, the what, the when - the why - is a thing we can live without. Homicide is the elite of the police force. There is no higher calling.

 * Munch: Who lobbies for nothing?
 * Bayliss: You do, Munch. Every day, in every way, you lobby for nothing.

 * Bayliss: The doctor says I have a degenerative disc in my back.
 * Munch: I had that.
 * Bayliss: You did?
 * Munch: Mm-hm.
 * Bayliss: And it went away?
 * Munch: Well, not that really. What I had was a degenerate disc.
 * Howard: A degenerate disc, Munch?
 * Munch: Yeah, see every time a pretty girl walked by, my neck would go like this, completely and involuntarily. It went away as I matured though.
 * Howard: When did that happen? I must've missed that.

Autofocus

 * Lewis: Lemme tell you one thing alright? You gotta do everything I say.
 * Kellerman: Well, there's nothing I won't do; but some things are gonna cost you extra.

 * Kellerman: You know, he shouldn't leave a department vehicle running like that.
 * Lewis: Yeah, could get stolen.
 * Kellerman: Lieutanant said take the first car in.
 * Lewis: We shouldn't.
 * Kellerman: You're right.
 * Lewis: Grand theft auto, baby. [they drive off in the car, as Pembleton comes back out]
 * Pembleton: You sons of bitches!

 * Russert: Sometimes, the best way to lead is to follow.

 * Munch: A bar is like the Box. People instinctively want to confess.
 * Howard: [laughing] I got nothing to confess... I'm not guilty of anything. I'm trying to do my new job as well as I can... [sighs loudly] I try be helpful...People think I'm overbearing, condescending. You were right not to take that exam...It's not so much that I got in Lewis' way... I got in my own way, you know? How could I do that? Work, home... oh my god, listen to me, I am confessing. [sips on her gin fizz drink, embarrassed] This is delicious!
 * Munch: Want to dance?
 * Howard: [laughs loudly] No!
 * Munch: [laughs] Yes! No one'll see, there's no one conscious here! A few smooth steps on the floor... [Munch turns on the jukebox] Have a little fun.
 * Howard: ...No.
 * Munch: C'mon Kay, let's dance.
 * Howard: No... [laughs again]
 * Munch: I'll let you lead, alright? C'mon.
 * Howard: ...Let me lead, alright? You're easy to follow.
 * [Kay laughs while she dances with Munch]

Thrill of the Kill

 * Bayliss: And why does every question that is put to you have to end up like a discussion on Meet The Press? Just answer the damn question, "Como se fue su fin de semana?" How was your weekend, Frank?
 * Pembleton: May I? It el suck-oed the big-o weiner-o. There, I'm bilingual.
 * Bayliss: You are the ugly American.
 * Pembleton: Don't get personal.

 * Bayliss: Business or pleasure?
 * Pembleton: One doesn't carry a beeper for pleasure.
 * Bayliss: Hookers do.
 * Pembleton: Prostitution is business; not pleasure.
 * Bayliss: Yeah, I still don't get that.

 * Bayliss: Wow, death is so weird. It's like, you just squeeze the trigger and kill a person with so little effort. What's that like, to be so empty of compassion, to take a life in your hands and just pop, pop, pop? No fear of hell, no fear of lethal injection. No fear at all.

 * Bayliss: You're a killer, Newton.
 * Newton: No, I'm a Presbyterian.

 * Pembleton: Then why did you get into her car?
 * Bayliss: You wanted us to catch you?
 * Newton: Well, like they say in nursing homes all over the country, "Bingo!"

Hate Crimes

 * Pembleton: Get out of my blood!!!

 * Bayliss: So what would you do if someday your son comes home from school and says hey dad, meet Jason here, he's my new boyfriend, what would you do then?
 * Pembleton: I don't know Tim. I don't like to guess about my reaction to some hypothical situation, but I'd like to think that if two Homicide Detectives come to my door, unlike Zeke Lafeld's father, I would not be relieved my child is dead.

 * Bayliss: I'm not a homophobe.
 * Pembleton: Okay.
 * Bayliss: I'm not.
 * Pembleton: You don't hafta repeat yourself. I'm your partner. I believe every word you say.

 * Lewis: See, the thing is, we the Murder Poh-leece and we have but one given and that is that everybody is a liar. Me? See, I rely on [taps heart] the most sensitive machine there is. See, it knows when somebody is lumpy and when somebody is tellin' the truth. And this [taps head]...this is smart enough to trust what this [taps heart] can detect.

 * Pembleton: And I broke the first rule of being a detective. I assumed that Zeke Lafeld was homosexual.
 * Bayliss: Well, it's what people do, Frank. It's human nature.
 * Pembleton: Yes, it is human nature to kill someone simply because their sexual orientation is different.
 * Bayliss: People get afraid. Threatened.
 * Pembleton: People? That's you and me, Tim. Grown-ups. Why is it that children don't care about such things?
 * Bayliss: As adults we get socialized. We learn to behave.
 * Pembleton: No, no, no. We learn to hate.

A Doll's Eyes

 * Lewis: Iced tea keeps me in a summertime frame of mind.

 * Bayliss: If wallets were meant to be carried in the front pocket, they'dve been made that way.
 * Pembleton: They are.
 * Bayliss: Says who?
 * Pembleton: The info never gets around to you, does it?

 * Pembleton: Younger brother gave up older brother; variations on a theme.

Heartbeat

 * Howard: If you were going to hide a body, where you bury it?
 * Munch: In a cemetery.

 * Russert: So, Mary's pregnant?
 * Bayliss: Oh, no. I didn't say that.
 * Russert: Frank is your partner and I'm a detective and you're a bad liar.

 * Munch: Don't tell me you're watching soap operas again.
 * Bayliss: It's what we have instead of a sex life, Munch. Leave us alone.
 * Pembleton: What about you? How come you're so mu-si-cal this morning?
 * Munch: Today's no different than any other day. I'm still the same miserable me.
 * Bayliss: No, no. You were singing.
 * Munch: Was I?
 * Bayliss and Pembleton: Mmm-hmm.
 * Munch: I didn't realize.

Sniper (Part 1)

 * Munch: If a murder is committed in Baltimore and no homicide detective takes the call, did that homicide actually occur?

 * Kellerman: You and Howard. I'm telling you. It's love. Start picking out your china patterns.

 * Munch: Whaddya got there Timmy? Something good? Percodan...Percocet, maybe?
 * Bayliss: They're muscle relaxants and you can't have any.
 * Munch: Nobody's willing to share their drugs anymore.

 * Brodie: Giardello and Russert just showed up.
 * Howard: Well, you know what that means, huh, buddy?
 * Munch: Congratulations Timmy. It's a bouncing baby red-ball. Got any cigars?

 * Russert: What amount of stress could make anybody just go out and start shooting at people?
 * Bayliss: See that's the thing, he's not feeling any stress.
 * Russert: How can you tell?
 * Bayliss: Being a marksman is all about precision.

Sniper (Part 2)

 * Howard: Munch, let's go!
 * Munch: I've got things to do.
 * Howard: I'm not asking you out on a date, John, come on!
 * Munch: You're the sarge, sarge.

 * Pembleton: You one of those toilet intellectuals? You need a little something to read to keep you r-r-regular?

 * Munch: I'm not worried about the sniper getting me. One bullet in my noggin, that's it, it's over, I'm fine with that, but I will NOT stand by and watch you get shot again.
 * Howard: What're you talking about, John?
 * Munch: Do you think I could ever forget you and Stan and Beau getting shot? And all I could say to Gee was 'they messed up my shoes with their blood'. I was in such shock from seeing your blood everywhere, I couldn't do anything.
 * Howard: Alright, John.
 * Munch: It's not alright!

 * Mary Pembleton: It's alright for you to be scared for me but it's not alright for me to be scared for you? What do you think I feel every day seeing you go out?
 * Pembleton: This is different!
 * Mary Pembleton: No it isn't, you always tell me 'it's the job', 'it's the job', well you know what, Frank? This is MY job. And I'm not leaving until it's done.

 * Pembleton: It wasn't your job to save Mariner's life. Why does his death bother you?
 * Bayliss: I was the primary, Frank!
 * Pembleton: YOU DID YOUR JOB! Nine names in red turned into nine names in black and if Mariner wasted himself, so what?
 * Bayliss: Wait a second, YOU are always telling me how you see ALL lives as being as important.
 * Pembleton: Yeah well if I was God, I'd have a hard time taking Mariner's death, and the deaths of nine innocent people and weighing them the same.

The Hat

 * Pennsylvania Police Officer: Regulations stipulate that a policewoman escort a female prisoner.
 * Lewis: [motioning to Kellerman] Meet Det. Michelle Kellerman.
 * Kellerman: Hi.
 * Pennsylvania Police Officer: You're not a woman.
 * Kellerman: But I used to be.

I've Got a Secret

 * Munch: Let me explain.
 * Howard: No, let me explain. My personal life is off limits to the squad room, alright? I learned my lesson when I was dating Ed Danvers and you were the biggest sinner. Jokes, gossip....
 * Munch: I can't disagree with you Kay. But that was the old me, the new me....
 * Howard: Is worse. Look, Munch, I know you may find this hard to accept, but I believe in secrets. I believe that we have to have truths about ourselves that we keep from our colleagues, our neighbors, our loved ones. I don't want any one person to know everything about me. I want you to have a few pieces of the puzzle, Gee, a few pieces, my sister, see?
 * Munch: Kay, everyday all we do is ferret out secrets. It's our job.
 * Howard: Not today, Munchkin.

 * Pembleton: Why do people choose cloth seats? Look how they absorb stains. Leather's the way to go for precisely this reason.
 * Bayliss: I agree.

 * Pembleton: You want glory, go work at ER. Homicide's fine by me.

 * Landlord: I should've never let MC talk me out of the cleaning deposit. Said he was anal retentive about dirt. I thought that was a good quality in a tenant.
 * Pembleton: Law abiding is better.

 * Russert: So you prefer quantity to quality.
 * Munch: All junkies do.

For God and Country

 * Bayliss: If your husband was sentenced to death, why would you kill yourself and orphan your son?
 * Pembleton: Well Tim, you're the primary in this quickly deepening quagmire, I'll leave that question for you to answer.
 * Bayliss: Thanks. Hope you get polyps.

 * Col. Rausch: It's time for the mongrels of the world to stop taking advantage of the hard work and good faith most Americans have. You have a cancer, you cut it out. Because make no mistake about it gentlemen, these people are a cancer and they will drag us down with them. You sleep easier at night because of me, and you don't even know it.
 * Pembleton: Let me tell you what's gonna happen. Because you are mine now. I'm gonna put you on display. You and I are gonna be on TV, radio, for months and months and months. So others can see how much they like you and what you stand for, even if they don't know it yet. You will not make me a martyr because I'm an African American. You will be my martyr.

 * Col. Rausch: Haven't you any appreciation for what I've done? Even on an intellectual level? Because let me tell you something, my serious friend, the power of the vote is a romantic anachronism.
 * Pembleton: No, my friend. You are.

 * Kincaid: How's Rausch?
 * Pembleton: Doc checked him and he's fine. And in his cell where he's gonna stay.
 * Kincaid: You're that confident that you'll win?
 * Pembleton: I'm sure of it. I bribed the judge. I told her Bayliss would have sex with her for a favorable ruling.
 * Kincaid: You two-timing pig.
 * Bayliss: Well, she was naked underneath those black robes.

 * Lewis: Hey, look. It's Mr. Sunshine!
 * Pembleton: Oh, no, no, no. I'm tired of being the only one around here who gives a damn. You're looking at the new Frank Pembleton. Budding Republican and practicing selfish bastard. Savior of no one but himself. Shot of Gold Natty Bo. This is the new me!
 * Russert: One day you're gonna run for office and rue those words.

Justice (Part 2)

 * Bayliss: You always do this to me, nobody else, just me. Just your partner.
 * Pembleton: You ordered...a meatball hero?
 * Bayliss: Grilled cheese.
 * Pembleton: Oh, that's it.
 * Bayliss: That's what? What's wrong with a grilled cheese sandwich?
 * Pembleton: It's so... you know... white boy.
 * Bayliss: White boy?
 * Pembleton: Yeah, it's such a non-statement. White bread, American cheese, you know?
 * Bayliss: This isn't about the sandwich Frank, this is about you and me.
 * Pembleton: No, it's the sandwich.
 * Bayliss: You know, you're starting to display passive-aggressive tendencies. You're trying to tell me something by not bringing me lunch.
 * Pembleton: No. It's the sandwich.
 * Bayliss: Gimme my money back. I want my money back.
 * Pembleton: You have to wait for change.

 * Pembleton: Where's your mustache?
 * Brodie: Oh, I'm trying a new look right now.
 * Pembleton: Well, stop trying.

 * Pembleton: It was a grilled cheese. Get a grip.

Stakeout

 * Bayliss: I can't stop seeing her face. Adena Watson's face in the rain. Wounds on her body. She was so tiny. I try not to care, but if I do that, if I actually stop caring, then I stop being who I am. No job's worth that.

 * Bayliss: Those guys are like a family. I have never, ever felt that in Homicide. We may be the best, the elite, but we are not a family.
 * Pembleton: Yes we are. But we're like a real family. Opinionated, argumentative, holding grudges, challenging each other. We push each other to be better than we are. That kind of thing doesn't happen at barbecues or ball games. It happens on the job where it's supposed to. Putting down a murder. The work itself is the most important thing. What we do is important. We speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves and you're not gonna ever find anything like that anywhere, not in LA, or patrolling the grounds at Disneyland.

 * Bayliss: Frank, I work with you, not for you.
 * Pembleton: Excuse me?
 * Bayliss: You never say please, you never say thank you.
 * Pembleton: Please don't be an idiot. Thank you.

 * Kellerman: You don't think much of me, do you?
 * Munch: Actually, I have no opinion of you one way or another. You have yet to appear on my radar screen.

 * Giardello: You've been yelling a lot lately. At the drop of a hat, you start screaming.
 * Pembleton: Why would I yell if someone dropped their hat?

Requiem for Adena

 * Bayliss: This isn't about me, Frank. It's about Adena. It's about avenging Adena Watson's murder.
 * Pembleton: No. It's about you. It's always been about you. Do you think I don't know you?

 * Bayliss: Don't you see, Frank? The killer beat me. He beat me. Dooley, Tucker, whoever he is, he beat me. It was my first case Frank, my first case. I hadn't even started to be a Homicide Detective yet, and he beat me. I put everything I had into that case and it wasn't enough. I let myself care about this case and if he walks out of here, it'll all have been for nothing. It's all over.

 * Pembleton: Why are you wearing that carnation?
 * Bayliss: I have been wearing this for 2 days and you're just asking about it now?
 * Pembleton: I've had other things on my mind. So what's it for?
 * Bayliss: To hide the smell... To hide the smell of death.
 * Pembleton: To hide the smell of death?
 * Bayliss: Yeah, you got a problem with that?
 * Pembleton: No, no problem.

 * Bayliss: I didn't avenge Adena Watson's death. Now I never will. Never gonna know who killed her. I let her down, Gee.
 * Giardello: You're gonna hafta make your peace with that.
 * Bayliss: Let me ask you something, Gee. How do you know when to stop caring?
 * Giardello: I've been a cop a long time. I can tell you how to sweet talk a confession out of a stone cold killer, sidestep the politics of me and the bosses. I can tell you how to work a case until there's nothing left to be done but to file the paperwork. But the one thing I can't tell you, is when to stop caring.

 * Kellerman: You know, she is pretty hot.
 * Munch: Kay?
 * Kellerman: Yeah. I think it's the hair.
 * Munch: I don't wanna think about her hair. She's one of us. She's a detective.
 * Kellerman: She's a woman. You work around a woman all day, you notice her. It's human nature.
 * Munch: She's a sergeant for God's sake.

Full Moon

 * Lewis: [after finding a jar of yellowish water in a freezer] Does this look strange to you?
 * Kellerman: Nah, just good old Baltimore City tap water.
 * Lewis: [shaking his head] Nah.

Scene of the Crime

 * Muslim: [referring to Kellerman] How can you work with him?
 * Lewis: What? Who, him?
 * Muslim: He hates us; why do his bidding?
 * Lewis: Nah, he hates you. And most of the time, he does my bidding.

 * Munch: I got a call. Special guest at the Waterfront tonight. Wanna guess? The Big Man's coming back. Gonna need a lot of extra light beer tonight. ..
 * Bayliss: Oh, yeah!
 * Munch: Cuz you know who's coming back?
 * Pembleton: The Big Man!!

 * Kellerman: Why is Bolander called the Big Man? He fat?
 * Munch: Granted, Stanley Bolander is far from svelte, but it's not mere bulk which has earned the Big Man his title. He has what some might call a Brogdignagian build. He is in all senses a man of magnitude. Enormously fair, tremendously honest, and a whale of a detective.

Map of the Heart

 * Pembleton: Imagine Scheiner in a swimsuit.
 * Scheiner: I heard that.
 * Bayliss: You'll always be a beautiful swimmer to me, Dr. Scheiner.

 * Pembleton: Don't touch that door. That's my door. Now you've pissed me off. You and I? We're never gonna be friends.

 * Munch: Well, this gets to Internal, I've got a secret for them too.
 * Kellerman: You'd give me up?
 * Munch: On a platter, with an apple stuffed in your mouth.

The Damage Done

 * Kellerman: All this overtime; I'll never get schtupped.

 * Kellerman: [before meeting with Gee] Any advice?
 * Lewis: Yeah, he tends to spit when he yells. Just step back.

 * Bayliss: Well, well, well, Kellerman. Up until now, you've had a who-dun-it here, a dunker there, but now, now it looks like you're finally gonna pop the big-time detective cherry.
 * Pembleton: My advice to you is that you work this case alone so that if you put this case down, it doesn't look like we helped bail you out or something.

 * Giardello: It's pretty, isn't it? The way the board just stands there. A silent sentry to the dead and gone. I love the way the red and black meld together in harmony. A haiku of color and vengeance. Uh-oh. Look here. You're upsetting the balance. You see, Mike, you need just a little red. This is too much. I'd do something about that. Maybe some more black. Keep me smiling Kellerman.

 * Pembleton: In this corner, representing the pride of the Baltimore Police Department - Michael "I can take a whuppin" Kellerman!!

The Wedding

 * Munch: What if it's a trick on a grand scale, like an epic trick? Huh?
 * Russert: That's really paranoid, Munch.
 * Munch: Thank you.

 * Russert: Frank, how are the flowers coming?
 * Pembleton: What?
 * Russert: Flowers, flowers.
 * Pembleton: The lilies have landed.

 * Grandma: Isn't it a lovely wedding?
 * Russert: Yes, it is. I'm Megan Russert and this is John Munch.
 * Grandma: Munch? Oh, you're the one who took too many drugs and damaged his brain. I'm so sorry.
 * [Munch looks away in horror and Russert stifles her hysterical giggling]

 * Pembleton: Okay, here's the deal; I'm gonna take Mary home right now, and then I'm gonna find Lewis. And when I find him, I'm gonna kill him. I'm a very clever detective, and I will kill him in such a way, I will not be caught; he will simply disappear, and like all sphincters before him...he will not be missed.

 * Munch: How could anybody be too old for 101 Dalmatians? It's universal; It's like Homer: a great journey of the heart disguised as an adventure story.
 * Brodie: With dogs.

Work Related

 * Bayliss: Can I come?
 * Pembleton: Come where?
 * Bayliss: See the baby.
 * Pembleton: You've seen the baby.
 * Bayliss: I know, but I love babies.
 * Pembleton: Then have one of your own.
 * Bayliss: Hey Frank, remember when I said that I've never been invited to your house. I wanna come to your house, Frank.
 * Pembleton: No, not tonight.
 * Bayliss: I'll call your wife. Your wife will let me come over. Your wife likes me.
 * Pembleton: God knows why.
 * Bayliss: I'll meet you in the garage.
 * Pembleton: Oh, happy day.

 * Bayliss: Yeah, see when I saw that, I knew she would love it.
 * Pembleton: She's two weeks old, Bayliss. She doesn't know what she loves.
 * Bayliss: Sure, she does. Hey, Olivia, you like uncle Timmy, don't you? Yeah?
 * Pembleton: Uncle Timmy?
 * Bayliss: What?
 * Pembleton: Talking to babies in that goo-goo voice, like they're understanding. I hate that. I hate it.

 * Bayliss: Geez, Frank. What must you think when you look into this crib and see that face?
 * Pembleton: I see - Mary and me, struggling with two salaries to make sure Olivia goes to college. I see - me going ballistic because she comes in after curfew. I see - a guy, just like you, coming to my front door, saying I'm gonna marry your daughter.

 * Kellerman: C'mon Meldrick. Stay on the boat tonight.
 * Lewis: I love you man, but I'm not in love with you.

 * Bayliss: I am good Murder Police aren't I, Gee?
 * Giardello: Yes, of course.
 * Bayliss: I'm standing here thinkin' about Frank, about everything I've learned from him, the past four years.
 * Giardello: His technique in the box?
 * Bayliss: Yeah, but it's more than that. You know, I've finally got to a place where I understand how he thinks. See, when I find a suspect, I like to get in their brain, and figure out why they would wanna take another person's life. Why? But Frank, well, Frank, all he sees is a dead body. Doesn't matter to him who they were, what they did. He strips away their personality, he makes them all equal in death, because if they have been murdered, they must be avenged. Forward, without any hesitation, without any moral dilemma, his mind's so clear on that Gee, his mind. I just don't know if I'm gonna be as good a detective as I am without Frank.

Hostage (Part 1)

 * Gaffney: You know, Al, it's a good thing Russert runs off. Between her and Pembleton, it's like an episode of Nash Bridges around here.

 * Giardello: [to Gaffney] Lewis in a dress? This interests you?

Hostage (Part 2)

 * Pembleton: [Holding coffee pot] Who-who finished the last of the...uh...bagel?
 * Lewis: Bagel?
 * Pembleton: Bagel. Bagel. BAY-GUL! Hot. Brown. Liquid? Bagel.
 * Lewis: Oh, sure. Bagel.
 * Kellerman: You mean "coffee," Frank.
 * Pembleton: Th-that's what I said, isn't it?
 * Kellerman: Right, uh, the bagel.
 * Pembleton: [yelling] Who finished the last of the bagel, huh?
 * Lewis: [quietly] Kellerman.
 * Pembleton: [to Kellerman] You-you-you make the next pot, huh?

 * Pembleton: It's okay. I know. I talk funny. I walk funny. I'm a little bit slow. But I still know this job. Me and you. We can find this guy.
 * Bayliss: Frank, go home.
 * Pembleton: You don't think I'm good enough to be your partner, do you?
 * Bayliss: That's not true.
 * Pembleton: I'm the same man. I'm the same man. You don't think I'm the same man, do you? You think I'm never gonna be the same? You kiss my ass.

 * Bayliss: We're gonna find Gerry Uba, and I'm not gonna stop until I put this case down.
 * Munch: I forgot about this side of you.
 * Bayliss: What side?
 * Munch: The obsessive side.

 * Bayliss: You know, this isn't easy for me either. Everything's all switched around. I'm not usually the one who's driving, Frank; you are. And I'm not used to looking at the right side of your face, I'm used to looking at the left side.
 * Pembleton: [turning to the side] How's this? Now you can look at the back side of my face.
 * Bayliss: You know, I'm tough with you, you hate me. I'm nice to you, you hate me.

 * Pembleton: I had the stroke; I almost died. I'm supposed to be a different person, huh? I'm supposed to treat people better?
 * Bayliss: I'm not people; I'm your partner.
 * Pembleton: Oh, you're my partner. I sit at a desk. I am of absolutely no use to you and I'm your partner. I watch my weight. I watch my diet. I watch my blood pressure. Every 8 hours, no matter where I am, or what I'm doing, I hafta take a little white pill. If I don't follow the rules, I die. I'm not going to treat you differently. I won't. 'Cause that's not who I am. And who I am is all I have left.

Prison Riot

 * Bayliss: Have you ever been in prison, Meldrick?
 * Lewis: What? You mean as a prisoner?
 * Bayliss: Yeah.
 * Lewis: No.
 * Bayliss: I have.
 * Lewis: How come the more I know about you Bayliss, the less I wanna know? So 'fess up. What were you in the pokey for? Drunk driving, date rape, pedophilia?
 * Bayliss: No.
 * Lewis: So, what?
 * Bayliss: I protested human rights violations in El Salvador.
 * Lewis: Of course.
 * Bayliss: I was 18, 19.
 * Lewis: So how much time did you spend in jail for protesting human rights violations in El Salvador?
 * Bayliss: I was in the holding cell for two nights.
 * Lewis: Two nights? That don't exactly count as hard time.
 * Bayliss: They were very long nights.
 * Lewis: So why didn't you post bail?
 * Bayliss: My dad refused to come get me.
 * Lewis: Okay, that's harsh.
 * Bayliss: Yeah, my dad had very set ideas about life.
 * Lewis: Well at least I hope you stiffed him on Father's Day.
 * Bayliss: Every chance I got.

 * Kellerman: I just want you to know that I'm here for you. And if you want a hug, I'd be happy to give you one.
 * Bayliss: A hug?
 * Kellerman: Yeah.
 * Bayliss: Do you and Lewis hug?
 * Kellerman: Yeah.
 * Bayliss: A lot?
 * Kellerman: No, not a lot.
 * Bayliss: But enough.
 * Kellerman: What do you mean?
 * Bayliss: Well, do you want Lewis to hug you more?
 * Kellerman: Forget I brought this up.
 * Bayliss: No, no, no. You brought up the hugging thing.

 * Giardello: All we need is a couple of facts. We already know the truth.

 * Bayliss: Listen to me, I'm sounding like Pembleton here.
 * Howard: It could be worse, you could sound like Munch.

 * Bayliss: The law works any way we want it to.

Bad Medicine

 * Lewis: I'm looking for Stivers. I'm gonna smack him.
 * Stivers: Take your best shot, pal.
 * Lewis: Terri Stivers? You a woman.
 * Stivers: You homicide guys, always pickin' up on small details.

 * Kellerman: Someone's in the jackpot.
 * Lewis: Yeah, well, it ain't me. I ain't done nothing. Lately.

 * Vernon Troy: You gonna put my name on a warrant for Luther Mahoney?
 * Lewis: Right now, you're all we've got.
 * Vernon Troy: Then you ain't got jack; I'm outta here.
 * Lewis: Hold on now, hold on. Listen, I got an idea here.
 * Vernon Troy: Be quick, man. I'm ill.
 * Lewis: Yeah, you ill. You smell funky too.

 * Bayliss: You're looking good there, Frank. You're looking sure. Everyday, you're looking a little more sure. Not taking your medicine, are you? I'm a detective, Frank. A keen observer of the human condition. I pick up on the subtlest clues, I react to the slightest suggestion. In short, I deduce.
 * Pembleton: Who told you?
 * Bayliss: Brodie. You gotta take your medicine, Frank. If you don't take your pills Frank, your head's gonna explode.
 * Pembleton: What I gotta do is pass this test. I pass, I'm a detective. I fail, I'm office furniture.

M.E., Myself and I

 * Pandolfi: You're a funny man, Al. May I call you Al?
 * Giardello: No, you may not.

 * Lewis: [about Brodie] I'm Lewis, this is Bayliss, and that's the young Jimmy Olsen over there.

White Lies

 * Dr. Cox: Look at her eyes.
 * Munch: Did they move?
 * Dr. Cox: She's got makeup on.
 * Munch: So?
 * Dr. Cox: Most women take off their makeup before they go to bed.
 * Munch: Not the women I know.

 * Dr. Cox: Don't you even wonder why?
 * Munch: Why what?
 * Dr. Cox: Why he lied?
 * Munch: I'm a homicide cop. The only time I wonder why is when they tell me the truth.

 * Brodie: Bayliss threw me out. Lewis says I'm wrecking his marriage. Everybody hates me. I'm going to go live in a cardboard box.
 * Howard: Just try and get one from a Frigidaire 28ZGE. They're the biggest.

The Heart of a Saturday Night

 * Jude Silvio: I don't know what to say.
 * Counselor: You could start with your name.
 * Jude Silvio: Jude Silvio. My mother was a Beatles fan.
 * Counselor: I don't follow.
 * Jude Silvio: "Hey Jude". Don't be afraid. Take a sad song yeahyeahyeahyeahyeah.

The True Test

 * Pembleton: Homicide needs no metaphor... Homicide just is.

 * Bayliss: I hear you passed your firearms exam; that is the best news.
 * Pembleton: Well, not for you.
 * Bayliss: What do you mean?
 * Pembleton: The good times are over. The easy times. I'm back; I'm rested. I'm.... meaner than ever.

Control

 * Lewis: Not a single murder this week. That's not the Baltimore I know and love.

 * Lewis: [to onlookers] Okay. Who here saw what happened and wants to cooperate fully with the detectives on this investigation? [silence] Yep, our work here is done.

 * Munch: From the tracks on his arms, the large caliber wound, the proximity to a heroin market -- I'd say it was a heated dispute about the symbolism of red and blue in eighteenth century French romantic poetry.

 * Pembleton: Arrested once, hey, you're entitled. Arrested twice -- it's Baltimore, home of the bar brawl. But arrested three times for assault in one year -- maybe it's time for you to start admitting that you have emotional control problems.

 * Lewis: [to Luther Mahoney] I remember when I was workin' as a beat cop. Our job was to clear the corner. No big deal. Just tell people to move along and most of the time, the police tell you to move along, that's what you're gonna do, you're gonna move along. But every once in a while, there's gonna be some knucklehead fool, wanna keep standing on your corner talking trash. And he told me, don't you ever, ever, let some knucklehead stand on your corner and shame you. Cause once you've done that, you're done as a beat cop. So what he suggested I do, was that I take out my billy club and smack him upside the head so hard, that everybody who heard it knows who had the last word... Luther, you're on my corner.

Blood Wedding

 * Lewis: [about Kay Howard] Did you hear that? Danvers and I are just friends. That's baloney. Did you see her face?
 * Kellerman: Why do you push her buttons every chance you get?
 * Lewis: Because it is soooo easy.

 * Giardello: Hey, in this unit, Danvers is tu familia, cappice? I want you to take every word out of his mouth seriously. I want you to investigate every single lead, Frank. And if that's a problem with you, I can give this investigation over to Bayliss and he can handle it. Now, down the line, I want to be able to look Danvers in the eye.
 * Pembleton: Trust me, you will.

 * Julius: What the hell do you want?
 * Danvers: What do I want? To kill you. Only unlike you, I don't have a gun, so I'm gonna kill you the only way I know how. With the law. It may take the rest of my life, Julius, but I came here to swear an oath to you. I will live to see you die.

 * Danvers: Unless a case was absolutely winnable, I'd take a plea. Can't get first-degree? Lets go for second. Can't get second? How about manslaughter? Maybe we send him away for a year. Maybe when he gets out, he won't sell any more drugs. Maybe he won't rape any more children, rob any more stores. Maybe he won't murder anyone!

 * Danvers: I thought that if I won enough cases, filed enough briefs, worked enough hours, I could rid the world of all the Julius Cummings. Somewhere along the way I just forgot the victims' faces.

The Documentary

 * Brodie: The rights of the suspect. Give me your thoughts.
 * Pembleton: You are a citizen of a free nation. Having lived your adult life in a land of guaranteed civil liberties, you commit a crime of violence, whereupon you are jacked up, dragged down to Police Headquarters and deposited in a claustrophobic anteroom containing three chairs, a table, and cold brick walls. Have a seat, please. And there you sit for a half hour or more until a homicide detective, a man who can in no way be mistaken for a friend, enters the room. He offers you a cigarette, not your brand, and begins an uninterrupted monologue which wanders back and forth for a half hour or so, eventually coming to rest in a familiar place: you have the right to remain silent.

 * Bayliss: You have got the absolute right to remain silent!
 * Pembleton: Of course you do. You're a criminal. Criminals always have the right to remain silent.
 * Lewis: We're talking about sacred freedoms here, notably your Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. Hey, if it was good enough for Ollie North and Mark Fuhrman, who the hell are you to incriminate yourself at the first opportunity?
 * Munch: Get it straight, a police detective paid government money to put you in prison is explaining your absolute right to shut up before you say anything stupid.

 * Howard: The detective wants you to know, and we've been doing this a lot longer than you have, so you can take our word for it. Your rights to counsel... aren't all they're cracked up to be.
 * Pembleton: Once you actually up and call for that lawyer, son, there ain't a damn thing we can do for you. No, sir, your good friends in the Homicide Unit are gonna have to lock you all alone in this room. And the next authority figure to scan your case will be a no-nonsense prosecutor from the Violent Crimes Unit, with the official title "Assistant State's Attorney for the City of Baltimore."
 * Munch: And God help you then, 'cause a ruthless blood-sucker like that'll have an O'Donnell Heights motorhead like yourself halfway to the gas chamber before you get three words out.
 * Kellerman: Your best bet is to speak up. Speak up now.

 * Pembleton: You're history. And if I wasn't so busy writing up your statement, I'd probably tell you so. I'd say, "Son, you are ignorance personified, and you just put yourself in for the murder of a human being." I might even admit to you that after all my years working murders, I'm still a little amazed that anyone utters a word in this room. Think about it, son. When you came through those doors, what did the sign say? Homicide Unit, that's right. Who lives in a homicide unit? And what do homicide detectives do for a living? You got it, bunk. And tonight you took somebody's life. So when you opened your mouth, what in God's name were you thinking?

 * [Seeing footage of Lewis and narcotics detective Terri Stivers on a date]
 * Giardello: You and Detective Stivers.
 * Lewis: Gee, Detective Stivers and I were having a meeting. We were trying to figure out a way to get Luther Mahoney off the streets once and for all.
 * Pembleton: It doesn't look like a business meeting.
 * Lewis: There are business meetings and then there's -- there's business meetings.
 * Munch: Word to the wise, Meldrick? Nix the horizontal rumba with a fellow detective. Don't dip your wick in the company ink.
 * Lewis: I wasn't. [to Brodie] Why you want to film that?

Betrayal

 * Pembleton: [to Bayliss] We really could have used her statement. Are you going to yell at everybody today?

 * Giardello: I don't know if Bayliss should be the primary on this case.
 * Howard: You can't take the case away from him, Gee.
 * Giardello: He's had a bad history with murdered children and I don't want that interfering with his ability to do his job.
 * Pembleton: It won't interfere.
 * Giardello: How do you know that?
 * Pembleton: I trust my partner. We'll put this case down.
 * Giardello: He trusts his partner? The forgiving Frank Pembleton?

 * Bayliss: It wouldn't kill you to show some enthusiasm. Smile every once in a while.
 * Pembleton: Well, I'm not a smiler, I'm not a hugger, I'm not a sensitive guy. That's you, not me.

 * Bayliss: You and me, Frank. We've got all the luck. A dead child. Murdered little girl. Call Pembleton or Bayliss, they've got lots of experience.

 * Pembleton: What, you're feeling sorry for yourself cause you lost a case?
 * Bayliss: I've spent my life trying not to feel sorry for myself. See, Adena Watson, Janelle Parsons, Tonya Thompson. Every murdered child, every abused child, I understand. Cause all those children are me. Yeah, I know what that's all about. You see, my uncle, my father's brother, I was 5 years old, and he would follow me into the bathroom and he would close the door and he would take my hand in his and he would.... After he was done, he would smile and he would say what a good boy I was and oh, yeah, shhh....And this went on for years, years. My, my parents, they couldn't understand why I cried at every holiday, every family get together. So when I was 8 years old, I told my father, what had been going on, and I remember it was a struggle to get those words out and my father just stared at me and he asked me why I was lying. And he was my father and he was supposed to protect me Frank, but he didn't. See, for him, whatever was happening, it was like an inconvenience. See, to him, I wasn't a real person, and he never saw me, he never really looked at me. Ever.
 * Pembleton: Tim, I'm sorry.
 * Bayliss: I don't want your comfort Frank. That's not why I told you.
 * Pembleton: Alright.
 * Bayliss: By the way, I don't wanna be partners with you anymore.

Have a Conscience

 * Lewis: Luther, Luther, look both ways before crossing the street, my brother.
 * Luther Mahoney: You do the same.

 * Howard: I'll go have a conversation with the illustrious Luther Mahoney.
 * Lewis: I'm goin' to put a bullet in his brain.
 * Howard: Hey, that's a thought.

 * Kellerman: We do this job. A job that nobody gives a piss about and what are we? We're garbagemen. There isn't any consideration anymore, they just keep killing each other. They should have to go out and roll a body and see what we see.

 * Kellerman: He stands up for us and where are we for him? Have a beer, right? So we can raise a toast to the son of a bitch because he was an idiot, thinking he could make a difference in the world.
 * Lewis: He wasn't an idiot.
 * Kellerman: No? All he had to do was go along with the program; just let them sell drugs off the corner, just accept things as they are and he'd still be alive. Your old partner Crosetti - he was an idiot too.
 * Lewis: What?
 * Kellerman: He let it all get to him.
 * Lewis: Why you wanna go there, man? Why you wanna drag Crosetti into this?
 * Kellerman: I see certificates of merit hanging in the squadroom. For what? So we can remember what a great guy he was, what a great detective? Does him a lot of good that he's remembered. Just a stupid, pathetic moron is what he was.
 * Lewis: Why you wanna talk about Crosetti like that? Why you wanna talk about someone you didn't even know?
 * Kellerman: There's the door. You don't wanna hear it, get out.
 * Lewis: He was a good man and he was a good detective. You don't know the first thing about him so what gives you the right to talk about someone you don't even know?
 * Kellerman: What, he's a mystery?! He kills himself. He tossed his drunk, pill-popping ass in the water and he comes up a floater. He should have eaten his gun.
 * Lewis: Mike-
 * Kellerman: No! No "Mike"! No more partner, no more friend, none of it! This is done between us!

 * Lewis: You letting them tell you that you don't matter, but we do matter, Mike. We do. I miss Crosetti. Sometimes I wake up and I think I'm gonna see his big head in the squadroom. But I don't; I just see you. You a better cop than he was. I ain't taking nothing away from him, but you are and I ain't just saying that. This is the job, Mike. This is what we do. I just wanna be a good cop. And if I walk outta here and I let you smoke yourself, am I still a good cop?

Diener

 * Munch: Ah, provolone and onion. Bland and zing. Soft and crunch. The Yin and Yang of sandwich filling.
 * Brodie: Only a man with no woman in his life eats extra onion for lunch.

 * Lewis: Nothin's missing, so I guess we can rule out a robbery, huh?
 * Pembleton: We don't guess, Meldrick, we hypothesize. We infer. We extrapolate from the evidence. We do not guess.
 * Lewis: Go easy on me, would you Frank? It's early in the morning, I haven't had my first donut yet.

 * Jeff: Who do you guys think did this?
 * Lewis: In my best extrapolation? Professor Plum, in the library, with the candlestick.

 * Giardello: Do I smell the acrid aroma of squad room discord? The breakdown of the collaborative process? 'Cause I'd hate to think that two of my carefully matched detectives are finding lumps in the honeymoon mattress.

 * Lewis: And you know what else, Frank? Love spelled backwards is "evil." E-v-o-l.
 * Pembleton: That's not love spelled backwards. That's live spelled backwards.
 * Lewis: Cut me some poetic slack, will ya, Frank?

Wu's on First?

 * Lewis: The longer I do this job, the more I realize that everything is about your relationship with your mother.

Valentine's Day

 * Kellerman: You sure you want me with you?
 * Bayliss: Yeah. Sure, why not?
 * Kellerman: I don't know. The last time we worked together, you, uh, were kinda snarky.
 * Bayliss: Snarky?
 * Kellerman: Yeah. Snarky. You know, from the ancient Greek, meaning butthead.

 * Dr. Cox: I just love bombs. They always make the autopsy so easy.

 * Gene: Hey, I found an ear.
 * Bayliss: Friends, Romans, countrymen....
 * Kellerman: Ear today, gone tommorow.
 * Dr. Cox: You guys are so sick.

 * Giardello: [to Frank, about Bayliss] Whatever problems you two are having, just remember one thing... 'all we are is dust in the wind.'
 * Pembleton: I had no idea you were a Kansas fan.

 * Pembleton: [to Giardello] What we do down here is important. We speak for those that can...no longer speak for themselves.

Kaddish

 * Munch: The only thing I have in common with Judaism is we both don't like to work on Saturdays.

 * Munch: Come on, do it for me just one more time, please, and I won't ask you again.
 * Kellerman: Would you give it a rest?
 * Munch: Just once more, please?
 * Kellerman: Oy vey iz mir, I'm so meshugenah I could plotz.
 * Munch: Do it again.
 * Kellerman: No.

 * Munch: You remember when you were young and the most exciting thing that you thought of was that girl in your French class. You hoped she'd talk to you, let you walk her home, maybe even let you hold her hand.
 * Kellerman: Every time you looked at her you got embarrassed.
 * Munch: You couldn't imagine sleeping with her. All you could think about was reaching down for her hand, weaving your fingers together, have her palm touch your palm. We forget what that was like. We have sex, get married, fight, get divorced. Somewhere along the line we forgot how wonderful it is to hold another human being's hand. What happens to us that we take things like that for granted?
 * Kellerman: I don't know. We get older, I guess.
 * Munch: We get older, forget who we used to be, what we used to believe in. Love, peace, the Colts would always be in Baltimore. Here's to all the Helen Rosenthals of the world.

Double Blind

 * Pembleton: Okay, we got multiple chest wounds, an open door, and a weapon halfway across the living room.
 * Dr. Cox: It's going to be hell writing this one up as a suicide, I'll tell you that much.

 * Bayliss: Well, now I've seen it all. Frank Pembleton, public defender?

 * Bayliss: Now, you want to call that first bullet self-defense, fine. First one's on the house. Second bullet, you want to say that that was shot in fear, that's great, that's no problem because, you know, we're going to give her a two bullet handicap. But the third shot, Frank, the one where he's down on the floor, and he's of no threat to anyone at all, Frank, come on...

 * Pembleton: This man was a bastard.
 * Bayliss: Yeah, he was.
 * Pembleton: He got what he deserved.
 * Bayliss: Yes, he did.
 * Pembleton: Manslaughter, 5 years suspended.
 * Bayliss: What are you talking about? It doesn't work that way!
 * Pembleton: [laughs] It doesn't?
 * Bayliss: No! No, you can't just go through this world giving every bastard what he deserves!

 * Bayliss: Where do I put my hate?

Deception

 * Dr. Cox: You depress me, Munch. Don't you ever think of anything positive to say?
 * Munch: Hey, if he's not murdered, it's not my problem.

 * Stivers: Luther Mahoney. What do you say? You in?
 * Lewis: You mention Luther Mahoney, we'll follow you to the ends of the earth.

 * Parking Attendant: Could you please bring some identification to the front desk?
 * Lewis: No problem. [drives through gate]

 * Lewis: [after beating up Luther] I'm a good cop, Luther. I'm an honest cop. That means I got standards.
 * Luther Mahoney: I'm not armed.
 * Lewis: Never beat on a man half your size. People won't think it's a fair fight.
 * Luther Mahoney: I'm surrendering.
 * Lewis: Never put an ass-whooping on a man unless you're damn sure he got it coming to him. I'm going to be beating on you for a little while.
 * Luther: You're crazy, Lewis.
 * Lewis: I've been a cop for a long time. And drugs out there, we're never gonna win that. There's a hundred open-air drug markets in this city and 50,000 drug fiends out there. And we are taking on human desires with lawyers and jailhouses and lockups and you and I both know human desire is kicking us in the ass. So what I need to know, Luther, is why you couldn't be happy with just the package. If you were just slinging drugs maybe you and I wouldn't be here. But the bodies. What about the bodies? What is up with that?

 * Kellerman: [to Luther] You have the right to remain silent.
 * [He shoots Luther]

Narcissus

 * Munch [shocked at finding a cooperative murder witness in West Baltimore] Tell me, Mr. Joseph, are there anymore like you at home?

 * Dr. Cox: Personally, I feel that if anyone gets killed after 2 AM, they have no right to a quality death investigation.

 * Munch: We have an expression in Homicide: Our day begins when yours ends.

Partners and Other Strangers (Part 1)

 * Howard: Bastards killed him in his own bathroom.
 * Pembleton: They murdered him. Beau believed there was a distinction between murder and killing.
 * Howard: We don't close this case, it's on me. I should've known it wasn't a suicide. I let the case get cold because I believed the worst of Beau. I believed he was capable of killing himself and ughhh, I hated him for that. For his being weak, selfish, everything I hated about him when we were partners. But with Beau, it was always when hating him the most, that he would turn around and do something incredibly, stupidly, sweet. Just got to hate him all the more... Don't tell anyone I cried.

 * Lewis: So, Cox and Kellerman, Julia and Mikey, Bones and the Badge.

Strangers and Other Partners (Part 2)

 * Munch: [to Gharty & Falsone] Girls, girls, you're both pretty.

 * Gharty: What is it then?
 * Pembleton: I'm on the street. I'm working. I need to know that if push comes to shove, my partner will fight for me. I don't wanna go through a door or down some alley and then find out nobody's got my back.
 * Gharty: So, that's it.
 * Pembleton: How am I supposed to trust someone who won't go through the same doors as me? Howard, Lewis, Bayliss, every cop on this shift will fight. Every cop will fight. I know that. I depend upon it.

 * Lewis: I can't believe it. You lost a witness. How tall are you Mike?
 * Kellerman: How tall am I?
 * Lewis: Yeah, what, about 6'1, 6'2?
 * Kellerman: 6'1. Why are you asking how tall I am?
 * Lewis: I didn't know they could pile crap that high.

 * Giardello: [at Beauragard Donald 'Beau' Felton's memorial ceremony] Bodies still fall. The phone still rings. We still fill out our daily run sheets and argue about overtime. The board still collects names... in red & black. But long after the cases blur, and fade entirely from our memory... we still remember our own.

Blood Ties (Part 1)

 * Georgia Rae Mahoney: Have we met?
 * Kellerman: No, but I once had the pleasure of shooting your brother.

 * Bayliss: Homicide, sweet Homicide.

 * Bayliss: Give me Homicide or give me death.

 * Pembleton: Where's Brodie?
 * Munch: PBS aired his documentary. He won an Emmy.
 * Bayliss: An Emmy? They give those things to anybody.

 * Bayliss: Hey Gharty, whose house are you in? Frank here, has closed more cases than the two of you will in a lifetime.
 * Gharty: This is his house? I'm a guest?

Blood Ties (Part 2)

 * Munch: Hey pal, where you from?
 * Scott Russell: [an obvious New Yorker] Baltimore.
 * Kellerman: Oh yeah?
 * Scott Russell: Abso-freakin'-lutely. I love Baltimore. Eat crabs. Go, Orioles.
 * Munch: That's not how we say it.
 * Kellerman: It's 'Bawlmer,' hon. We lose the 't.'
 * Scott Russell: Oh yeah, well lose this, pal.

Blood Ties (Part 3)

 * Lewis: I have danced with Junior before.

 * Stivers: You partnering with Lewis?
 * Falsone: Yeah, just started. Two days.
 * Stivers: So, you sleep together a few times, and as soon as he goes to the john, and leaves his pants behind, you're in his wallet, checking the receipts, seeing where he's been and what he's done. Either you trust a man or you don't.

Birthday
HOMICIDE - 1997

Baby It's You

 * Falsone: I was thinking about puttin' out one of those bikini calendars, you know, Cops of Baltimore.
 * Curtis: What happened?
 * Falsone: You see the cops in Baltimore?
 * Curtis: You're right. Munch in a thong would be a little hard on the eyes.

Saigon Rose
Homicide - 1997

Subway

 * Pembleton: I told Lange I'd put our best detectives on it.
 * Lewis: Don't try to back-door me with that "best" business, Frank. You ain't about compliments.

All is Bright

 * Gee: What I'm saying is, this isn't Italy. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.  When in Baltimore, do as I tell you to.

Closet Cases

 * Bayliss: I'm just speaking my mind here, Frank. I can do that with you because you are a man.
 * Pembleton: Well, pretend I'm a woman. That way you can keep your thoughts to yourself.

Sins of the Father

 * [Lewis and Falsone check out a victim found hanging in a basement]
 * Falsone: So it's a murder. Wow! A hanging murder.
 * Lewis: A member of the Baltimore City Police Department, Homicide unit used the word 'Wow' on a crime scene?
 * Falsone: You gotta admit it, Meldrick, it's a little different. I mean we get shootings and cuttings, cuttings and shootings, and every now and then some mope tries to pound someone to death with a baseball bat, but who goes to the trouble of trying to hang people nowadays?
 * [Dr. Cox comes onto the scene]
 * Dr. Cox: Wow!

 * [Lewis and Falsone approach a group of kids consorting near a corner drug peddler.]
 * Lewis: So remember kids: don't just say "no" to drugs, say "no, thank you"!

 * Lewis: New rule. If we have a suspect in custody, it's murder. And if the suspect is unknown, it's the worst case of suicide I've ever seen. Huh? That's my new rule. I think it's going to make us all very happy.

Shaggy Dog, City Goat

 * Lewis: She gonna be in my face; I'm gonna be in her face. Every step of the way.
 * Giardello: Meldrick, in her face is one thing; breaking it's another.

 * Kellerman: Enough with the metaphors.
 * Munch: If not metaphors, what are we left with? We have a riddle, surrounded by a mystery, wrapped inside an enigma, and stuffed inside a body bag.

Something Sacred (Part 1)

 * [At the scene of a priest's murder]
 * Ballard: Heaven can wait. Homicide can't.

 * Pembleton: You know, the thing about Baltimore is we're an easy-going town. You murder one Catholic priest, you've gotten our attention. But hey, you murder two, we take it personally.

Something Sacred (Part 2)

 * Ballard: My cat did it, my dog did it, the devil made me do it.
 * Gee: Then check. If the devil is behind this, I want his ass in the box.

 * Pembleton: Blind faith is the crutch of fools.

Pit Bull Sessions

 * Munch: The important point is that we win certain cases because our brains are repositories for intelligence and their brains are day-old banana pudding.

 * Munch: Stupid killers are a gift from God.

Mercy

 * Dr. Turner: That's what the hospice movement is all about. Giving the patient a say in how they die.
 * Pembleton: With dignity.
 * Dr. Turner: You sound skeptical.
 * Pembleton: I've seen a lot of death; haven't seen much dignity.

 * Munch: Hey partner, ready to roll?
 * Kellerman: Actually, I gotta run to the dentist; I cracked a filling.
 * Munch: Which part do you hate the worst? The rubber dam they put in your mouth to open it, or the sound of the drill?
 * Kellerman: I think the worst part is when I scream like a little girl.

 * Giardello: Invite Dr. Turner in for a casual conversation and treat her with kid gloves.
 * Pembleton: And if she declines?
 * Giardello: A woman decline an invitation from you, Frank?

 * Dr. Turner: What would you charge me with, if you could?
 * Pembleton: How about playing God?
 * Dr. Turner: God doesn't make house calls; you and I do.
 * Pembleton: I don't play God.
 * Dr. Turner: Well, that's what you do everyday. You decide who's innocent and who's guilty. You say - you - I'm gonna get you. But you - I'm gonna let you go.
 * Pembleton: I avenge the dead.
 * Dr. Turner: Is that why I'm here? Because you think you need to speak for my patients?
 * Pembleton: Somebody's got to.
 * Dr. Turner: Who the hell are you? You didn't hold their hands when they were screaming and hollering all night long. You didn't mop up any mucus or their diarrhea or their vomit. You didn't clean the pus out of anybody's sores, or throw your body across theirs to keep them in the bed when they were thrashing around in their death throes, with bile and blood gushing from every orifice. You didn't comfort their families who will never ever get over their loss. Detective, how dare you presume to speak for my patients?! They didn't need you then, and they sure as hell don't need you now.

 * Billie Lou Hatfield: I come from a place where people think the moon landing was fake and pro wrestling is real.

Abduction

 * Falsone: You're not going to go for this Gee, are you?
 * Giardello: At this stage in the game, I'd take help from that woman on Profiler. How quickly can we air the story?

Full Court Press

 * Ballard: We speak for the dead, remember?
 * Kellerman: Screw the dead. What have their moldering asses ever done for me?

 * Pembleton: You're not Manuel Rendares, are you?
 * Weeks: Bernard Weeks. How the hell did y'all get onto me? I was so damn careful. I've been moving this kind of weight for 5 years and not so much as a traffic stop. Y'all DEA, right?
 * Bayliss: No.
 * Weeks: FBI, Customs?
 * Pembleton: Nope.
 * Weeks: Local narcotics. How long you been onto me? 6 months? Longer? You had to be on me for about a year, year and a half, to roll up on me with this kinda weight.
 * Pembleton: Nah. We weren't looking for you.
 * Weeks: Say what?
 * Pembleton: We're not local narcotics.
 * Bayliss: We're Baltimore Homicide. We're lookin for someone else. This is just a ...a mistake.
 * Weeks: A mistake?
 * Pembleton: Yeah.
 * Weeks: You roll up on me with 200 kilograms and it's a mistake?!
 * Pembleton: Well, you haven't by any chance killed anybody in Baltimore lately, have you?
 * Weeks: No way.
 * Pembleton: [exasperated] We just wasted another day.
 * Weeks: [stunned] A mistake?
 * Bayliss: Yeah. Sorry. Get him outta here.

 * Giardello: My heroes.
 * Bayliss: Well, that's what we are, Gee.
 * Giardello: My drug warriors. (mock surprise) Oh my. Why, it's still red. In all this excitement, I didn't see this red name on the board here. Gaynor. Now how could I have forgotten this red name on the board?

 * Lewis: Falsone, you got to relax, brother. C'mon, man.
 * Falsone: Meldrick, are you whackin' these guys?
 * Lewis: I'm a cop, Falsone.
 * Falsone: I have to ask.
 * Lewis: No, no. You ain't got-to-ask. You think I'm like them? You think I play by those rules?

 * Lewis: It done folded just like you said it would, Gee.
 * Giardello: Well, my words are my bond.
 * Lewis: Yeah. Exactly how many favors you hafta call in on this one?
 * Giardello: More than you'd ever want to know.
 * Gaffney: Detective Lewis.
 * Lewis: Captain.
 * Gaffney: You look good in uniform, Lewis.
 * Lewis: Why, thank you, sir.
 * Gaffney: If it was up to me, you'd be back in a squad car for that stunt you pulled.
 * Lewis: Yes sir.
 * Gaffney: Course, your lieutenant here, he thinks otherwise, but I've always said Al's problem's a lack of discipline. If I was running his shift, I'd be offering you a transfer.
 * Lewis: Respectfully speaking sir, if you were running his shift, I'd be taking it.

Strangled, Not Stirred
HOMICIDE - 1998

Secrets

 * Bayliss: What would it take for you to kill yourself?
 * Ballard: A date with John Munch.

Finnegan's Wake

 * Bayliss: If this case is such a legend, how come I don't know anything about it? I mean, I've been in this unit for 6 years now and I've never heard anyone say anything about Clara Sloane.
 * Pembleton: Look, when you caught the Adena Watson case your first week in Homicide, and the case didn't go down, nobody had the heart to tell you about her, ok?

 * Pembleton: You wish you'd stayed with the Sloane case?
 * Bayliss: Yeah.
 * Pembleton: Maybe it's good that you passed on it. You know, you started in, another dead little girl, nightmares....
 * Bayliss: That wound is healed Frank.
 * Pembleton: Why pull off the scab?

 * Pembleton: Don't say a single word, Munch.
 * Munch: What's to say?
 * Finnegan: The guy give it up? You're coming from a box session, right? That ugly mope? He won't go?
 * Munch: Suspect demanded to see an attorney.
 * Finnegan: Oh, he does, does he? Did you give him a taste of the phonebook?
 * Munch: Uh, we haven't hit anybody with a phonebook around here since '96.

 * Falsone: What are you drinking? I've got you covered all night.
 * Finnegan: That's very nice of you, bitch. Jamesons straight up. You know, when I was working murders, we used to drink across the street.
 * Munch: The Waterfront?
 * Finnegan: In my day, we wouldn't be caught dead in the Waterfront. I'll take you to a place where true police held court.
 * Munch: Ouch.

Fallen Heroes (Part 1)

 * Pembleton: You think if somebody wanted to write a book about us?
 * Bayliss: What, about you and me?
 * Pembleton: The unit. Homicide detectives.
 * Bayliss: Right. Fat chance.

 * Junior Bunk: [to Lewis and Kellerman] Who do you think you all dealin' with, huh? Huh, I'm a man! I ain't no boy! A man! I'll do the twenty. I'll do the life. I don't care. So you all go ahead, send me straight to death row. Put the poison in my veins. But I'm done talkin'. You hear me? I'm telling your, your skinny white ass, and your sorry black ass, go ahead, ring me up, please. Do whatever it is you think you can do to me.

 * Kellerman: [to Lewis, referring to Junior] Don't get too close; she bites. You might lose a finger.

 * Munch: What the hell happened? I go across the street for a cocktail; I come back to the squadroom it's the Alamo.
 * Lewis: Junior Bunk snatched a weapon out of Tambelli's desk. Gharty, Ballard, three uniforms got hit.

 * Giardello: No recriminations, not yet. Not until we finish this. No one in the Mahoney organization sleeps tonight. We take everyone. We take every house, we kick in every door. Georgia Rae wanted a war, well guess what, she's got one. Now let's go.

Fallen Heroes (Part 2)

 * Bayliss: I'm glad we got out of the office. Smell was getting to me.
 * Pembleton: I hadn't noticed.
 * Bayliss: You didn't notice the smell? You didn't notice the blood and the powder residue? We're workin' right in the middle of a crime scene.
 * Pembleton: I noticed, okay?
 * Bayliss: I knew Keckham pretty well, from the mayor's detail. Decent guy.
 * Pembleton: I worked with Charlie Moore in the Western. Same sector. He's a good man.
 * Bayliss: You know something, I didn't see it. Didn't see it coming, didn't see him. And he's comin' in there and he's playin' all hard, but we get a lot of guys that come in there doin' that same thing, you know?
 * Pembleton: You think we were supposed to know he was the one? That this punk, out of all the other punks who come through the squadroom, this one's goin' over the top? Please.
 * Bayliss: Well, I'm runnin' around in my gun locker and I'm tryin' to get my backup gun cause my gun is in my desk. It's in the bottom left drawer. He's blowin' up the place, and my gun is sittin' down there; it's sittin' with the pencils, with the paper clips.
 * Pembleton: Nobody was ready.
 * Bayliss: Well, I'm ready now.
 * Pembleton: Ready for what?
 * Bayliss: Anything, Frank. Anyone.

 * Kellerman: He had a gun! That is the truth! He had a gun. [lowers arm]
 * Pembleton: The gun is down?
 * Kellerman: He had a gun; he had it!
 * Falsone: The gun is down. Mahoney lowered his gun. You fired. You were no longer in fear of iminent threat. You shot him down.
 * Pembleton: Give me your badge, Mike.

 * Pembleton: I have this one son of a bitch sighted. I have my gun up, and, I don't know. I don't. I blanked. I froze. I didn't even hear the shot. Next thing I know, Tim's layin' on the ground, lookin' up at me. Bleedin'. Because of me.
 * Mary: Frank, don't do this. You didn't know this was gonna happen.
 * Pembleton: Dear God, make Bayliss fight. God, please. I swear, I will do anything. Let him live. I'm askin'. I'm beggin'. Help my friend. I want him to live.

 * Giardello: Frank.
 * Pembleton: [throws badge on table] I'm done.
 * Giardello: What?
 * Pembleton: Bayliss is in there because of what? A partner who can't get him through safely to the end of the shift.
 * Giardello: Look, this is not your fault.
 * Pembleton: Yeah, it's mine. And I'll carry it. I gotta carry it. Bayliss is in there because of me. And you. And Lewis, Kellerman, and Stivers. All of it. But what is it? What is it really?
 * Giardello: Frank.
 * Pembleton: It's a lie. A damn lie. Now, maybe you can live with this lie, but, me, I just walked into the box with a man I served with. A fellow detective, Kellerman. I watched him turn to dirt. You told me to do it. I did it. Now you want me to look away. Live this lie. If I had listened to you...if I had just listened, I never woulda come back to the job. Then Tim, Tim is not layin' in that bed, with all those damn tubes stickin' out of him. I know that smell. Smells like death. I couldn't listen, could I? There's no truth for me anymore, not anymore. I can't be out on the street. I'm never goin' back in that box ever again. It's done. I'm finished.

La Famiglia

 * Bayliss: Life's an illusion. Reality is an illusion. You take this squadroom for instance, you know, after the big shootout. Last May, the bosses wanted to renovate. They reconfigured the whole place so that those of us who watched three uniforms die could put aside the horror of that moment and go about our jobs. That was actually quite enlightened of the bosses, really, but, it was quite futile, because this squadroom is the same squadroom, and our memories of that moment are as vivid as they ever were. All of this is just... it's an illusion.
 * Lewis: Bayliss, this is your first day back on the job.
 * Bayliss: Right.
 * Lewis: Do me a favor? Shut up.

 * Munch: You don't want to partner with me. I'm bad luck. I'm a curse: Bolander, Russert, Kellerman. I'm like a black hole. You partner with me before you hand your badge in.
 * Bayliss: Look, look, look, it's not a permanent thing; I'm not asking for a long term commitment.
 * Munch: I understand. You stayed with Pembleton for six years, he broke your heart, and now you're just looking for a one-nighter, huh?
 * Bayliss: Yeah, something like that.

 * Bayliss: I died, y'know, after I got shot. It's...
 * Munch: You mean you had a near death experience?
 * Bayliss: Oh, no, not near death. I, uh, actually died.
 * Munch: You mean you were going towards a bright light and all your ancestors were waving "howdy"?
 * Bayliss: No... It was more like I, uh... more like I could feel all the... I don't know, the different... parts of me, the... elements that make up my physical presence - water, air, earth - I could feel them... breaking apart, dissipating... Yeah, becoming one with, um... The greatest force of energy in the universe.
 * Munch: Tim, this Zen detective thing is starting to really rub my rectum the wrong way.
 * Bayliss: Oh. I don't expect you to understand unless you understand, John.
 * Munch: See, that's exactly what I'm talking about.
 * Bayliss: What?
 * Munch: It's like being partner with a fortune cookie.

 * Falsone: When it comes to silence, we Sicilians have a patent.

 * Lewis: You see this, this is what I'm talkin' about. You see this memo from the bosses?
 * Sheppard: Which one? We get three a day.
 * Lewis: In an effort to maintain the pristine condition of the newly renovated squadroom, all Homicide personnel are asked not to hang personal items on the wall. This includes family photos, sports paraphernalia, and bumper stickers. Staff members are also asked not to use thumbtacks or Scotch tape to affix- and I love that word affix- any papers, schedules, or menus on said walls.
 * Sheppard: Let me see that. [takes memo]
 * Lewis: How long do you think we're gonna be able to maintain this pristine condition?
 * Sheppard: [tacks memo to wall] Not long.
 * Lewis: This place's gonna be a dump by Christmas.

Brotherly Love

 * Emergency Room Doctor: The victim's name is Scotty Meyers, gunshot to the head.
 * Ballard: Did he say anything about who shot him?
 * Emergency Room Doctor: No, ADASTW.
 * Gharty: What?
 * Emergency Room Doctor: Arrived Dead And Stayed That Way.

 * Bayliss: That's a book that I got for Rene.
 * Munch: Zen for Beginners?
 * Bayliss: Yeah, she was asking me some questions about Buddhism.
 * Munch: And you're concerned with her spiritual well-being.
 * Bayliss: Absolutely. Well, y'know, probably I'm also thinking she might go out with me.
 * Munch: Let me get this straight: you're interested in Rene romantically?
 * Bayliss: Yeah. Yeah, why not? She's single, she's beautiful, and she's very open-minded.
 * Munch: I knew about you all along, Timmy.
 * Bayliss: What's that, John?
 * Munch: Beneath all that dogma- you're still a dog.

 * Lewis: How the hell could Susan Dehen not know she was sleeping with her boyfriend's brother.
 * Munch: Well, you said they looked exactly alike, right?
 * Sheppard: Yeah, but in bed, there's a lot more going on than the visuals.
 * Lewis: Sound...
 * Sheppard: Taste...
 * Lewis: Smell...
 * Sheppard: Touch...
 * Munch: Cable.

Just an Old Fashioned Love Song

 * Munch: It's like this dream I had when I was a kid: first day of school, wandering around the halls, looking for the right classroom. People are staring at me, and this girl I had a crush on - Helen Rosenbaum - she's laughing and pointing at me, and I realized I didn't get dressed. I'm buck naked. All I have on is my shoes and socks.
 * Lewis: Black socks?
 * Munch: Argyle.
 * Lewis: I had that dream.
 * Munch: Everybody has that dream. It's the human condition in a nutshell.

 * Munch: You haven't experienced the Giardello summons yet, the full force laser beam Gee-Ray; strips varnish off furniture, enamel off teeth?
 * Sheppard: Not yet.
 * Munch: You're in for a treat.

 * Munch: Bayliss, don't give me any zen song and dance about how money is an illusion, taxes are an illusion, the IRS is an illusion.
 * Bayliss: On the contrary, John, money is Mara, the Destroyer, the Evil One.

 * Munch: Mike, do you know anybody in the IRS?
 * Michael Giardello: IRS?
 * Lewis: Don't go there.
 * Munch: I'm lookin' for information on an IRS agent. Address, phone number, marital status.
 * Michael Giardello: You want me to dig up some dirt on an IRS agent?
 * Munch: Isn't there some super-secret federal database that you could access?
 * Michael Giardello: What are you, nuts? You don't mess with the IRS.
 * Munch: But you're FBI, you could say I'm toe to toe with these guys.
 * Michael Giardello: I could. The question is, why would I?
 * Lewis: Leave it alone, Munchkin.
 * Munch: It's not like I'm gonna stalk the guy, Mike, I just need an edge.

 * Munch: The Zapruder film's out on VHS and DVD, as if there's a choice.
 * Billie Lou Hatfield: DVD, definitely. Gotta have that freeze frame, stop action, enhancement capability.
 * Munch: One night after work, we should open a bottle of zinfandel and watch the Zapruder film frame by frame and see which ones are missing.
 * Billie Lou Hatfield: Twenty-six seconds of the most compelling footage ever filmed.
 * Munch: The woman of my dreams.

The Twenty Percent Solution

 * Bayliss: What's that on your tie there? Is it...pesto sauce?
 * Griscom: You wish.

 * [The squad was making a list of hip Jews, and Sammy Davis Jr. came up, although some said he was hip just because he was black]
 * Falsone: So you're saying all black people are hip?
 * Lewis: Name one who ain't.
 * Falsone: George Washington Carver.
 * Michael Giardello: Please. How many things can a white man do with a peanut?
 * Munch: Shelled or unshelled?
 * Falsone: I got one. Meldrick Lewis.
 * Munch: Well, he is black.
 * Bayliss: Yep.
 * Michael Giardello: But not particularly hip.
 * Bayliss: Nope.
 * Lewis: What you talkin' about Willis?
 * Sheppard: Point taken. I guess Sammy Davis goes back on the list.
 * Lewis: No no no, hold on, let's just stop the game right here. I can be accused of a lot of things, but falling off the cutting edge is not one of 'em. Terri- am I down or am I down?
 * Stivers: What?
 * Lewis: Am I hip? Tell these fools.
 * Stivers: Uh, you have your moments.
 * Lewis: Moments?
 * Stivers: I don't know, maybe, you try too hard.
 * Lewis: I'm not playin' no more.

Red, Red Wine

 * Naomi: Boss wants to see you. Stat.
 * Bayliss: Stat? Been watching those wretched medical dramas again?

 * Lewis: [referring to Michael] Little Gee.
 * Munch: Chip off the old boulder.

Wanted Dead or Alive (Part 1)

 * Griscom: So many bodies, so little time...

 * Giardello: [to woman] Are you a lawyer? I hate lawyers.

Kellerman, P.I. (Part 1)

 * Falsone: There are moments when I actually begin to believe.
 * Stivers: Believe what?
 * Falsone: That we work for God.

 * Stivers: John Munch without a newspaper? That's like a drug dealer without a pager.

 * Falsone: [to Kellerman] You work for the dollar, I work for justice.

Kellerman, P.I. (Part 2)

 * Danvers: [to Kellerman] I remember when the truth mattered to you more than your paycheck.

 * Bayliss: Kellerman's a dog. A Jack Russell terrier. He sinks his teeth in your butt and won't let go.

 * Gharty: I have bought enough damn spatulas.

 * Bayliss: Resentment is like you taking poison and hoping the other guy's gonna die.

Shades of Gray

 * Falsone: [the detectives are discussing Baltimore landmarks] Baltimore is a city of many splendors but the greatest architectural feat: Madonna's bra.
 * Stivers: [incredulous] What?
 * Lewis: Yeah, Madonna's bra. The sewage treatment plant on East Point. Them two golden cones just stickin' up outta nowhere.
 * Stivers: Madonna's bra.
 * Gharty: [chuckling] That's what the East Siders call it.
 * Falsone: Two golden orbs shimmering in the moonlight, towering over the landscape.
 * Stivers: I don't think I've ever seen it.
 * Falsone: Are you serious?
 * Gharty: To die without viewing it would mark an incomplete life.

 * Lewis: If a Jamaican drug dealer falls in an alley and there's no one there to hear him, does he make a sound?

 * Lewis: No way, no how, nobody's gonna beat my partner down like that, take her weapon, and use it to shoot up my lid. I ain't gonna hear that.

 * Lewis: I'm Homicide. I'm workin' on a murder of a young brother who was killed this afternoon in an alley off the Heights. Now, I know what the talk is. I know a lot of people 'round the way are sayin' that maybe the police did this, maybe the police killed that boy. Well, I'm here to tell you right here, right now, I think that just might be true. And because I think that might be true, me and my partner was up on a house on Homeland Avenue lookin' for a witness, we were lookin' for somebody to tell us what might've happened to Paxton Smart. And if that witness up and puts in a police officer for killin' that young brother then so be it. That's what we was workin' on when my partner got her ass kicked and her gun took. That sister was beat by a black man. And she's up in a hospital right now, coughin' up blood. Now one of two things can happen here. Number one, that gun comes back. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but tonight. And number two, we ain't never gonna see that weapon again. And if that's the case, every policeman in the world is gonna come down to lower Park Heights, and y'all gonna wish you had never heard of Baltimore, Maryland. That gun comes back to me, or my crew is gonna give y'all crew a real reason to riot. Hear me, I want that gun.

 * Lewis: [to Sheppard] I got you covered. [Hands her her gun]

Bones of Contention

 * Griscom: I have a discretionary slush fund.
 * Munch: I would kill to have a slush fund.
 * Griscom: How do you think I got mine?

The Same Coin

 * Munch: Life should come with a money-back guarantee- if not completely satisfied, return unused portion for a full refund.

A Case of Do or Die

 * Giardello: I'm short detectives!
 * Bayliss: Translation, "Where are we on Cullen?"
 * Giardello: Very good Bayliss, you speak Shift Lieutenant.
 * Bayliss: Well, I've had practice.

Sideshow

 * McCoy: Why did you have Purcell take the body to New York? Why not just leave it in Baltimore?
 * Walter Boyce: When you've got someone working for the White House telling you they want some bitch to be itched, the drama's going to be thick. I got business interests in Baltimore; you know that. I figured I drop the body somewhere else. Besides, Chesley wanted to see some show on Broadway. Uh, some musical thing with a lion. Part of the contract was that I got a hold of some seats for her.
 * Munch: You paid a hitter with tickets to "The Lion King"?
 * Walter Boyce: Third row, orchestra.

 * Briscoe: Get ready for a federal subpoena.
 * Sheppard: What are you talking about?
 * Briscoe: Well, they laid one on us in New York this morning. They took every bit of evidence we had on this case. I figure you folks are next.
 * Munch: You drove 200 miles south to tell us that? Good job, Paul Revere.
 * Briscoe: I'm on my way to Washington anyway. You got a cup of coffee?
 * Sheppard: What's going on there?
 * Briscoe: The Independent Counsel shanghaied Chesley Purcell's shooter. When they found out he had nothing to say about any of the President's men, they got bored with him. They're returning him to our custody, and McCoy wants me to transport him back to Rikers, put him on suicide watch.
 * Munch: You're telling me that Ned Burks killed Chesley Purcell over a lesbian's love lost? Yeah, and Jack Ruby was a grieving patriot.
 * Briscoe: A cancer-ridden, grieving patriot.
 * Munch: Lennie, you precious rube! Amazing how all those years on the mean streets of New York have had so little effect on your sweet, childlike brain.

 * Bayliss: Welcome back, Lennie!
 * Briscoe: Bayliss, right?
 * Bayliss: Yeah.
 * [they shake hands]
 * Bayliss: So, as a rule, you can only cross the Mason-Dixon line if you bring a really screwed-up case with you?
 * Briscoe: Hey; if it doesn't make sense, it belongs in Baltimore - right?

 * Briscoe: [referring to Ned Burks] I specifically asked the shift commander to put him on suicide watch. Unfortunately, at Rikers Island that seems to mean they stand around and watch you commit suicide.

 * McCoy: You son of a bitch! You offered Dawkins immunity to get whatever you can on the Administration.
 * Danvers: But you refused immunity to Walter Boyce, who's already doing life in prison, just so you can torpedo our case.
 * William Dell: There are larger issues at stake. This is more than a murder here.
 * Danvers: [scoffs] More than a murder?
 * William Dell: Corruption at the highest level.
 * McCoy: What proof do you have? Dawkins has no corroboration. All you've got is innuendo and allegation!
 * Danvers: That's all he needs. He set it up so that is case will never get to court! You don't want a jury trial - a chance to determine who's guilty and who's not.

Zen and the Art of Murder

 * Dennis Kohler: [about the temple having deadbolts on the doors] We're spiritual, we're not stupid.

 * Lewis: A spoon.
 * Munch: I hate to disappoint you, Meldrick, but that's not the murder weapon.

 * Bayliss: I killed a suspect.
 * Gee: The suspect drew his weapon first?
 * Bayliss: Yeah.
 * Giardello: The suspect fired first?
 * Bayliss: Yeah.
 * Giardello: The suspect attempted to use deadly force and you responded. It's a clean shoot.
 * Bayliss: I killed a man.

 * Bayliss: I am a cop.
 * Lewis: Yeah. And, you know, for my money, you're a pretty damn good cop.
 * Bayliss: Yeah, but not a very good Buddhist.

 * Bayliss: What I have is, I have a second in time. I have a split second in an abandoned building with a gun in my hand and every instinct is telling me who I am at that moment. That's what I got left and that's all I got left...and I'm a homicide cop.
 * Lewis: [sighs] Well, since you're no longer a Buddhist, you gotta look at the bright side, huh? You can have a couple of brewskis.
 * Bayliss: No, thanks.
 * Lewis: Oh come on, you can have one beer.
 * Bayliss: No. Beer ain't the answer either.

Self Defense

 * Lewis: [to Ballard] Observe. [To crowd]] All right, now, here's the dealio. The low bottom dog that tore this bar up and robbed everybody in it, he killed one man, and he cut another one. Now, before you all start thinking maybe you gotta protect this young brother from the criminal injustice system, let me point somethin' out. The mook that perpetrated this crime was a white man. Now I know in my heart that somebody is gonna come forward that maybe saw that getaway car. [Boy raises hand] My man.
 * Boy: What's up with that country-ass hat?

Identity Crisis

 * Lewis: And for that matter, d'you ever know anybody in the witness protection program, or know anybody who knows anybody in the witness protection program?
 * Falsone: Nobody knows. That's the point, they're invisible. Just like the Nielsen families.

Lines of Fire

 * Carey: I like my pizza basic, that way you know what you're getting.
 * Michael Giardello: A basic pie.

The Why Chromosome

 * Munch: [to Jay Faris] What are you gonna do, hit me? C'mon, hit me!... Or do you only hit women? Stay away from the girl, Faris.

 * Ballard: [after Lewis and Falsone leave the room] Ah, the cloud of testosterone has risen!

 * Munch: Billie Lou, how many husbands have you had?
 * Billie Lou Hatfield: Three...
 * Munch: And how many wives have I had?
 * Billie Lou Hatfield: Three...
 * Munch: That's six exes between us!

Forgive Us Our Trespasses

 * Bayliss: Seven years ago, I walked in here with a filebox and a lot of idealism. I had a clear vision of justice and morality. And no matter what has happened to me, whatever's happened around me, I still have that.
 * Giardello: Maybe. But on this job I've seen people change, and sometimes for the worse. And those who change the most are the ones who don't admit it.

 * Falsone: We need to talk to you about your daughter-in-law, Joanna.
 * Woman: Go ahead, tell me.
 * Falsone: It's not the kinda thing you want screamed through the door.
 * Woman: She dead?
 * Falsone: Yes.
 * Woman: Okay, thanks, goodbye.
 * Falsone: No, Mrs. McQueen, we need to ask you about her death. You see, she was murdered.
 * Woman: Murdered?
 * Falsone: Yes.
 * Woman: Stupid bitch.

 * Lewis: [to Bayliss] You've been around this dump for seven years and you still ain't learned the key to good murder police, which is this: Whatever you see, whoever's around you; you keep them at a distance. But not you. You come up on a crime scene, the first thing you wanna do is put a chalk outline around yourself.

 * Danvers: We'll get Luke Ryland, Tim.
 * Bayliss: Yeah, I know. These things, they just take time. Patience. Of course, being a murder police, I've learned one inescapable truth. Justice is a bitch.

 * Lewis: No witnesses, no fingerprints, no shell casings, no clues of any kind. No leads of any sort.
 * Sheppard: Whoever killed Ryland sure knew what he was doing.
 * Lewis: Or she.
 * Sheppard: Yeah.
 * Lewis: If I could just find this thing, I could go home.
 * Sheppard: You won't find what you're lookin' for.
 * Lewis: What? Why not?
 * Sheppard: It's a mystery.
 * Lewis: Huh?
 * Sheppard: Life is a mystery. Just accept it.
 * Lewis: Yeah, well, that's what's wrong with this job. Ain't got nothin' to do with life.

Homicide: The Movie 2000

 * Pembleton: Do you think you mean anything to anybody, do you think, in this city?
 * Homeless Guy: No.
 * Pembleton: But I'm here, I'm extending you my kindness. I give you what you want out of goodwill and it's not about a dollar. If you ask me for ten, I'll give you ten, a hundred, you got it. I'm respecting you. But you gonna sit there and piss on me? I'm gonna send you to hell, Mr. I ain't got a name, so feel sorry for my moocher ass.

 * Pembleton: You know why I left Homicide?
 * Bayliss: Why?
 * Pembleton: Because I could not hear one more confession. I got sick of hearing people confess to me. Like some Jesuit, I'd just sit there in the box listening to some guy, not only admit to having just killed someone, but cop to all the other crap in his life that, over the course of his life, had led him to that point.
 * Bayliss: You would have made a great Jesuit, Frank.

 * Bayliss: I know how James feels. Gotta stop those that are gonna hurt the innocent.
 * Pembleton: James is a lunatic. Certifiable.
 * Bayliss: His son gets killed. He's gotta do something. Hey, say, uh, say one of your kids gets hooked on drugs.
 * Pembleton: One of my kids what?
 * Bayliss: Gets hooked.
 * Pembleton: They wouldn't.
 * Bayliss: Well, just say that they did.
 * Pembleton: They're not going to. It's not gonna happen. Case closed.
 * Bayliss: So you have no sympathy for James, for what he's going through.
 * Pembleton: James is trying to lay the blame on Gee because in his heart of hearts he knows he's responsible for what happened to his kid.
 * Bayliss: I appreciate how he feels.
 * Pembleton: Well, you can appreciate it all you want to, Tim, but there's a line between right and wrong.
 * Bayliss: Yeah, well you're the expert on that, Frank. Nothin' lumpy about you. You know all.

 * Bayliss: Time for one more Confession,Frank.

 * Pembleton: Hello. I'm Frank Pembleton.
 * Michael Giardello: Mike Giardello.
 * Pembleton: I heard about Gee. I'm sorry.
 * Michael Giardello: Thanks, for catching the man who killed my father.
 * Pembleton: I'm good at catching the bad guys. Caught me a couple tonight. A lot of people have worked in this squadroom over the years. A lot of 'em have died. Beau Felton got killed in the line of duty. Steve Crosetti committed suicide. To this day nobody knows why.
 * Michael Giardello: Do you miss it? Homicide?
 * Pembleton: I don't know. It's not like you can escape it, you know. Death is everyday. Death goes on and on and on.
 * Michael Giardello: And that 's because life goes on and on.

 * Crosetti: Hey hey hey.
 * Felton: Gee.
 * Giardello: Felton?
 * Crosetti: We've been waitin' for you.
 * Giardello: Crosetti?
 * Crosetti: Have a seat. Okay, jack of spades for Mr. Beau Felton, a ten of diamonds for my esteemed Lieutenant, and a whole lot a' nothing for the little Italian salami-brain.
 * Giardello: What are we playing?
 * Crosetti: Five card stud.
 * Giardello: Who's the fourth chair for?
 * Felton: We don't know yet. But they'll be here sooner or later.
 * Giardello: Anybody I know?
 * Crosetti: Maybe. It's not like it's written in stone, it's not preordained or anything, Lieutenant.
 * Giardello: I suddenly got worried. My son, he's a cop. I thought maybe-
 * Crosetti: I wouldn't worry, Lieutenant. Life is short, but once you're dead, you're long time dead, if you know what I mean.
 * Felton: Your son?
 * Giardello: Michael.
 * Felton: He's a good kid?
 * Giardello: Yes.
 * Felton: You taught him well?
 * Giardello: I tried my best. I wish -
 * Crosetti: Gee, no regrets, huh?
 * Felton: You know what the best thing about this place is? All the worries and cares that you had in life? They don't matter anymore. Rest in Peace means what it says.

Cast

 * Yaphet Kotto - Lt. Al "Gee" Giardello
 * Kyle Secor - Det. Tim Bayliss
 * Clark Johnson - Det. Meldrick Lewis
 * Richard Belzer - Det. John Munch
 * Andre Braugher - Det. Frank Pembleton [Seasons 1-6, TVM]
 * Daniel Baldwin - Det. Beau Felton [Seasons 1-3, TVM]
 * Ned Beatty - Det. Stanley Bolander [Seasons 1-3, TVM]
 * Reed Diamond - Det. Mike Kellerman [Season 4-6, TVM]
 * Giancarlo Esposito - FBI Agent/Officer Michael Giardello [Season 7, TVM]
 * Michelle Forbes - Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Julianna Cox [Seasons 5-6, TVM]
 * Peter Gerety - Officer/Det./Lt. Stuart Gharty [Seasons 6-7, TVM]
 * Zeljko Ivanek - Asst. State's Attorney Ed Danvers [Seasons 1-7, TVM]
 * Isabella Hofmann - Lt./Capt./Det. Megan Russert [Seasons 3-4, TVM]
 * Melissa Leo - Det./Sgt. Kay Howard [Seasons 1-5, TVM]
 * Toni Lewis - Det. Terri Stivers [Season 7, TVM]
 * Michael Michele - Det. Rene Sheppard [Season 7, TVM]
 * Max Perlich - J. H. Brodie [Season 5, TVM]
 * Jon Polito - Det. Steve Crosetti [Seasons 1-2, TVM]
 * Jon Seda - Det. Paul Falsone [Seasons 6-7, TVM]
 * Callie Thorne - Det. Laura Ballard [Seasons 6-7, TVM]
 * Jason Priestley - Det. Robert Hall [TVM]
 * Ed Begley, Jr. - Dr. Victor Ehrlich [TVM]

title: Homicide: Life on the Street