- Brother Mouzone: Gentlemen!
- Melvin 'Cheese' Flagstaff: Whassup, my brother? Oh, what what what, uh, you slinging bean pies up in here or something? You with the Nation, homey? 'Cause either you a Muslim, or your mama need to stop laying your clothes out in the morning.
- Brother Mouzone: I'm here to represent the interests of a Mr. Barksdale. Are you familiar with Mr. Barksdale?
- Melvin 'Cheese' Flagstaff: Yeah, that name ring out, but so do mine.
- Brother Mouzone: And you are?
- Melvin 'Cheese' Flagstaff: Cheese, man.
- Brother Mouzone: Mr. Cheese. I see. And who do you work for, Mr. Cheese?
- Melvin 'Cheese' Flagstaff: Who I work for?
- Brother Mouzone: Am I correct in assuming that you are not employed by Mr. Barksdale?
- Melvin 'Cheese' Flagstaff: Hell, yeah.
- Brother Mouzone: Because if that is the case, then I have to insist that you leave.
- Melvin 'Cheese' Flagstaff: This nigger serious?
- Brother Mouzone: Let me be emphatic: You need to take your black ass across Charles Street where it belongs.
- Brother Mouzone: Lamar, where's my Harper's?
- Lamar: Say what?
- Brother Mouzone: Harper's. The new issue.
- Lamar: You didn't say that one. You said the New Republic, and Atlantic, and a new something else.
- Brother Mouzone: I did not forget to tell you Harper's. Every week I tell you the same shit, and every week you forget half of what I say. Tomorrow first thing, you go down to the newsstand, and you get Harper's. And the Nation, too, which you also managed to forget. You know what the most dangerous thing in America is, right? Nigger with a library card.
- [after shooting Cheese with a nonlethal bullet]
- Brother Mouzone: Pellets in plastic. Rat shot. What you need be concerned about is what's seated in the chamber now: a copper-jacketed, hollow-point, 120-grain hot street load of my own creation. So you need to think for a just a moment and ask yourself: "What do I have to do before this man raise up his gun again?"
- Claude Diggins: All damn day, he just sit there, reading. And damned if those East Side bitches don't stay away.
- Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: That's real muscle right there.
- Chester 'Ziggy' Sobotka: Nicely done, nicely done. Like I always say, it pays to go with the union card every time.
- FBI Spec. Agent Terrance 'Fitz' Fitzhugh: [Referring to the FBI] We may be assholes, but on the upside, there's an awful lot of us.
- Brother Mouzone: You know what the most dangerous thing in America is, right? Nigga with a library card.