Quotes from David Simon

Albert Camus, a great humanist and existentialist voice, pointed out that to commit to a just cause with no hope of success is absurd. But then, he also noted that not committing to a just cause is equally absurd. But only one choice offers the possibility for dignity. And dignity matters. Dignity matters.

It's been said that no man is a hero to a newspaperman, and I spent too many years as an ink-stained wretch.

In the wake of Katrina, what you're witnessing and what we are very careful to depict is a form of patriotism.

A little anger is a good thing if it isn't on your own behalf, if it's for others deserving of your anger, your empathy.

A TV show can't hold people and institutions to account like good journalism can.

Health is a return to our memory of wholeness.

What writer wants to make compromises with story? Story is the only reason you're in it.

A little anger is a good thing if it isn't on your own behalf, if it's for others deserving of your anger, your empathy.

One of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage.

For a detective or street police, the only real satisfaction is the work itself; when a cop spends more and more time getting aggravated with the details, he's finished. The attitude of co-workers, the indifference of superiors, the poor quality of the equipment - all of it pales if you still love the job; all of it matters if you don't.

Boiled down to its core, the truth is always a simple, solid thing

Murder often doesn't unsettle a man. In Baltimore, it usually doesn't even ruin his day.

A man got to have a code. --The Wire

Everyone lies. Murderers lie because they have to; witnesses and other participants lie because they think they have to; everyone else lies for the sheer joy of it, and to uphold a general principle that under no circumstances do you provide accurate information to a cop.

Y]ou are ... entrusted with the pursuit of that most extraordinary of crimes: the theft of a human life. You speak for the dead. You avenge those lost to the world.

If a drug dealer falls in West Baltimore and no one is there to hear him, does he make a sound?

sergeant thinking about an excellent detective who's threatening to quit) For a squad sergeant, having Worden working for you was like having sex: When it was good it was great and even when it wasn't so hot, it was still pretty damn good.

In any case where there is no apparent suspect, the crime lab will produce no valuable evidence. In those cases where a suspect has already confessed and been identified by at least two eyewitnesses, the lab will give you print hits, fiber evidence, blood typings and a ballistic match.

you believe a little shithead like this is able to stay on the run for so long?" McLarney declares, returning from yet another unsuccessful turn-up of a Milligan hideout. "You shoot a guy, hey," the sergeant adds with a shrug. "You shoot another guy—well, okay, this is Baltimore. You shoot three guys, it's time to admit you have a problem.

It's good to be good, but it's better to be lucky.

The three-story derelict is home to Smitty, Gale, and Gale's baby - a nuclear family nested on the corner - and Ella is accustomed to seeing them on the front steps, waiting for redemption or a cool breeze from the harbor, neither of which seems particularly likely.

It is not a look of horror, consternation, or even distress. More often than not, the last visage of a murdered man resembles that of a flustered schoolchild to whom the logic of a simple equation has just been revealed.

It is the unrepentant worship of statistics that forms the true orthodoxy of any modern police department.

This is CID homicide, mister, and neither heat nor rain nor gloom of night will stay these men from their rendezvous with callousness. Cruel jokes? The cruelest. Sick humor? The sickest. And, you ask, how can they possibly do it? Volume. That's right, volume. They won't be outsold, they won't be undersold; they will solve no crime before its time.