- Officer Lynn Donahue: Nick and Ves had passed the earlier part of the afternoon looking at clothes, sporting equipment, bongo drums, and other racy items for kids their age.
- Jim Bowers: Well, I'm no Picasso, but... Say, I'm gonna have to do another painting of you.
- Kathy: Why not? Only this time, let's do one my family can see.
- Jim Bowers: How's lover boy Kenny?
- Kathy: He's livin'.
- Jim Bowers: Still hangin' around here?
- Kathy: What's bugging you?
- Jim Bowers: Life, honey.
- Police Capt. Richard R. Allen: Now, I want you and your men to buzz every creep, hustler, junkie, pusher, pigeon in the street. I want you to make the street unhappy. Do you understand?
- Police Capt. Richard R. Allen: Sure, the papers are gonna blow this thing up into a king-size goof on our part. All right, that's their job. Our job is to find the stuff.
- Nick Raymond: This isn't money in a can.
- [holding up the heroin]
- Nick Raymond: This is a passport. This is a golden key. This is an around the world ticket and a dame - 10 feet tall.
- Officer Lynn Donahue: Narcotics addiction is a hungry evil - feeding from the sickness and desperation of other vices: extortion, the numbers' racket, prostitution, blackmail. All allies. Each a means of feeding the habit. We were trying to choke off all the lifelines.
- Officer Lynn Donahue: In the language of the street they call it: junk or H, stuff, snow, mooch, happy dust, kokomo, horse. There are other names for it. Names that aren't so refined. But it all adds up to the same thing: heroin.
- Nick Raymond: Look, I punch a time clock everyday. I goof around. I'm just another guy. You think that's what I want? You think I want to get married and buy a house and have two mortgages and two kids, like just any ordinary guy? I want to live, Jim. I want to be somebody! I don't want to buy my life on an installment plan. I want it right now!
- Jim Bowers: Sure, you want it right now. *I* want it right now. Everybody wants it right now. How 'bout you, Ves? You want it right now?
- Julian 'Ves' Vespucci: Sure, I want it right now.
- Nick Raymond: Look, Jim, I'm going all the way. I'll tell you why. I'm livin' in a whole that may be 60 years long. Oh, I could get by. I can get the stuff the average guy gets. Is that what you want, huh?
- Danny: Maybe some guys do fix themselves up, now and then. You know, with somethin', just a little pick-me-up. Well, what's wrong with that? A guy takes a drink, doesn't mean he's a lush.
- Officer Lynn Donahue: Nick and Ves were making plans and part of the plan was to drive into the future on the wheels of a shiny sport's car.
- Jim Bowers: I was wondering, Danny, how does it feel when you're on the stuff? What's it - really like? Does it make you feel good? You know what I mean?
- Danny: Man, you think it's gonna be - the greatest, at first. Just for kicks. You want to get with it. You know, all your friends, the whole crowd, they're all in on it and you don't want to be like a square. At first, you just try it for kicks. At first it's tea, but, soon that's too weak and then all of the sudden you find yourself takin' it first pop. You know, just the ol' ice cream habit for Sundays and weekends. But, weeks get too long. Right then, then you got to have that extra fix. Then, man, you're hooked, but good. You got that monkey.
- Danny: You're sick and you're gonna get sicker. Your time's running low, because already your body's starting to dry out. Your system's calling for the stuff. You need a fix to keep the monkey quiet. Just one fix will kick away the pain.
- Danny: Stop? You can miss a meal, but that fix - it's the only time of day you care anything about. Then, right then, you're in a bind. It's that ol' rat race. You're chasing yourself.
- Danny: Kick it! That's what they call it - and that's just what you try to do. But the monkey hangs on and claws deeper into you. It gets worse. Your bones scream and try to stretch apart. Your hands tremble. Your throat's dry. Your brain burns. You body shivers. The pain won't push out of your insides. One minute you're on fire and then you're swallowed up by a giant snowball. You feel like a scoop of cold jelly. You want something hard to press flat against. And most of all - you beg to die.
- Jim Bowers: Look, I don't want to go to jail, Nick!
- Nick Raymond: Neither do I.
- Julian 'Ves' Vespucci: Well, like, who does?
- Danny: All the sudden, the room's a crazy octopus squeezin' down, twisting and tearing you. The wad of pain in your gut starts spreading. You try to squeeze it in. Then somebody comes to cart you away. They're gonna take you to someplace else. Someplace where you'll kick it the hard way: Cold Turkey.
- Danny: The minutes are like hot pellets dropping against your insides. And then there's no time. No hours. No minutes. Just suffering.
- Nick Raymond: Look, honey, I've got some business to take care of. Why don't you get a girl for Ves and I'll meet you in a half hour and we'll take in a flick.
- Nick's Girl: Well, it's kind of late. What kind of girl?
- Julian 'Ves' Vespucci: Oh, like kind of - kind of tall and dark and crazy with...
- Nick's Girl: I know, short, blonde, and anything I can find.
- Jim Bowers: We've got enough heroin here to snow half the city under. You're thinkin' about just one beat up junkie, but what about the others? Some kid starts out with a joy pop lookin' for new kicks and he greases the skids to the morgue. Guys on this stuff, they're not - they're not human. They're just an *arm*. Just one big vein! As if the rest of them had died and rotted.
- Nick Raymond: You know, a few minutes with some hophead and he wants to change the world. Well, you can't, little man, because that is the way the ball bounces.
- Jim Bowers: You're no better than a candy store pusher who shoves the stuff on any dopey kid that comes along just to make a buck! I always thought that you had guts. But, you got so little guts that you're afraid if you do make it now pushin' this stuff, you'll never make it. You want four cars and eight swimming pools and two dozen suits and you don't care who you step on to get it!