Don Draper quotes from Mad Men

Don Draper

By love you mean big lightning bolts to the heart, where you can't eat and you can't work, and you just run off and get married and make babies. The reason you haven't felt is because it doesn't exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me...to sell nylons.

Don Draper

You're born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts. But I never forget. I'm living like there's no tomorrow, because there isn't one.

Don Draper

Advertising is based on one thing, happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay.

Don

Suggesting that our customers have a...what did you call it? A death wish? I just don't see that on a billboard.

Don Draper

Mourning is just extended self-pity.

Don

Well, some men like eyebrows... and all men like Joan Crawford. Salvatore couldn't stop talking about it.

Don Draper

[speaking to a client] Listen, I'm not here to tell you about Jesus. You already know about Jesus, either he lives in your heart or he doesn't.

Don Draper

Well, technology is a glittering lure. But there is a rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash – if they have a sentimental bond with the product. My first job I was in house at a fur company, with this old pro of a copywriter, a Greek, named Teddy. Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is “new.” It creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion. He also talked about a deeper bond with a product: nostalgia. It's delicate, but potent. Sweetheart. [starts slide show featuring photos of Draper's family.] Teddy told me that in Greek, nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound. It's a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn't a space ship, it's a time machine. It goes backwards, forwards. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called a wheel, it's called a carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels. Round and a round, and back home again. To a place where we know we are loved.

Don Draper

[on being told to hire young people] So what am I supposed to do, dangle a Pepsi out the window and see if I can hook a stroller?

Don Draper

[on why he won't punish his son with violence] He's a little kid. My father beat the hell out of me, and all it did was make me fantasize about the day I could murder him. And I wasn't half as good as Bobby.

Don

It's your life. You don't know how long it's gonna last, but you know it's got a bad ending. You've gotta move forward... as soon as you can figure out what that means.

Don Draper

I have been watching my life. It's right there. I keep scratching at it, trying to get into it. I can't.

Don

I keep going to a lot of places and ending up somewhere I've already been.

Don Draper'

And let's also say that change is neither good or bad, it simply is. It can be greeted with terror or joy. A tantrum that says ‘I want it the way it was,' or a dance that says ‘Look, something new.'

Don Draper

You're not an artist, Peggy, you solve problems. Leave some tools in your toolbox.