"With the clothes on their backs they came through a storm, and those that didn't die want a better life. And they want it here. Talk about impressive. My point is this: Break's over." [1.1]
"I'm not comfortable with violence." [1.2]
"I am not frightened. I'm going to blow them off the face of the earth with the fury of God's own thunder." [1.2]
"Let the word ring forth from this time and place: You kill an American, any American, we don't come back with a proportional response. We come back with total disaster!" [1.3]
"When I think of all the work you put in to get me to run, when I think of all the work you did to get me elected... I could pummel your ass with a baseball bat." [1.3]
"There are 14 punctuation marks in standard English grammar. Can anyone name them, please?" [1.6]
"It's a big party with lots of noise, and lots of people coming and going. And it's a half hour before someone says, 'Hey, where's Zoey?' Another fifteen minutes before the first phone call. Another hour and a half before anyone even thinks to shut down all the airports. Now we're off to the races! You're tied to a chair in a cargo shack, somewhere in the middle of Uganda, and I'm told that I have 72 hours to get Israel to free 460 terrorist prisoners. So I'm on the phone pleading with Benjamin and he's saying, 'I'm sorry, Mr. President, but Israel simply does not negotiate with terrorists, period. It's the only way we can survive.' So now we've got a new problem, because this country no longer has a Commander in Chief, it has a father who's out of his mind because his little girl is in a shack somewhere in Uganda with a gun to her head! Do you get it?" [1.6]
"I do not have a racial problem! I'm Spencer Tracy at the end of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." [1.11]
"What'll be the next thing that challenges us... that makes us work harder and go farther? You know, when smallpox was eradicated, it was considered the single greatest humanitarian achievement of this century. Surely, we can do it again. As we did in the time when our eyes looked toward the heavens, and with outstretched fingers, we touched the face of God." [1.5] 1
"Don't you ever forget the battles you have fought and won." [1.11]
"Is it possible I'm taking something called euthanasia?" [1.12]
"You know, I was watching a television program before with a sort of a roving moderator who spoke to a seated panel of young women who were having some sort of problem with their boyfriends, apparently because the boyfriends had all slept with the girlfriends' mothers. Then they brought the boyfriends out, and they all fought right there on television. Tell me: These people don't vote, do they?" [1.12]
"You'll do fine. People have phenomenal capacity." [1.12]
"We cannot execute some people and not execute others depending on the mood of the Oval Office. It's cruel and unusual." [1.14]
"Just be wrong. Just stand there in your wrongness and be wrong and get used to it." [1.17]
"Can we get this godforsaken event over with so I can get back to presiding over a civilization gone to hell in a handcart?" [1.19]
"As I look out over this magnificent vista..." [1.19]
"I really did wake up energized this morning. I never go to bed that way. Just once in this job, I'd like to end the day feeling as good as I did when the day started." [1.19]
"This is more important that re-election; I want to speak now." [1.19]
"I get nervous around laws that fundamentally assume that Americans can't be trusted. We better have mandatory sentencing, because judges can't be trusted to disperse even-handed justice.... We better have term limits, 'cause voters can't be trusted to recognize corruption. Oh, and by the way... when the playing field is level and the process is fair and open, it turns out we have term limits: They're called elections." [1.20]
"I'm sleeping better. When I sleep, I dream about a great discussion with experts and ideas and diction and energy and honesty. And when I wake up, I think, 'I can sell that.'" [1.20]
"Well, thanks for trying, but here I am anyway." [1.21]
"'We hold these truths to be self-evident,' they said, 'that all men are created equal.' Strange as it may seem, that was the first time in history that anyone had ever bothered to write that down. Decisions are made by those who show up." [1.22]
"Swear to God, if I don't speak to my daughter in the next five minutes, I'm going to attack something." [2.1]
"Today for the first time in history, the largest group of Americans living in poverty are children. One in five children live in the most abject, dangerous, hopeless, back-breaking, gut-wrenching poverty any of us could imagine. One in five, and they're children. If fidelity to freedom of democracy is the code of our civic religion, then surely the code of our humanity is faithful service to that unwritten commandment that says we shall give our children better than we ourselves received. Let me put it this way: I voted against the bill because I didn't want to make it harder for people to buy milk. I stopped some money from flowing into your pocket. If that angers you, if you resent me, I completely respect that. But if you expect anything different from the president of the United States, you should vote for someone else." [2.1]
"Don't think I don't know what you gave up to work on this campaign, and don't think I don't know your value. And I'll never make you think I don't again." [2.2]
"My Chief of Staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or is it okay to call the police? ... One last thing: While you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the ignorant tightass club, in this building, when the President stands, nobody sits." [2.3]
"We might do that, Leo. A hundred million Republicans, we might hire as many as two of 'em." [2.4]
"Could I have a couple of aspirin, or a weapon of some kind to kill people with?" [2.6]
"You know why late flights are good? Cause we cease to be earthbound and burdened with practicality. Ask the impertinent question, think of the idea nobody has though about yet." [2.7]
"I don't care about the constitutional argument, Josh, it's gay bashing. It's legislative gay bashing. How do I put my name on it?" [2.7]
"You know what you are? You are the Charlie Brown of missile defense. The Pentagon is Lucy." [2.12]
"Yet it feels strange to score political points by doing the right thing… I'm victim to my own purity of character." [2.12]
"We weren't prepared for someone to try and outfox us with a strategem so sophisticated it's an entire generation beyond 'Hey, look! You're shoelaces are untied'? Is that how I just lost nine guys to a damn street gang with a ham radio?" [2.14]
"We try to get people to vote for us, and in the process, we hope the people force us to do good things." [2.14]
"I inherited the war on drugs from a President, who inherited it from a President, who inherited it from a President before that. I'm not one hundred percent sure who we're fighting, but I know we're not winning. Ten years ago, we spent five billion dollars fighting drugs, and we did such a good job that last year, we spent sixteen billion. Sixty percent of federal prisoners are in jail on drug charges as opposed to two and a half percent that are there for violent crime. We imprison a higher percentage of our citizens than Russia did under communism, and South Africa under apartheid. Somewhere between fifty and eight-five percent of the prison population has a drug or alcohol abuse problem. We've tried just say no; I don't think it's gonna work." [2.14]
"I gotta hand it to you guys, you've pulled off a political first. You managed to win me the support of the Christian Right and the Cheech & Chong fan club on the same day." [2.15]
"I will bear with the nonsense of the Christian Right and the Hollywood Left and the AFL-CIO and the AARP and the cannabis society and Japan, but I will not stand and allow someone to tell me that I love one of my children less than the others." [2.15]
"What plaid flannel-wearing, cheese-eating, yahoo of a milkman governor signed that idiot bill into state law? It was me, wasn't it?" [2.16]
"We don't need martyrs, we need heroes. A hero would die for his country, but he'd much rather live for it." [3.0]
"It occurs to me I never said I'm sorry. I am. For the lawyers, for the press, for the mess, for the fear." [3.2]
"Whatever happened to Pong, huh? It was great, it was relaxing, it had that very satisfying sound." [3.19]
"This is the White House. If we only screw up twice before breakfast, it was a very good morning." [3.19]
"I knew I'd get screwed by a computer one day." [3.19]
"The law cracks me up." [3.21]
"There are moral absolutes." [3.21]
"In the future, if you're wondering, "Crime. Boy, I dunno." is when I decided to kick your ass." [3.22]
"This isn't a time for people whose doomsday scenario is a little less at the pump for Texaco and Shell." [4.1]
"I think what's lunacy is a nation of SUVs telling a nation of bicycles that they have to change they way they live before we'll agree to do something about greenhouse gases." [4.1]
"Welcome, my friend, to the show that never ends." [4.1]
"Three hundred IQ points between them, they can't find their way home. I swear to God, if Donna wasn't there, they'd have to buy a house." [4.2]
"What I lack in memory, I more than make up for with exceptional powers of deductive reasoning." [4.2]
"More than any time in recent history, America's destiny is not of our own choosing. We did not seek, nor did we provoke an assault on our freedom and our way of life. We did not expect, nor did we invite a confrontation with evil." [4.2]
"There's evil in the world. There will always be, and we can't do anything about that. But there's violence in our schools, too much mayhem in our culture, and we can do something about that. There's not enough character, discipline, depth in our classrooms. There aren't enough teachers in our classrooms. There isn't nearly enough, not nearly enough, not nearly enough money in our classrooms, and we can do something about that. We're not doing nearly enough, not nearly enough to teach our children well. And we can do better and we must do better and we will do better, and we will start this moment. Today." [4.3]
"Anybody else do a pretty good Bartlet? It's talent night here at Debate Camp. Anybody want to do a little skit?" [4.5]
"And while no Qumari government personnel or institutions were destroyed, Qumar, of course, considers an attack on its soil to be an act of war. So we are, as always, one bad bottle of tequila away from all-out war in West Asia." [4.5]
"Well, that's an extraordinary and unsurprisingly dumb interpretation of what it is my administration is trying to accomplish." [4.5]
"There are times when we're fifty states and there are times when we're one country and have national needs, and the way I know this is that Florida didn't fight Germany in World War II or establish civil rights." [4.6]
"Partisan politics is what the Founders had in mind. It guarantees that the minority opinion is heard, and as a lifelong possessor of minority opinions, I appreciate it. But if you're troubled by it, Governor, you should know in this campaign, you've used the word liberal 74 times in one day. It was yesterday." [4.6]
"Yes, calls. 'Calls.' Mr. Sarcasm with your dry 'calls.' I was this close to renaming one of the oceans after you, but no way. Maybe, maybe one of the species of fish, like trout. Trout is now Charlie. 'Went up to the lake, pulled out a couple of nice Charlie for dinner.'" [4.9]
"C'mon, that's a 15-year-old non-combatant on his way to a hospital. I want you to pretend that plane's got a big red cross on it." [4.9]
"So GI Jane gets a court martial, GI Joe gets a short film on hygiene? That is all I have to say to you." [4.10].
"I don't think I ever want to hear: 'It's too sticky for the Oval Office.' Except for parking tickets, you cheapass diplomats!" [4.10]
"So our schools have reached a crisis state, and our infant mortality rate is two and a half times what it is in Singapore. So what I think we should do for starters is we should keep more people alive, then send them to school, get a little peace and prosperity going." [4.11]
"No country has ever had a doctrine of intervention when only humanitarian interests were at stake. That streak's gonna end Sunday at noon." [4.15]
"Washington didn't bring his own Bible, he just assumed one would be provided. Which, frankly, isn't unreasonable. Guy wants you to swear an oath on a Bible, he oughta be packing a Bible." [4.15]
"I got this intelligence summary this afternoon: Mothers are standing in front of tanks. And we're gonna go get their backs." [4.15]
"The French have denied us access to their airspace. I'm not sure why they think we're gonna need it to get from here to Africa, but what the hell." [4.16]
"Yeah, listen. I don't think this is going to come as a galloping shock to anyone here, but last May, I ordered a Special Ops unit to kill Abdul Shareef, and that's what they did, and we made it look like what got reported." [4.22]
"Before I forget -- if something comes up and you're faced with the choice of killing the boyfriend or not killing the boyfriend, kill the boyfriend." [4.22]
"Leo, the people you just named don't have the legal authority to stop me from doing certain things, and some of them would go to jail if they didn't follow my orders. Very quietly, I want you to assemble the Cabinet. I want you to call the Speaker of the House." [4.23]
"I find out the gun that killed Molly O'Connor was bought through a loophole, so help me mother of God--" [4.23]
"They gave her a number, Leo. I saw it on CNN. My little girl's a case number now." [5.1]
"I'm a part of that darkness now, Leo. When did that happen?" [5.2]
"C'mon, guys, the door's closed. This has always been about partisan politics." [5.3]
"I do enjoy Governor Wade. Minus her little love affair with handguns and tort reform." [5.6]
"Two-hundred-billion dollar deficit and Haffley wants tax cuts. Take away a few zeroes and he'd pass as a mob accountant." [5.7]
"I'm not going to negotiate with anyone who holds a gun to my head. We had a deal. I don't care if my approval ratings drop into single digits. I am the President of the United States and I will leave this government shut down until we come to an equitable agreement." [5.8]
"We have to listen to what our federal judges are telling us about the sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimums. And Congress has to wean itself from the expensive high they get enacting laws which appear tough on crime, but are ineffective." [5.11]
"I can't dress for this thing without you. Which one screams dominance?" [5.11]
"You go from trying to get rid of these weapons altogether to hoping one doesn't go off on your watch. Strike another goal off the list." [5.13]
"When the NIH was founded, the idea was simple: Identify the best research as defined by scientists themselves. And now these people, who are not even scientists, have answered all the questions before any science has been done? Have you ever seen one of these grant applications? We're lucky Einstein didn't have to fill one out, or God knows what E would equal." [5.16]
"Twenty-seven million women voted for me. I think they might have had in mind that I was going to protect this particular right.... 'I like that guy from Florida with the good hairdo, but I want to retain my right to choose. I'm voting for what's-his-name, married to Abbey Bartlet.'" [5.17]
1. John Gillespie Magee Jr., a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, wrote the following poem shortly before he was shot down in 1941 at the age of 19:
High Flight
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of
earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings
Sunward I've
climbed, and joined the tumbling
mirth of sun-split clouds, and done a
hundred
things you have not dreamed of -- wheeled
and soared and
swung high in the sunlight silence.
Hovr'ring there, I've chased the
shouting wind along,
and flung my eager craft through footless halls
of air.
Up, up, the long, delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the
windswept heights with easy grace
where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed
sanctity of space,
put out my hand, and touched the face of
God.