Mayor Dutton: Remember when you compared yourself to those old buildings, they're an eyesore until they get torn down and then they're beloved?
Frank: Well, that was just a metaphor.
Mayor Dutton: Well you know what really happens? A couple of people bitch for a couple of weeks and then life just goes on. No one is indispensable, certainly not me, but not you either.

When I think I've had a tough week I remember not as tough as being the parent of a teenager.

Frank: Tragedy doesn't have a minimum age, sad to say.
Jamie: It's like the modern plague.
Danny: It's worse. The plague is a sickness that you catch. You don't say, 'Hey, let's go out and score some plague tonight.' Kids are doing this to themselves.
Jamie: And you can't just go, just say no.
Frank: Yeah, but sometimes the simplest answer is the best one, and the right one, not just the catch phrase, but the point, the education.

Frank: What's the detail say about our mayor?
Garrett: In terms of?
Frank: In terms of how she treats our cops?
Garrett: They like her, to a man, so to speak. She treats them with a lot of respect and has a nice variety of snacks.

If an experiment blows up the lab, you shut down the experiment.

Frank: If you think you are owed an apology, I'm sorry.
Garrett: I never thought, “owed.”
Frank: Well, whatever, there it is.
Garrett: Take it or leave it.

Frank: Are you asking me to boycott the parade?
Joseph: I wouldn't be so bold, Commissioner.
Frank: But you would?
Abigail: All day long, Sir.

When Mary died, when I lost my wife, I was a mess and it was my kids, Joe, Erin, Jamie, and Danny who, even though they had lost their mom, always made sure, each in their own way, to be there for me. I'm not sure what a shrink would say about that, but it was appreciated.

Someone said, we are all just passing time and occupy our chair very briefly. The time we had with Linda was a gift. and we are all the better that she occupied her chair so well.

There's something you should know about police officers… They know what people are capable of in ways that most thankfully do not. They have seen first hand the cigarette burns on an infant's back or the black eyes and the sideways jaw on an 80 year old rape victim, and they assume the worst. And they take that on so that good people can go on about their lives and think generously about their fellow man. They provide that luxury.

Mayor Dutton: She was clearly under the influence.
Frank: To put it mildly.
Mayor Dutton: Well, how would you put it?
Frank: Officer Olivet was trying to reason with someone who had snorted enough jet fuel to win the ninth race at Belmont.

Frank: Of all my kids, I think he's the most like me.
Henry: When we lost Mary you checked out completely.
Frank: I was stuck in quick sand.
Henry: I remember.
Frank: You know what got me out?
Henry: Work? Purpose?
Frank: My kids became my purpose.