Detective Ray Velcoro: My powers of influence are so meager in this sublunar world of ours, I try to limit the people I can disappoint. And I make sure to know the difference between my obligations and somebody else's.
Detective Ray Velcoro: If you ever bully or hurt anybody again, I'll come back and butt fuck your father with your mom's headless corpse on this goddamn lawn.
Frank Semyon: Never do anything out of hunger. Even eating.
Detective Rust Cohle: I can't say the job made me this way. More like me being this way made me right for the job. I used to think about it more, but you reach a certain age you know who you are. Now I live in a little room, out in the country behind a bar, work four nights a week, and in between I drink. And there ain't nobody there to stop me. I know who I am. And after all these years, there's a victory in that.
Detective Rust Cohle: Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at.
Detective Rust Cohle: Once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light's winning.
Detective Ani Bezzerides: Maybe, and this is just a thought, maybe you were put on this earth for more than fucking.
Vera Machiado: Everything is fucking.
Frank Semyon: This hurt, it can make you a better man. That's what pain does. It shows you what was on the inside.
Detective Marty Hart: Do you wonder ever if you're a bad man?
Detective Rust Cohle: No. I don't wonder, Marty. World needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door.
Detective Ray Velcoro: Sometimes a good beating provokes personal growth.
Detective Ray Velcoro: Pain is inexhaustible. It's only people that get exhausted.