Dudley

• You may well reap the benefit, Edmund, but are you truly prepared to be despised within the department?
• Wendell, I'd like full and docile co-operation on every topic...
• This is the city of angels — and you haven't got any wings.

Lynn

• It would be easier for you if there was an angle wouldn't it? You're afraid of Bud because you can't figure out how to play him. He doesn't follow the same rules of politics as you do. It makes him dangerous. I see Bud because I want to. I see Bud because he can't hide the good inside of him. I see Bud because he makes me feel like Lynn Bracken and not some Veronica Lake look-alike who fucks for money. I see Bud because he doesn't know how to disguise who he is. I see Bud for all the ways he's different from you.

Ed

• [At the end of an interrogation session] You know, I'm talking about the gas chamber, and you haven't even asked me what this is about. You've got a big "Guilty" sign around your neck.

Dialogue

[White catches a parolee beating his wife]

Wife-beater: Who in the hell are you?

Bud: Ghost of Christmas Past. Why don't you dance with a man for a change?

Wife-beater: What are you, some kind of smart ass?

[tries to attack Bud, is easily beaten and handcuffed to his porch]

Bud: You'll be out in a year and a half. I'd get cozy with your parole officer. You touch her again, I'll have you violated on a kiddie raper beef. [grabs wife beater by the head] You know what they do to kiddie-rapers in Quentin.

Dudley: Would you be willing to plant corroborative evidence on a suspect you knew to be guilty, in order to ensure an indictment?

Ed: Dudley, we've been over this.

Dudley: Yes or no, Edmund?

Ed: No.

Dudley: Would you be willing to beat a confession out of a suspect you knew to be guilty?

Ed: No.

Dudley: Would you be willing to shoot a hardened criminal in the back, in order to offset the chance that some...lawyer...

Ed: No.

Dudley: Then, for the love of God, don't be a detective. Stick to assignments where you don't have to make those kinds of choices.

[Bud goes to question Lynn Bracken and encounters a client in his underwear who refuses to leave]

Man: Who is it, dollface? Want me to get rid of him?

Bud: Take a hike, pal.

Man: [stepping closer] Maybe I will... and maybe I won't.

Bud: [showing his badge] LAPD, shitbird. Get the fuck outta here or I'll call your wife to come get you.

[The man stares blankly for a moment, collects his clothes, and leaves]

Man: [nods] Officer.

Bud: [nods] Councilman.

[Lying in bed, Lynn notices a scar on Bud's shoulder]

Lynn: Where'd this come from?

Bud: When I was twelve, my old man went after my mother with a bottle. I got in the way.

Lynn: You saved her.

Bud: Not for long.

Lynn: I'm sorry, Bud, it's none of my...

Bud: He tied me to the radiator. I watched him beat my mother to death with a tire iron. He left us there. It was three days before a truant officer found us. They never found the old man.

Johnny: You want an autograph? Write to MGM.

Ed: Since when do two-bit hoods and hookers give out autographs?

Johnny: What'd you say to me?

Ed: LAPD. Sit down.

Woman: Who in the hell do you think you are?

Jack: Ed...

Ed: Take a walk, honey, before I haul your ass downtown.

Johnny: You are making a large mistake.

Woman: Get away from our table.

Ed: Shut up! [leans in] A hooker cut to look like Lana Turner is still a hooker.

Johnny: Hey!

Ed: She just looks like Lana Turner.

Jack: [grinning] She is Lana Turner.

Ed: What?

Jack: She is Lana Turner.

[Lana throws a drink in Ed's face]

Ed: All I ever wanted was to measure up to my father.

Bud: Here's your chance. He died in the line of duty, didn't he?

Detective: Do you think you can talk your way out of this, Lieutenant?

Ed: No... but I can tell the truth.

Cast

• Kevin Spacey - Jack Vincennes
• Russell Crowe - Bud White
• Guy Pearce - Det. Lt. Edmund Exley
• James Cromwell - Capt. Dudley Smith
• Kim Basinger - Lynn Bracken
• Danny DeVito - Sid Hudgens
• David Strathairn - Pierce Patchett