TV shows - The Wire

Quotes

Freamon: A life, Jimmy, you know what that is? It’s the shit that happens while you’re waiting for moments that never come.

Dennis ‘Cutty’ Wise: The game done changed…

Slim Charles: Game’s the same, just got more fierce.

Freamon: I don’t wanna go to no dance unless I can rub some tit.

Don’t go giving a fuck, when it ain’t your turn to give a fuck.

Buy for a nickel, sell for a dime.

Deserve aint got nothing to do with it.

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

[A security guard has spotted Marlo shoplifting lollipops at the corner store]

Security Guard: The fuck? You think I dream of coming to work up in this shit on a Sunday morning? Tell all my friends what a good job I got? I’m working to support a family, man.

[Marlo looks away]

Security Guard: Pretend I ain’t talking to you. Pretend like I ain’t even on this earth. I know what you are. Now, I ain’t stepping to, but I am a man. And you just clip that shit and act like you don’t even know I’m there.

Marlo Stanfield: I don’t.

[unwraps a stolen lollipop, throws wrapper on the ground]

Security Guard: I’m here.

[Marlo moves closer to him]

Security Guard: Look, I told you I ain’t stepping to. I ain’t disrespecting you, son.

Marlo Stanfield: You want it to be one way.

Security Guard: What?

Marlo Stanfield: You want it to be one way.

Security Guard: Man, I don’t want it to be –

Marlo Stanfield: You want it to be one way.

Security Guard: [losing temper] Man, stop –

[pulls himself together]

Security Guard: Stop saying that.

Marlo Stanfield: But it’s the other way.

It don’t matter that some fool say he different.

Bend far enough and you’re already broke.

“You know what the most dangerous thing in America is, right? Nigga with a library card.” — Brother Mouzone, The Wire, Season 2

Dennis ‘Cutty’ Wise: I’m gonna show you as gently as I can how much you don’t know.

Freamon: Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

Freamon: Age is age. Fat is fat. Nature is nature. . . . Pitiless. Nature don’t care. Nature just is

Lessons

Confidence

Omar Little: Sometimes who you are is enough, dog.

Context: Bodie (his boss’s orders) is supposed to start taking product from Marlo + Chris and put it out on the street.

Bodie: I guess I’m on your package.

Chris: Where the boy at? Michael…

Bodie: He ain’t no regular. He’s just working off a debt. Why? Why you care?

Chris: Nevermind you ‘why’, why ain’t in your repertoire no more nigga

Snoop: Yeeerp!

The game is not your life

Context: McNulty rolls into work on a Sunday and, to his ultimate delight, sees two of his co-workers are also in the office. McNulty then goes off on a masturbatory rant about how amazing they are at their jobs - that they are, in fact, “natural police”. And that’s when the exchange below occurs:

McNulty: On a Sunday, what the fuck, Lester?

Lester: I could say the same of you.

McNulty: Elena’s taking the kids to her mothers’, what the fuck else am I gonna do? No life, no marriage, no kids. No problem.

McNulty: You know something, Lester? I do believe there aren’t five swingin’ dicks in this entire department who can do what we do. I am not saying like all chest out and shit. It’s just, you think about it, there’s maybe, what, 3000 sworn, right? 100 or so are bosses, so not a fucking clue there… A few more hundred is sergeants and lieutenants, and most of them wants to be bosses one day, so they’re just as fucked… then there’s 600 or 700 fuckin’ housecats, you know, deskmen. And in the patrol division, there’s probably a little bit of talent there, but the way the city is right now, thats 1500 guys chasing calls and clearing corners. I mean, nobody’s knowing his post, nobody’s building nothing, right? And CID is the same. Catching calls, chasing quick clearances, keeping everything in the shallow end… I mean who is it out there that can do what we do with a case? How many are there, really? Don Warden, Ed Burns, Gary Childs out in the county, John O’Neil and Steve Cleary over in Woodlawn, oh they bring it in, but there’s not many. There’s not many. We’re good at this, Lester. In this town, we’re as good as it gets.

Lester: Natural police.

McNulty: Fuck yes, natural police.

Lester: Tell me something, Jimmy. How exactly do you think it all ends?

McNulty: What do you mean?

Lester: A parade? A gold watch? A shining Jimmy-McNulty-day moment, when you bring in a case sooooo sweet everybody gets together and says, “Aw, shit! He was right all along. Should’ve listened to the man.” The job will not save you, Jimmy. It won’t make you whole, it won’t fill your ass up.

McNulty: I dunno, a good case -

Lester: Ends. They all end. The handcuffs go click and it’s over. The next morning, it’s just you in your room with yourself.

McNulty: Until the next case.

Lester: Boooooy, you need something else outside of this here.

McNulty: Like what, dollhouse miniatures?

Lester: Hey, hey, hey, a life. A life, Jimmy. You know what that is? It’s the shit that happens while you’re waiting for moments that never come.

Know who you are. But don’t be too stubborn either.

Avon Barksdale was the No. 1 man in West Baltimore. He never lost focus on what made him successful. He kept a low profile, was comfortable in his own skin, and wasn’t going to change just to change. He knew the core element of what made his business run, and he worked to maintain quality in that specific area. Ultimately, this mindset sends him back into jail though. He just couldn’t see Stringer’s vision of turning into businessmen.

Yeah, I ain’t no suit-wearin’ businessman like you. You know, I’m just a gangsta, I suppose. And I want my corners. - Avon Barksdale

String, this ain’t about your motherf***ing business class either. It ain’t that part of it. It’s that other thing. The street. It’s the street, always. - Avon Barksdale

It’s all in the game

Omar: All in the game yo, all in the game.

Sometimes you have to acknowledge the “game”, in relationships, professional endeavors, and other things, and play accordingly. Once you acknowledge, it becomes easier to not hit your head over and over again on the SAME issue.

Levy: “You are amoral, are you not? You are feeding off the violence and the despair of the drug trade. You are stealing from those who themselves are stealing the lifeblood from our city. You are a parasite who leaches off the culture of drugs …”

Omar (interrupting): “Just like you, man.”

Levy: “Excuse me?”

Omar: “I got the shotgun, you got the briefcase. It’s all in the game though, right?”

If you do not market your skills, you are going to be in the same rut for the rest of your life

Wallace: [while eating some Chicken McNuggets] Man, these shits is right, yo.

Malik ‘Poot’ Carr: [with his mouth full] Mm-hmm.

Wallace: Good with the hot sauce too, yo.

Malik ‘Poot’ Carr: Most definitely.

Wallace: Yo, D, you want some nuggets?

D’Angelo Barksdale: Nah, go ahead, man.

Wallace: Man, whoever invented these, yo, he off the hook.

Malik ‘Poot’ Carr: What?

Wallace: Mm. Muthafucka got the bone all the way out the damn chicken. ‘Til he came along, niggas been chewin’ on drumsticks and shit, gettin’ they fingers all greasy. He said, " Later for the bone. Let’s nugget that meat up and make some real money."

Malik ‘Poot’ Carr: You think the man got paid?

Wallace: Who?

Malik ‘Poot’ Carr: Man who invented these.

Wallace: Shit, he richer than a muthafucka.

D’Angelo Barksdale: Why? You think he get a percentage?

Wallace: Why not?

D’Angelo Barksdale: Nigga, please. The man who invented them things? Just some sad-ass down at the basement at McDonald’s, thinkin’ up some shit to make some money for the real players.

Malik ‘Poot’ Carr: Naw, man, that ain’t right.

D’Angelo Barksdale: Fuck “right.” It ain’t about right, it’s about money. Now you think Ronald McDonald gonna go down in that basement and say, “Hey, Mista Nugget, you the bomb. We sellin’ chicken faster than you can tear the bone out. So I’m gonna write my clowny-ass name on this fat-ass check for you”?

Wallace: Shit.

D’Angelo Barksdale: Man, the nigga who invented them things still workin’ in the basement for regular wage, thinkin’ up some shit to make the fries taste better or some shit like that. Believe.

[pause]

Wallace: Still had the idea, though.

Learn how to make deals and propositions. Work with all people - even people on the other side.

Joe Stewart, a.k.a. Prop Joe, was a strategist and deal maker, believing the good of one could become the good of all. He formed a co-op of rival gangs, melding fierce rivals together for the greater good of making more money and having fewer deaths. He understood how to make deals and work with people on the opposite side.

“Look the part, be the part, motherfucker.”

People can become trapped in the organizations/institutions they’re a part of and it costs them their humanity or their life.

Russell ‘Stringer’ Bell: Take a deep breath, man. I mean, take a long deep breath. Know that if you call the shot – we at war, we at war. I’m there like I always been. Thing about turf, man, it ain’t like it was. I mean you ain’t got to pay no price of buying no corners.

Avon Barksdale: Since when do we buy corners? We take corners.

Russell ‘Stringer’ Bell: Man, we gonna buy one way or another. Whether its the bodies we done lost or you gonna lose, time in the joint that’s behind us or ahead of us. I mean, you gonna get some shit in this game, but it ain’t shit for free. I mean, 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 we ain’t gonna be around to spend what we done made already.

Avon Barksdale: Shit, I didn’t think I was gonna be around this long.

Russell ‘Stringer’ Bell: Yeah, well, we here now. The fact is we got every mob in town - eastside, westside, ready to pull together, share territory on that good shit that Prop Joe puttin’ out there. We take the shit downtown and we get in the money game, that niggas ain’t going to jail. I mean, we past that run and gun shit, man. Like, we finance a package and we ain’t got to see nothing but bank. Nothing but cash. No corners, no territory, nothing. We make so much goddamn straight money, man. The government come after us, man, ain’t shit they can say.

Avon Barksdale: Businessmen, huh?

Russell ‘Stringer’ Bell: Let the younguns worry about how to retail. We’re the wholesale. I mean, who gives a fuck who’s standing on what corner, if we’re taking that shit off the top, putting that shit to good use, making that shit work for us? We could run more than corners, B. Period. We could do like Little Willie, man, back in the day, with all that number money. And run this goddamn city.

Avon Barksdale: Like Businessmen.

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.

Never talk to anyone with authority without the presence of a witness you trust

State Sen. R. Clayton ‘Clay’ Davis: Look, it takes money to make money, String. Otherwise every pauper would be a king.

Russell ‘Stringer’ Bell: And I’m sayin’, I’m ready to run now.

State Sen. R. Clayton ‘Clay’ Davis: Three years. Crawl, walk, and then run.

Learn to move on with time. It’s really hard to have a good thing last, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t do good.

See the thing about the old days, they the old days.

.38 calibre revolvers don’t jam, but they also don’t hold 15 rounds.

The wire taps were great when they worked for the police. But, everything has an expiration date. The bosses don’t keep extending them forever.

Times change. Industries change. No matter what kind they are. In the show, we see examples of things turning upside down in the following industries: shipping, dealing, wire taps on certain organizations, etc.

For the drug kingpins, as soon as they have a hard time putting good product out on the streets, they lose their turf. Other gangs take their real estate and kick them out.

Don’t get complacent. There is always someone waiting to take the good things away from you.

It can all be taken away from you in a jiffy.

Stringer Bell: That’s good. That’s like a 40-degree day. Ain’t nobody got nothing to say about a 40-degree day. Fifty. Bring a smile to your face. Sixty, shit, niggas is damn near barbecuing on that motherfucker. Go down to 20, niggas get their bitch on. Get their blood complaining. But forty? Nobody give a fuck about 40. Nobody remember 40, and y’all niggas is giving me way too many 40-degree days! What the fuck?

The institution exists to protect itself. You better learn how to fit in.

All of these organizations serve themselves as best as they can.

The job will not save you.

If necessary, the higher powers will destroy the careers of those beneath them.

If you have a shitty manager or if there are politics going around you, you better be the best fucking employee there ever was or you need to be looking for a new job. Pretty much no matter how good a job you do, the shitty people around you will fuck you as soon as they have the chance.

Institutions are filled with shitty bosses or shitty people. Most of them probably started off with the best intentions, but little by little, in order to survive the system, the institution forces them to shave off a bit here and a bit there until it becomes solely about survival. The institution exists to protect itself.

Maj. Stanislaus ‘Stan’ Valchek: You fucker , you are up to something.

Councilman Thomas ‘Tommy’ J. Carcetti: I’m up to nothing, I’m telling you. I can help him; he can help me. A little itch here; a little scratch there.

Maj. Stanislaus ‘Stan’ Valchek: this is a win-win for you, ain’t it. He won’t play and you beat the shit outta him. Press loves it and you score. The flip side is that if he caves, you get yourself a snitch in the mayor’s inner circle.

Maj. Stanislaus ‘Stan’ Valchek: So, what’s my role in your little drama?

Councilman Thomas ‘Tommy’ J. Carcetti: I thought you might broker a meeting, you know… help your fearless leader see the light about his new friend on the council.

Maj. Stanislaus ‘Stan’ Valchek: And I should tell him, what? Make nice or invest heavily in petroleum jelly?

Councilman Thomas ‘Tommy’ J. Carcetti: Hey. His ass, his choice.

Middle management

Acting Commissioner Ervin H. Burrell: I don’t care how many years you have on this job. If the felony rate doesn’t fall, you most certainly will. If the Gods are fucking you, you find a way to fuck them back. It’s Baltimore, gentlemen. The gods will not save you.

Burrell: Now, once again, from the data: when are most cars stolen?

Junior officer: Sir, at night.

Burrell: And your unit, which I believe is charged with deterring the theft of autos, when do you work?

Junior officer: the day shift, eight-to-four. But sir, as I tried to explain - (Burrell signs him with his hand to stop talking… And looks at Rawls)

Rawls: Your position is clear: you affect more arrests of car thieves during the daylight than at night. You see, our ears work. (laughing) We heard you. But the question becomes: why the fuck can’t you hear us?

Junior officer: Sir, I don’t…

Rawls: the commissioner is attempting to move this department from the dark ages into the 21st century. That means preventing crime by relying on computer generated data, not on your fly-by-your-fucked-up-ass instinct. Give me the auto theft numbers for downtown parking lots on Friday nights.

Junior officer: Sir, I have to check that.

Rawls: (signals.. do it)

Rawls: Lieutenant?

Lieutenant: Sir, I now understand that prevention is the way to go and will immediately change our hours to reflect the data.

Rawls: Alright Lieutenant.

Bunny: Fecal gravity.

His second in-charge: Hey, you beat on the right people and the shit rolls down the hill.

It isn’t what it is, Tommy. It is never what it is. It is what it can be made to look like, Bill Whitehouse, Edge of Darkness

Sgt. Jay Landsman (Delaney Williams), ever amused by the gamesmanship, chomps on his fast food lunch as he explains bureaucratic reality to Kima, who feels humiliated by getting assigned to the murdered witness case, only to be replaced by the original veteran detective and told to lie about it as the scandal breaks. “Now, I didn’t like it when they came to me and told me to dump Norris,” Landsman admits with rare seriousness, “but dump him I did. And it’s not like I want to carry water for them now that they’re pretending they never told me to do any such thing, but carry the water I will. And in the end, when everyone else in this unit is buried and beshitted, this detective sergeant will still be standing.”

(Context: Major Howard ‘Bunny’ Colvin is explaining to his subordinates his plan to move the game into designated spots by focusing on the lieutenants that are running the corners.)

Sergeant Ellis Carver: The hoppers wouldn’t listen. What makes you think these guys will.

Major Howard ‘Bunny’ Colvin: These are lieutenants running the corners and I personally feel their pain. Now, middle-management means that you have just enough responsibility that you got to listen when people talk, and not so much that you can tell anybody to go fuck themselves.

Understand the constraints of the system. Your knowledge may not be applicable in all situations.

Stringer Bell was the No. 2 man in the West Baltimore drug operation. He wanted to become more of an intellectual, applying his business class training to the street. This sounds great in theory, but because of institutional corruption and constraints on mobility aspirations, the knowledge he gained wasn’t all that applicable. He attempted to change what he couldn’t control, which is the biggest fault a leader can fall victim to.

Don’t be naive and don’t get all righteous

Just understand the nature and reality of the game and play accordingly.

“Count be wrong, they fuck you up.” - Wallace

At one point, he decides to live with his family in the country. However, it turns out that this bores him, until he concludes it was a mistake to cooperate with the police. He then returns to the Low Rise Projects and tries to get involved in the trade again. Bodie suggests he take a demotion, but D’Angelo welcomes him back. D’Angelo suggests that he should leave the projects and go to school or do something else with his life.

When opportunity presents itself, you have to take it. Instead of seizing the opportunity, if you try to be in the same place, you will pay for it.

“This is me, yo, right here.” - Wallace

But he ends up getting killed by his own crew.

When opportunity knocks, kick in the door

Marlo Stanfield was a young drug dealer who blazed his own path to the top of the industry.

He works with Proposition Joe and the co-op until he needs the product that Prop Joe is putting out. But he is always on the look-out to find out where Prop Joe is getting the product from.

In season five, when Marlo makes his move to acquire the connection with the main drug suppliers. He wipes out the middle man and co-op, taking over the entire city. Marlo understood the benefits of spending time flying under the radar until the right opportunity presented itself. Then, he attacked.

All the pieces matter

Freamon: All the pieces matter.

You would not want to put a puzzle together only to find that one of the pieces is missing. When you are working up a case, all of the details matter for investigation.

If you are in a tricky situation at work, it is best to escape from it

Don’t try to take everything on your shoulders and try to solve everything.

Marla Daniels: The game is rigged, but you cannot lose if you do not play.

Fighting a war against drugs is like sweeping leaves on a windy day.

Think 3 times before making a plan. After that, don’t miss.

You come at the king, you best not miss.

Omar Little, a shotgun-toting vagabond who was essentially a modern-day Robin Hood, stole from drug organizations for his own benefit. He was tough, furious and had a code of ethics he practiced each day. Omar never backed down, was willing to confront his enemies, and always thought before acting.

Omar was shrewd, calculating with each move, and understood his opponents’ actions and reactions. Even though he was often up against a two- or three-man crew, he outmaneuvered everyone with as much brain as braun.

The game is rigged, yo.

Those who have power ignore rules and laws whenever they can get away with it. If you are the underdog trying just to survive, it’s foolish to follow all the rules when those who oppose you do not and never would. Or, to put it more succinctly: Only a sucker follows the rules of a rigged game.

If you have it good, enjoy it. You can lose it just as fast.

“thin line between heaven and here” - Bubbles.

Sometimes, all your planning don’t mean shit

Avon Barksdale: See, the thing is, you only got to fuck up once. Be a little slow, be a little late, just once. And how you ain’t gonna never be slow? Never be late? You can’t plan through no shit like this, man. It’s life.

Conscious comes at a cost

Butchie is a blind barkeep that is one of Omar’s trustworthy inner circle. He says that, “conscious do cost.” They tied it in full circle with his character and Omar’s character. Butchie is unfortunately tortured to death at the hands of Marlo’s people. He is able to keep a clear conscious by not snitching on Omar. In turn, Omar looking to keep a clear conscious by avenging Butchie comes gunning for Marlo’s people only to meet his untimely end. In life sometimes it is also true that our conscious comes at a cost.

Understand your family

All of us probably have that “one” or more member of the family that could be considered an enemy. Russell “Stringer” Bell and Avon Barksdale considered themselves family, even though they were not blood. By the end, they fall out and are enemies. Bug’s parents were completely horrendous people to their children. Joseph “Proposition Joe” Stewart (Prop Joe) has a nephew named Cheese who is a constant pain in the ass and ultimately ends up putting a bullet to Joe’s head.

Your friends can end up killing you

Bodie and Poot act friendly towards their returning comrade. However, Wallace’s return arouses Stringer Bell’s suspicion, and he questions D’Angelo about him. D’Angelo unsuccessfully tries to reassure Stringer of Wallace’s loyalty. The skeptical Stringer assigns Bodie to kill Wallace. Bodie informs Poot, who is reluctant to participate, as he can’t imagine Wallace being a snitch. However, after considering Wallace’s period of mental anguish over the Brandon affair Poot decides to go along. Bodie and Poot then spend the day with Wallace, dining at a local restaurant, to accompany him home at night. When they arrive, the orphans are nowhere to be found and, seeing his opportunity, Bodie pulls out his gun and aims at Wallace, making his and Poot’s intentions clear now that they had him cornered. Wallace begs for mercy for the sake of their friendship, which only engenders Bodie’s disgust. Bodie tells him that he brought the penalty on himself (for having snitched), and, when the nervous Wallace starts crying, Bodie orders him to be a man. He hesitates to shoot Wallace until Poot urges him to fire, which he does, hitting Wallace in the abdomen. More reluctance follows, and Poot takes the gun and finishes him off with two bullet wounds to the face. The pair then leave his body behind.

Poot raises to the occasion to take his place in the gang’s hierarchy.

In the end, when one of he bosses orders the hit, his peers and best friends are the ones that shoots and kills him.

Don’t have to be blood to be family

Before their falling out, Stringer Bell and Avon were tight. A lot of the police officers in the show have a comradery that rivals family, despite not being blood relation. We have friends that are closer to us than our actual family, at least extended family. A friend that can be considered family is better than family that is an enemy any day of the week.

Bubbs – Ain’t no shame in holding on to grief.

Bubbs: Ain’t no shame in holding on to grief. As long you make room for other things too.

Know when to not take notes

Don’t go taking notes on a criminal conspiracy.

Russell ‘Stringer’ Bell: Motherfucker, what is that?

Sean ‘Shamrock’ McGinty: Robert Rules say we gotta have minutes for a meeting, right? These the minutes.

Russell ‘Stringer’ Bell: Nigga, is you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?