- Det. Roland 'Prez' Pryzbylewski: What if they're not sneaking anything off this time? What then?
- Det. Lester Freamon: Ah then, tragically, you will have wasted yet another day in a life you've already misspent in the service of the City of Baltimore.
- Det. William 'Bunk' Moreland: Now look. We all got roles to play.
- Det. Lester Freamon: What's your role?
- Det. William 'Bunk' Moreland: I'm just a humble motherfucker with a big-ass dick.
- Det. Lester Freamon: You give yourself too much credit.
- Det. William 'Bunk' Moreland: OK, then. I ain't all that humble.
- Elena McNulty: I can care about you, and I can want us to be friends. And if you give me enough time, Jimmy, maybe I will actually want you to be happy. But how the hell am I supposed to trust you?
- Lt. Cedric Daniels: You know what I love? The mind that's always a step ahead of me. The person who never stops thinking it through. That's what I fell in love with first.
- Marla Daniels: You know what I fell in love with first? Do you? Your ambition. Where did that man go?
- [after D'Angelo's funeral]
- Joseph 'Proposition Joe' Stewart: Sorry for the loss. Y'all sent him off right, though. As good a homecomin' as I been to.
- Russell 'Stringer' Bell: You been to your share, man, I know.
- Joseph 'Proposition Joe' Stewart: No doubt, no doubt. 'Course, this is neither the time nor the place, but I thought I might get at you for a moment. Got a proposition here.
- Russell 'Stringer' Bell: [to Shamrock] Go 'head to the car, man.
- Joseph 'Proposition Joe' Stewart: Ain't exactly talkin' outta turn when I say that, uh, Westside dope been weak for a while now. Every dope fiend in the city know that Avon been puttin' out piss and callin' it shit. And the thing is, y'all sittin' on some of the best real estate in the city. The Terrace, the low-rises, the avenue corners...
- Russell 'Stringer' Bell: Now, respectin' the fact that you're known to have a way with your words, man, when the fuck you gonna tell me somethin' I don't know?
- Joseph 'Proposition Joe' Stewart: [chuckling] A'ight, lemme put a point on it. My shit is right, String. I got dope comin' straight into Baltimore, and the shit be raw. Eighty-five, ninety percent. And you know it's true. You got half the Westside comin' over to Fallsway twice a day because Eastside dope be kickin' the shit outta Westside dope.
- Russell 'Stringer' Bell: Connected, huh?
- Joseph 'Proposition Joe' Stewart: Man, this shit is straight off the damn boat. I ain't even goin' to New York except for my coke, String. Ain't no need. Thing is, y'all got the best territory, and no kinda product. I got the best product, but could stand a little more territory, so you see where this thing need to go.
- Russell 'Stringer' Bell: Now, you know Avon fought real hard for them towers. I mean, we took down the Rayford brothers, Big Dennis Woodson, I mean...
- Joseph 'Proposition Joe' Stewart: Shit is just bidness, String. Buy for a dollar, sell for two. That all it need be. You got the towers, I got what goes in 'em. Later for all that bullshit.
- Russell 'Stringer' Bell: I'll talk to Avon.
- Joseph 'Proposition Joe' Stewart: You do that, homes. Do that.
- [Bodie walks into a flower shop and looks around]
- Florist: Somethin' in particular?
- Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: A funeral.
- Florist: I'm sorry.
- Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: Nah, a funeral, you know?
- Florist: No, no, I mean I'm sorry for your loss.
- Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: Oh. Yeah.
- Florist: [pointing out an angel-shaped arrangement] That's a popular one.
- [Bodie looks at it skeptically]
- Florist: Well, who was it that passed? A relation?
- Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: No, we worked together.
- Florist: I see. Professional relationship.
- Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: Yeah, professional. I mean, you know, we wasn't all that tight, but he was still my nigga, you know?
- Florist: I think I'm on it. Follow me.
- [he leads Bodie into a back room filled with arrangements in the shape of guns]
- Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: Hell yeah! See, this what I'm talkin' 'bout!
- Florist: That gat-and-grip thing over there sells a lot. We can do that in white or red or pink carnations.
- Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: Pink?
- Florist: [chuckling] Your boy was too fierce for the pink?
- Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: Nah, he wasn't all that, but damn, you know, when you stand with a nigga, you stand with him to the end, otherwise... otherwise you ain't nothin' yourself.
- Florist: True that. How your boy fall?
- [Bodie sighs]
- Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: Hung hisself. Over at the Cut, man, strung hisself up. Judge ran wild on his ass, gave him twenty. I guess he just couldn't handle all them years, you know? It's a weak-ass nigga when you think about it, but... ain't no reason to drag his name down no further, you know?
- [Bodie looks around at the arrangements]
- Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: I tell you what. Lemme get somethin' in strong colors, right? Red, black, whatever. But make it look like one of them towers down on Franklin Terrace, you know? The high-rises, right?
- Florist: You want the arrangement to look like a high-rise housing project?
- Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: Hell yeah. Yeah. And put the numbers "221" in big-ass numbers on the front. A'ight? He used to have that Fremont Tower for a while.
- Florist: [writing on a notepad] Two-twenty-one. All right, anything else you want it to say?
- Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: Like what?
- Florist: "Rest in Peace," "In Remembrance," something like that? Something that says how you feel about the loss.
- [Bodie thinks for a moment]
- Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: Look, man, fuck it, all right? Just, uh...
- [he pulls out a wad of cash and hands it to the florist]
- Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: Just make sure the towers look like they do, a'ight?
- [the florist nods, and they bump fists]
- Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: A'ight. Thanks.
- Frank Sobotka: Come on, Bruce, I can read a budget summary. There's nothin' in there for dredgin'.
- Bruce DiBiago: Shortfall in revenues. The governor's looking to limit bond issues, but the grain pier is still in there.
- Frank Sobotka: And the rest is just talk?
- Bruce DiBiago: Talk is good, Frank. Talk... is a start.
- Frank Sobotka: Talk is your fuckin' job description. Yak-yak-yak, blah-blah-blah.
- Bruce DiBiago: That's like saying all the checkers do is punch numbers into a computer, Frank.
- Frank Sobotka: Your son... the oldest one, he goes to what school?
- Bruce DiBiago: Jason's at Princeton.
- Frank Sobotka: Princeton. And after he graduates, he's gonna do what?
- Bruce DiBiago: Whatever he wants.
- Frank Sobotka: Right. You sent him to Princeton to do whatever the fuck he wants. Y'know, back when we was kids, Danny Hare's father stole a couple cases of cognac off a ship. Except when he gets it home, it ain't cognac. It's Tang.
- Bruce DiBiago: [chuckles] Tang?
- Frank Sobotka: Just invented. TV was sayin' it's what the astronauts drank on their way to the moon. You drink it, well...
- Bruce DiBiago: Then you could be an astronaut too.
- Frank Sobotka: All summer long, that shit was all the Hare kids drank. Tang with breakfast, Tang with lunch, Tang when they woke up scared in the middle of the night. What do you think they grew up to be?
- [Bruce shrugs]
- Frank Sobotka: Stevedores.
- [Bruce starts laughing]
- Frank Sobotka: What the fuck you think?
- [Bruce's smile fades]
- Frank Sobotka: Somethin' tells me Jason DiBiago'll grow up and squeeze a buck the way his old man did.
- Bruce DiBiago: You're outta line, Frank. My great-grandfather was a knife sharpener. Yeah. Pushed a grinding stone up Preston Street to Aliceann, one leg shorter than the other from pumpin' the wheel. And since he didn't want his sons to push the goddamn thing, he made sure my grandfather finished high school, and my old man went to any college that would take him.
- Frank Sobotka: You're talkin' history, right? I'm talkin' now. Because down here, it's still "who's your old man?" 'til you got kids of your own, then it's "who's your son?" But after the horror movie I seen today... robots! Piers full of robots! My kid'll be lucky if he's even punchin' numbers five years from now! And while it don't mean shit to me that I can't take my steak knives to DiBiago & Sons, it breaks my fuckin' heart that there's no future for the Sobotkas on the waterfront!
- [he reaches into a desk drawer and pulls out a shoebox]
- Frank Sobotka: Here, Brucie. I think they're your size.
- [Bruce opens the box; it is packed with stacks of cash]
- Frank Sobotka: I'm operatin' under the assumption that because of your relentless diligence, the funding for the grain pier's gonna pass the assembly.
- [Bruce begins taking money out of the box, but Frank grabs his wrist and points a finger in his face]
- Frank Sobotka: [fiercely] But I'm also talkin' 'bout the canal. So you're gonna talk about the canal, so the Muldoons who run the Old Line State, they're gonna talk about the canal until someday, some way, that motherfucker gets dredged and we get some ships in here!