- Jimmy McNulty: [McNulty sits on a windowsill, looking at Stringer's body. Bunk sits next to him and lights a cigar] I caught him, Bunk. On the wire, I caught him... And he doesn't fuckin' know it.
- Det. Roland 'Prez' Pryzbylewski: "Failure to properly identify myself as a police officer." Sounds like what I was guilty of most of my career, actually.
- Slim Charles: Don't matter who did what to who at this point. Fact is, we went to war, and now there ain't no going back. I mean, shit, it's what war is, you know? Once you in it, you in it. If it's a lie, then we fight on that lie. But we gotta fight.
- Jimmy McNulty: The things that make me right for this job, maybe they're the same things that make me wrong for everything else.
- Det. Vernon Holley: So you never got a look at either of the gunmen?
- Andy Krawczyk: [Krawcyzk is still scared from the shooting] I told you. I saw only the one of them. He was black. Big, I thought. With a large weapon.
- Det. William 'Bunk' Moreland: B.N.B.G.
- Det. Vernon Holley: [as Krawcyzk looks puzzled] Big Negro, Big Gun.
- Avon Barksdale: Fucked up, man. Ay... y'all ask me y'all ugly ass niggas shouldn't be in here fuckin' around with all these guns and shit...
- Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: The things that make me right for this job maybe they're the same things that make me wrong for everything else.
- Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: The things that make me right for this job, maybe they're the same things that make me wrong for everything else.