Toby: Wisnewski's a good maybe. The Majority Leader's really pushing him. And Barkham from the Fifth, though he has a question...

Josh: It's a tax thing. We're looking into it.

Charlie: Mr. President?

Bartlet: I know, I've got to get dressed for the HHS thing.

Debbie: Any word from Ellie?

Charlie: She's running an experiment on viral load reproduction and she hopes to wrap it up in time for the thing tonight.

Will: You know how this thing polls? 48% of Americans consider it a right. 46% of Americans consider it morally reprehensible. It is the definition of a lose-lose issue.

Josh: He's resilient. Which isn't such a bad thing in a candidate.

Leo: He's gonna show up at dinner popping champagne corks and the President's going to be stuck delivering the news in front of the guy's wife and mother-in-law. You have to go back and tell him no.

Doug: [holds up son's baseball glove] Here we go. Is that the greatest thing you ever saw? Can't even get my thumb in there.

Doug: It's a nepotism thing, isn't it?

Josh: That could be part of it.

Bartlet: "The speaker can convince most people of most things and himself of almost anything." Doug came up with that?

Elizabeth: You couldn't give him the courtesy of five minutes? It's one thing to delegate my car loan or Ellie's MCATs to your staff, but my husband?

Leo: This thing's going to be won and lost by how it's played on TV.

CJ: They're blaming us.

Vice-President: You got a minute, Leo?

Leo: Of course, Mr. Vice-President. Please. [To CJ] I'll see you at the thing.

CJ: First off, I wouldn't characterize this as a crisis or a breakdown. While we're at it, here are some other things it's not: a showdown, a stalemate, a stand-off, or a textbook example of partisan gridlock.

Josh: Donna? Do we have any of those pills left from that Naval doctor?

Donna: Admiral Feelgood?

Josh: The cold and sinus stuff?

Donna: The ones that made you sing all of "Bye Bye Miss American Pie"?

Josh: It was Harry Chapin. Those big blue things.

Donna: Bartram from the Times called.

Josh: About what?

Donna: Budget stalemate.

Josh: I don't know anything.

Donna: That's what I told him. [pause] I mean, not exactly. I said you're busy with, you know, things, and can't do press calls.

Toby: It's time to get Ashland off the bench, Leo.

Will: There's this thing called the Constitution. It's a nagging little document, I'll grant you, but...

Angela: We can still get tax-deductible tuition. We can get a lot of things. You got to get them to give it, that's all.

Joe Quincy: Every year he likes to hire a conservative clerk to argue with, and arguing with him helped me clarify the things I believe in. And one of those things is an independent court above party or interest.

Joe Quincy: Maybe we could all do it better. But there is such a thing called judicial independence. A lifetime appointment. He's still alive, so he gets to decide when it's time!

Margaret: The...President's Osaka remarks on opening Japan's microchip market and complaining about autos and flat glass.

Josh: Flat glass...excellent!

Margaret: [confused stare]

Josh: It's a new thing I'm doing. Kind of positive attitude thing.

Disaster Victim: What kind of a god would do such a terrible thing? We go to church every Sunday, we try to do the right thing. What kind of plan could this possibly be?

Josh: Look, Donna, no gifts, no parties. Just another day, okay?

Donna: Coffee and...?

Josh: Yeah, with a...thing.

Amy: Due respect, sir, that's what she'd want.

Bartlet: She has to be here to want things. And you don't have to be here at all.

Bartlet: This draft of the Rose Garden thing, it needs more altitude.

Toby: So, I'm going to start doing other things.

Leo: What other things?

Toby: We're drifting...we need to refocus, get back on message.

Larry: Signs indicate we could be headed toward...bagel.

Josh: Sir, Larry doesn't need a vacation. That's the word we've agreed to use in-house to avoid using the R-word.

Some guy attending the meeting: Recession?

Bartlet: What I need is your recommendation for keeping us out of...I really don't have to call it that, do I?

Leo: Of course not.

Bartlet: For keeping us out of a...thing.

Some guy: The Fed does its thing, a reduction of 25 basis points stops the bleeding.

Some other guy: You can't just leave this to the Fed, it'll look like we're asleep at the switch.

Official in meeting regarding the piano player's defection: It's the most unpredictable regime in the world. Walking out on the negotiations could be the least thing they'd do.

Josh: We have a meeting.

Ryan: Outstanding.

Josh: Okay, you can't say things like "outstanding" during it.

Toby: Distinguished...

Will: Wanna use "surpassing" again?

Toby: Eminent...illustrious...the problem being, he's none of those things.

Leo: On the other thing...

CJ: I'm fine.

Leo: Toby thought you were a little...

CJ: I'm not.

Leo: Berardi's resignation letter was persuasive...

CJ: It was, but I'm not.

Abbey: Amy, you're going to have to handle things for me a little while longer.

Amy: I know. Do you want me...

Abbey: I trust you. That's why I hired you.

Charlie: She puts up a good front.

Bartlet: Name one thing...one thing my little girl's afraid of.

Josh: We don't have a Vice President! Get it? It's our first thing, and I can't get it done. I can't get Berryhill confirmed. The one guy the President wants and I can't get it done. So could you just...be quiet for one moment?

Bartlet: There's only one thing you have to do for me. Give yourself time. Don't try to rush this.

Zoey: There was an arm...grabbing me. When I start to fall asleep, it comes back.

Bartlet: We're going to help you. We're all going to help.

Russell: Let me go on the record. If you were to offer the job. I would be honored.

Bartlet: Thank you.

Russell: But I would need a couple things.

Bartlet: Oh?

Russell: I wasn't close enough to say for sure about your relationship with John Hoynes, but as your Vice President I would want more access.

Bartlet: Uh-huh.

Russell: Direct access.

Leo: Treasury and Commerce are coming at 1:00 to discuss whether we should close the markets tomorrow.

Steve: That's not a bad idea.

Toby: We close them, the terrorists win.

Steve: The last thing people need to see this morning is the Dow down 600 and the dollar tanking.

Democrat: Truman wanted the Speaker third in line because he used to drink bourbon with Sam Rayburn.

Leo: The only thing I find extraordinary about that is that a member of the Executive Branch actually wanted to share a drink with the Congressional Leadership.

Walken: You know, I'm not the enemy. The things that unite us are far greater than the things that divide us. We both believe in democracy, preservation of American values, protection of our citizens in a sometimes hostile world.

CJ: Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, Mr. President?

Walken: Exactly.

Margaret: The Secretary of State called.

Leo: I'll bet he did.

Margaret: He's getting some pretty irate calls on the Shareef thing.

Bartlet: All the things we wanted to do, Leo. All the things we believed in and wanted to fight for.

Leo: Sir...

Bartlet: He's going to bomb, isn't he?

Leo: Yes, sir. He is.

Leo: He said his link was the pilot?

CJ: Yeah. You know what he has?

Leo: Well, Shareef's pilot who died in the crash was Jamil Bari, who had a Qumari passport, and is alive and American, and not named Jamil Bari, so he could have any number of things.

Donna: I wasn't able to talk to Josh yet about the Wellingtons.

Amy: Yeah, you don't need to. They're off the list again. That's why I was coming.

Donna: Okay, then. One less thing.

CJ: Hang on, before we do anything, happy birthday, Mark. And don't ever say I don't pay attention to these things.

Mark: My birthday's in December.

CJ: All right, go ahead and say it then. What do I care?

Toby: You think we should run a counter ad.

Will: We have to.

Toby: Saying what?

Will: Oh. I don't know.

Toby: What do you mean?

Will: What do you mean?

Toby: We've been sitting here for twenty minutes.

Will: I came in to show you the spots and to tell you I think we should run a counter ad. I don't have an idea for one.

Toby: Well get one. Have an idea! Don't come in here with half a thing and not be able to – you know, after you've walked me to the brink, and say "We've got to do this, it's important, though I have no earthly idea how"! Like one of those guys who buys a big new thing but doesn't really know how to get the most out of it!

Will: Toby, either get Andy to marry you, or kill yourself.

Josh: What the hell are you doing?

Donna: I'm sorry, but this bird has been sitting here tapping on the window for...I'm not kidding, I don't know how long, but a long time. I've lost track 'cause I'm moving into certain phases of dementia with this thing.

Leo: Fix this, would you please? There's a story out there we're obstructing justice, and another one we're like in a Ray Bradbury yarn. These things make me crazy.

Josh: Yes, sir.

Toby: How many years have you guys been – "Toby, you eat like a teenager." "Toby, that's red meat." "That's your second cigar." Here I am eating a salad, which by the way you can cover this thing in barbecue sauce and it would still taste like the ground, and I'm getting heckled by the gallery, who wanted to come in here and eat his roast beef sandwich with ketchup on a Kaiser roll and watch the damn tennis on my TV! [pause] That's all I'm saying.

Charlie: Man, Toby, you're really doing everything you can do to get that woman to marry you.

CJ: I saw you have a new column and I think it's terrific, and everyone here at the White House wishes you a lot of luck.

Stu Winkle: You are the classiest thing for calling me!

CJ: Well...

Stu Winkle: You are the classiest thing! You're my hero, CJ.

Leo: Two things I want to put on your radar.

Bartlet: Yeah...

Leo: There was a bombing at a nightclub in Kuala Lumpur, and they've got a suspect in Berlin who was trying to explode a device at the Brandenburg Gate.

Josh: Don't forget to sign this thing. They just had a whole...

Joe Quincy: Yeah.

Toby: What's in Cheyenne?

Will: A number of us are being sent out to investigate something that happened a few days ago.

Toby: What happened?

Will: You know, it's one of those things that sounds worse when you say it out loud 'cause it makes people kind of nervous.

Toby: What happened?

Will: Uh, two guys failed to follow through on an order to fire their rockets at what was thought to be an incoming ballistic missile from North Korea. Turns out it was a good thing they didn't, 'cause the missile was a meteor, and rather than it being from North Korea, it was from, you know...

Toby: ...outer space.

Joe Quincy: I'm in the doghouse with a number of people at the National Committee.

Josh: Why?

Joe Quincy: A memo that I wrote for the Solicitor General arguing that the Supreme Court should uphold regulations that limit soft money donations to political campaigns.

Josh: Oh no, that's the kind of thing that's got to wind you up in GOP jail for the same amount of time as...

Joe Quincy: ...as a Democrat who speaks out against abortion?

Bartlet: He's telling me the deadline for Colombia's re-certification is midnight tonight.

Ed n Larry: Yes sir.

Bartlet: Didn't I sign those papers already?

Leo: Yes sir, but the statute requires that you have an in-person briefing on the current drug situation. So we'll get you someone to do it on the way in.

Bartlet: Just to check. They're going to tell me that the narco-traficantes are running the Parliament, but that we should re-certify them as an ally in the drug war.

Leo: It's a pro-forma thing. It's better than having them as an enemy in the drug war.

Bartlet: You mean calling them an enemy.

Josh: Donna...

Donna: You want me to fax those things?

Josh: Yeah, and you can try to get me CJ on the phone.

Toby: I meant ‘cause of the nuisance of having to circle around up there when I said “Thank God I sent Will instead of me.” Not ‘cause of the other thing.

Josh: I know what you meant.

CJ: It just suddenly worked?

Will: The gear?

CJ: Yeah.

Will: Yeah.

CJ: I'm not sure I'm good at living in a world where that kind of thing is possible.

Will: But you are.