- Omar Little: Shoot, the way y'all looking at things, ain't no victim to even speak on.
- Det. William 'Bunk' Moreland: Bullshit, boy. No victim? I just came from Tosha's people, remember? All this death, you don't think it ripples out? You don't even know what the fuck I'm talking about. I was a few years ahead of you at Edmondson, but I know you remember the neighborhood, how it was. We had some bad boys, for real. Wasn't about guns so much as knowing what to do with your hands. Those boys could really rack. My father had me on the straight, but like any young man, I wanted to be hard too, so I'd turn up at all the house parties where the tough boys hung. Shit, they knew I wasn't one of them. Them hard cases would come up to me and say, "Go home, schoolboy, you don't belong here." Didn't realize at the time what they were doing for me. As rough as that neighborhood could be, we had us a community. Nobody, no victim, who didn't matter. And now all we got is bodies, and predatory motherfuckers like you. And out where that girl fell, I saw kids acting like Omar, calling you by name, glorifying your ass. Makes me sick, motherfucker, how far we done fell.
- Avon Barksdale: Yeah, I ain't no suit-wearin' businessman like you. You know I'm just a gangsta, I suppose. And I want my corners.
- Dennis 'Cutty' Wise: The game ain't in me no more. None of it.
- Avon Barksdale: But you ain't done shit else, you know what I'm sayin'? So what you gonna do?
- Dennis 'Cutty' Wise: I don't know. But it can't be this.
- Russell 'Stringer' Bell: How many corners do we need? How much money can a nigger make?
- Avon Barksdale: More than a nigger can spend.
- Russell 'Stringer' Bell: And then we ain't gonna be around to spend what we done made already.
- Avon Barksdale: Shit, I ain't think I was gonna be around this long.
- Russell 'Stringer' Bell: Twenty-five gets me the permits?
- State Sen. R. Clayton 'Clay' Davis: Mm-mmm. Twenty gets you the permits. Five is for me for bribing these downtown motherfuckers. I mean, I'm the one got to risk walking up to these thieving bitches with cash in hand, right? I'm telling you, String, the people running the city nowadays, they make the last bunch look sanctified. I mean, this some shameful shit.
- Drugdealer: [while being thrown in the police truck] Hey, we're in America!
- Det. Michael 'Sanny' Santangelo: No-oh, West Baltimore.