- EADA Ben Stone: I'm responsible for my actions, not the color of my skin. And if it makes you feel good to call me a racist, fine. But if you want to know who's really responsible for racism in today's society, take a good look in the mirror.
- EADA Ben Stone: Nobody's willing to draw a line in the sand! Nobody's willing to say that the law is the law and if you break it you will be prosecuted, win, lose or draw.
- Adam Schiff: Except you.
- EADA Ben Stone: It's better to light a match than to curse the darkness.
- Adam Schiff: Even if it lights a fuse that could blow up the city?
- EADA Ben Stone: What do you want? Peace without justice?
- Adam Schiff: I'm trying to straddle a fence so that this city can heal. Can you understand that?
- EADA Ben Stone: [quietly] Yep. I understand.
- [after a long pause]
- EADA Ben Stone: I understand that the cure is worse than the disease.
- [goes to the door]
- EADA Ben Stone: And that it's a solution I just can't be part of.
- EADA Ben Stone: Shambala... Just once, I'd like to hear someone in this country stand up and say, "I did it. I'm the one responsible for my actions, not my television set, and not the color of my skin." And if it makes you feel good to call me a racist, fine. But if you want to know who's really responsible for racism in today's society, take a good look in the mirror.
- Lennie Briscoe: [after watching a videotape of John DeSantis being attacked] We don't care about the looting and busting up people's cars. That's not our department. We're Homicide.
- Daryl Johnson: So?
- Lennie Briscoe: So your friend there is homiciding somebody!
- EADA Ben Stone: Better to light a match than curse the darkness.
- Adam Schiff: Be careful you don't light a fuse.
- Adam Schiff: What happened to "Give me your huddled masses"? What the hell has happened to this city?
- Adam Schiff: ...after twenty years in this office, you'd think you'd have a sense of reality.
- Ben Stone: Reality? The reality is that no one is willing to draw a line in the sand. Nobody is willing to say that the law is the law. And if you break it, you will be prosecuted: win, lose or draw.
- Reverend Ott: Can I assume that you'll get to this before lunch?
- Mike Logan: Sure, right after we have a couple of donuts.
- Ben Stone: Sanctuary? What is this, medieval England?
- A.D.A. Claire Kincaid: You really plan to argue this in front of a judge?
- Shambala Green: And the Appellate Division and the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, if necessary.
- Ben Stone: So your client is going to stay in this church until your exercise in futility is completed?
- Shambala Green: Considering the alternative, you bet. That is, of course, unless you'd like to save us all a lot of time and energy.
- Ben Stone: Well, what does that mean?
- Shambala Green: Man two, he serves the minimum.
- Ben Stone: Your client savagely killed Mr. John De Santis on the local news. We call that murder two.
- Anita Van Buren: [to Reverend Ott] Look, Reverend, nobody and I mean Man of God or garbage man, comes into my office and accuses my detectives of giving preferential treatment according to religious persuasion. Now I think you'd better leave.
- Lennie Briscoe: [to Reverend Ott] Yeah, that's right, Reverend. There's this great Jewish conspiracy to knock off the black man, one by one. That's why they all drive big Cadillacs, so they can't miss
- Adam Schiff: There's a reason for the Reverend Otts of this world.
- EADA Ben Stone: To promote anti-Semitism?
- Adam Schiff: To remind us that we still have a long way to go.
- Shambala Green: [to Joshua Berger] You're scared of blacks. Isn't that right, Mr. Berger?
- Joshua Berger: I am not a racist.
- Shambala Green: You're not only scared of them, you hate them. Isn't that true?
- Joshua Berger: Look, any middle-aged white person: Jew, Baptist, atheist, whatever, who says that he's not frightened, no, make that terrified to find himself alone on a city street, being followed by two or three black teenagers, is a liar.
- Lennie Briscoe: [to Daryl Johnson] You know you have the right to a lawyer.
- Daryl Johnson: Yeah, right. How many years they go to school to learn how to say, "Keep your mouth shut, Daryl"?
- Anita Van Buren: [to Reverend Ott] You really think the only way to get justice is through lying and cheating?
- Reverend Ott: If it does produce justice, yes, I do.
- EADA Ben Stone: Don't blame me for murdering them, they were horrible parents. And don't blame me for mutilating my husband in his sleep. He abused me