Edward Conlon quotes:

Good cops make their bosses look good, and Hector was a one-man beauty school.

The bulletproof vest--'bullet resistant,' technically--is made of two double panels of a synthetic material called Kevlar, inside a cloth carrier that holds it around your torso like a lead X-ray smock. One cop wrote phrases from the Bible on his, 'Yea, though I walk in the valley of the Shadow of Death...' Other cops wrote their blood type.

On Sunday mornings, as the dawn burned into day, swarms of gulls descended on the uncollected trash, hovering and dropping in the cold clear light.

Later that day when I passed the Admin lieutenant and the Sargeant standing by the Desk, I said casually, "I'm leaving too, Sarge.""Okay," he said, and I kept on walking.

What is the world coming to, when you can't trust a whore named Snake~?

Once, I went to the roof of a project and saw a hawk perched on the rail; always, you see the city in the near distance, its towers and spires studded with lights, both stately and slapdash, like the crazy geometry of rock crystal. There were many days when you felt sorry for people who worked inside."

I was constantly amazed by how many people talked me into arresting them.

Do you like being a cop?""I love it, when it doesn't suck, sir.