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The Wire Quotes

“If the Gods are fucking you, you find a way to fuck them back.”
— Ervin Burrell, The Wire, Season 3: Time After Time
Tagged: Revenge, Revenge Fuck, gods
“Now you make sure you tell old Marlo I burned the money. 'Cause it ain't about that paper. It's about me hurtin' his people and messin' with his world. Tell that boy he ain't man enough to come down to the street with Omar. You tell him that!”
— Omar Little, The Wire, Season 5: The Dickensian Aspect
Tagged: Threats
“You've lost your fucking mind, Jimmy. Look at you. Half-lit every third night, dead drunk every second. Nut deep in random pussy. What little time you are sober and limp-dicked, you're working murders that don't even exist!”
— David Mills, David Simon, The Wire, Season 5: React Quotes
Tagged: Losing Your Mind, Pussy, Limp-Dicked, murders
“Shame is some tricky shit, ain't it? Makes you feel like you want to change, and then beats you back down when you think you can't.”
— Walon, The Wire, Season 4: Final Grades
Tagged: Shame
“I been doin' this a long time. I ain't never said nothin' to no cop. [Bodie sighs] I feel old...I been out there since I was 13. I ain't never fucked up a count, never stole off a package, never did some shit that I wasn't told to do. I've been straight up. But what come back? You think if I get jammed up on some shit, they be like, 'All right, yeah. Bodie been there. Bodie hang tough. We got to his pay lawyer. We got a bail.' They want me to stand with them, right? Where the fuck they at when they supposed to be standing by us? I mean, when shit goes bad and there's hell to pay, where they at? This game is rigged, man...we like them little bitches on the chessboard.”
— Preston "Bodie" Broadus, The Wire, Season 4: Final Grades
Tagged: Game is Rigged, Chessboard, Pawns, Bail, Gang Life
“Man, money ain't got no owners. Only spenders.”
— Omar Little, The Wire, Season 4: Refugees
Tagged: Money, owners, Spenders
“I'm gonna show you as gently as I can how much you don't know.”
— Dennis "Cutty" Wise, The Wire, Season 4: Refugees
Tagged: Teach, Dropping Knowledge
“I feel like I don't even belong to any world that even fucking matters.”
— Jimmy McNulty, The Wire, Season 3: Reformation
Tagged: anomie, Depression, Alienation
“Do you think politics is only about winning the argument? That whoever has the right fact at the right moment wins? Clinton had facts. Kennedy had facts, yeah. But Reagan? He couldn't have summoned a fact if his life depended on it.”
— Theresa D'Agostino, The Wire, Season 3: Moral Midgetry
Tagged: Politics, argument, Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Facts
“You know the difference between me and you? I bleed red and you bleed green.”
— Avon Barksdale, The Wire, Season 3: Moral Midgetry
Tagged: bleeding, Wealth Inequality
“Now listen to me you little fuckin' piece of shit; I'm gon' tell you one thing, and one thing only, about the Western boys you're playing with: We do not lose! and we do not forget! and we do not give up! Ever! So I'm only gon' say this one time: If you march yo' ass out here right now and put the bracelets on, we will not kick the livin' shit outta you. But if you make us go into the weeds for you, or make us come back out here tomorrow night, catch you onda corner, I swear to fuckin' Christ, we will beat you longer, and harder, than you beat your own dick!”
— Ellis Carver, The Wire, Season 3: Time After Time
Tagged: Piece of Shit, Christ, Threats
“Lambs go to slaughter. A man, he learns when to walk away.”
— The Greek, The Wire, Season 2: Port in a Storm
Tagged: Lambs, Slaughter, walk away
“Bunk: Boy, them Greeks and those twisted-ass names.

McNulty: Man, back off the Greeks. They invented civilization.

Bunk: Yeah? Ass-fucking, too.”
— Bunk Moreland, The Wire, Season 2: Bad Dreams
Tagged: Greeks, Greek Names, civilization, Western Civilization, Ass-Fucking
“Levy: You are amoral, are you not? You are feeding off the violence and the despair of the drug trade. You're stealing from those who themselves are stealing the lifeblood from our city. You are a parasite who leeches off—

Omar: Just like you, man.

Levy: —the culture of drugs...excuse me, what?

Omar: I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase. It's all in the game, though, right?”
— David Simon, The Wire, Season 2: All Prologue
Tagged: shotgun, Briefcase, Amoral, Drug Trade, Parasite, Hypocrisy
“Ilene: And what is your occupation?

Omar: Occupation?

Ilene: What exactly do you do for a living, Mr. Little?

Omar: I rip and run.

Ilene: You...

Omar: I robs drug dealers.

Ilene: And exactly how long has this been your occupation, Mr. Little?

Omar: Well, I don't know exactly. I venture to say maybe 'bout eight or nine years.

Ilene: Mr. Little, how does a man rob drug dealers for eight or nine years and live to tell about it?

Omar: Day at a time, I suppose.”
— Omar Little, The Wire, Season 2: All Prologue
Tagged: Robbery, Drug Dealers, Honesty, One Day At A Time
“The past is always with us. Where we come from, what we go through, how we go through it; all this shit matters. Like at the end of the book, ya know, boats and tides and all. It's like you can change up, right, you can say you're somebody new, you can give yourself a whole new story.”
— D'Angelo Barksdale, The Wire, Season 2: All Prologue
Tagged: Past, Karma, New Beginnings, Change
“They can chew you up, but then they gotta spit you out.”
— Jimmy McNulty, The Wire, Season 2: Collateral Damage
Tagged: Chew, Spit, Karma
“Herc: Fucking white boys, I love 'em. I fucking love 'em.

Kima: Yeah?

Herc: Dumb as a box of rocks.

Kima: Who?

Herc: White boys. Talking about the brain-deads in my Kane Street case. I call him up, I tell him I wanna buy some drugs. You know what he says? Says ‘Okay, I'll sell you the drugs. How much drugs do you want?’”
— Herc, The Wire, Season 2: Collateral Damage
Tagged: anti-white racism, White Boys, Brain-Dead, dumb
“They fuck up, they get beat. We fuck up, they give us pensions.”
— Det. Ellis Carver, The Wire, The Wire Season 1: Cleaning Up
Tagged: Double Standards, Fuck Up, Pension
“If anybody asks you if in you in this game, you tell 'em you in it for life, a'ight?. You play it hard, you play it tight, and you make sure niggas know you gonn' stand by your people. No loose talk, no second thoughts and no snitching. Play it like that.”
— D'Angelo Barksdale, The Wire, The Wire Season 1: Cleaning Up
Tagged: The Game, Snitching, Niggas
“You come at the king, you best not miss.”
— Omar Little, The Wire, The Wire Season 1: Lessons
Tagged: Threats
“Bunk Moreland: So, you're my eyeball witness, huh? [Omar nods] So, why'd you step up on this?

Omar: Bird triflin', basically. Kill an everyday workin' man and all. I mean, I do some dirt, too, but I ain't never put my gun on nobody that wasn't in the game.

Bunk: A man must have a code.

Omar: Oh, no doubt.”
— Omar Little, The Wire, The Wire Season 1: One Arrest
Tagged: Convict Code, Murder
“Well if anybody got a problem with me spending time with y'all, I'd be much obliged to stick my gun straight in they mouth.”
— Omar Little, The Wire, The Wire Season 1: One Arrest
Tagged: Death Threats
“[cornering a drug dealer] The cheese stands alone.”
— Omar Little, The Wire, The Wire Season 1: The Pager
Tagged: Threats, Cheese
“The game is rigged, but you cannot lose if you do not play.”
— Marla Daniels, The Wire, The Wire Season 1: The Detail
Tagged: Winning, Losing, Playing
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