- Detective Rust Cohle: Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at.
- Detective Marty Hart: You know, you know what, I don't think I've been very clear with you Rust. If you were drowning, I'd throw you a fuckin' barbell.
- Detective Marty Hart: What do you call a black man who flies a plane?
- Detective Lutz: I don't know.
- Detective Marty Hart: Pilot, you racist bastard.
- Miss Delores: [about Carcosa] Him who eats time... Him robes... it's a wind of invisible voices... Rejoice... Death is not the end.
- Detective Rust Cohle: I sure hope that old lady was wrong.
- Detective Marty Hart: About what?
- Detective Rust Cohle: About death not being the end of it.
- Detective Rust Cohle: He ain't gonna talk with you.
- Detective Marty Hart: I got a car battery and two jumper cables argue different.
- Detective Rust Cohle: ...And then I come back here to Louisiana for the first time in 2010.
- Detective Marty Hart: And why is that?
- Detective Rust Cohle: The same reason I'm sitting across the table from you now... A man remembers his debts.
- Detective Rust Cohle: Remember I told you about my stint in robbery? I make a pretty ace B&E man. Now, I staked his places out for weeks. Checked surveillance, mapped security. I found ingresses. Now, here I am, you know, my whole life is just one expanding, circular fuck-up and I think it's about to close out with me getting clipped in a home invasion. I mean, what I'm saying is I was aware that I might have lost my mind.