Nick Nolte credited as playing...
Max Hoover
- Lieutenant Max Hoover: See, that's federal property. This isn't. This is L.A. This is my town. Out here you're a trespasser. Out here I can pick you up, burn your house, fuck your wife, and kill your dog. And the only thing that'll protect you is if I can't find you. And I already found you.
- General Timms: These tiny particles of matter, which are so small that no one's ever seen them - never - they contain enough energy to blow up this house, an entire city, every person on Earth. Now that is inconceivable.
- Hoover: General, I really don't think much about those things. I'd probably see too much.
- General Timms: What do you see?
- Hoover: People dead before their time.
- General Timms: That's the history of the world, Lieutenant. Some people die before their time so that others can live. It's the cornerstone of civilization. War, religion, democracy. A hundred die so that a thousand may live.
- Hoover: Jack Flynn?
- Jack Flynn, Mafia Mobster: [hands him money] Here ya go buddy, buy yourself a good time.
- [turning away]
- Jack Flynn, Mafia Mobster: They'll let anybody in here.
- Hoover: [throwing bills down] Mr. Flynn, I'm Maxwell Hoover. I'm with the Los Angeles Police Department.
- Jack Flynn, Mafia Mobster: Oh, that means I get change back.
- Hoover: Here's something that doesn't cost you 25 bucks an hour: You carry your own water, Ellery. You understand? You carry your OWN water.
- Hoover: How come you got a hot dog in your mouth while you're threading the projector? Why do you eat while you're working? Why do you eat all the time?
- Coolidge: It's all psychological, Max. I eat so I don't think about food.
- Hoover: Oh... So you eat so you don't think about food.
- Coolidge: Yeah.
- Hoover: I don't want to butt into your business, but this psychiatrist, the guy you're going to, I think he's in worse shape than you are.