Will Bailey quotes from The West Wing

Will

Sixty percent is 6 of 10 in a focus group. You change one mind, it's a dead heat. You change two, it's a landslide. This campaign's a mechanism of persuasion. We're not asking for a show of hands.

Will

The President temporarily handing over power to his political enemy? I think it's a fairly stunning act of patriotism... and a fairly ordinary act of fatherhood.

Will

I need to see my bed, I'm thinking of carrying a picture of it in my wallet.

Will

[to Josh] He's smart enough to take your advice... Bob Russell might be the next President of the United States. You get in now, you can make him the candidate you want him to be. After that we make him the President we need him to be.

C.J.

Somebody said you were hanging out with some tribe, and they made you a king.

I'm a god.

C.J.

Oh.

Will

I'm the only white man to ever witness the sacrificial rites of the Bau tribe of Fiji. I was almost a victim myself, until they made me The Supporter of the World.

C.J.

How'd you swing that?

Will

Using my Palm Pilot, I convinced the Bau I had the power to make the gods' writing appear at will, and more significantly, predict the next day's weather.

C.J.

So you're a god?

Will

I'm the god of Good Harvest and the Land of the Dead.

C.J.

I gotta go there and bring my laptop. It quacks when I have e-mail.

Will

No, you're too tall.

C.J.

What would happen?

Will

They would paint your face and...other body parts black so as to resemble a warrior ornamented for feast or combat. Then you would be garroted by a length of boar tripe.

The die's been cast, big brother. You're making everyone crazy.

Will

There's a moment, after you cast the die but before it hits the table. Breathe wrong and you'll change the way it lands.

Toby

Call and response isn't going to work in front of a Joint Session. You're alliteration happy: 'guardians of gridlock,' 'protectors of privilege.' I needed an avalanche of Advil. And when you use pop-culture references, your speech has a shelf life of twelve minutes. You don't mind constructive criticism, do you?

Will

No, sir.

Toby

Anyway, thanks for coming in. I told Sam I can do this by myself.

Will

Well, maybe he thought that your speeches were obscurantist policy tracts lost in a cul-de-sac of their own internal self-righteousness and groaning from the weight of statistics. I'm just speculating. I can't say for sure.

Toby

[pause; laughs to himself] A 500-word stanza on American leadership in a globally interdependent age that moves beyond triumphalism by this time tomorrow. If it's 501, don't show it to me.

Toby

This is incredibly good... Will. 'Never shrinking from the world's...' '...a fierce belief in what we can achieve together.' I used to write like this. It was ten months ago. I don't understand what's going on. I really don't. I've had slumps before. Everybody does, but this is different. I'm sorry, we don't know each other, but there aren't that many people I can talk to about it. I don't understand what's happening. There's no blood going to it. I never had to locate it before. I don't even know where to look. I'm the President's voice and I don't want it to sound like this. And there's an incredible history to second Inaugurals. 'Fear itself,' Lincoln...I really thought I was on my way to being one of those guys. I thought I was close. Now I'm just writing for my life and you can't serve the President that way. But if I didn't write...I can't serve him at all.

Will

Yeah. Can I tell you three things? You are more in need of a night in Atlantic City than any man I've ever met. Number two is, the last thing you need to worry about is no blood going there. You've got blood going there, about thirteen ways. And some of it isn't good. Once again, I say, 'Atlantic City.' I'd say sit down at a table, go for dinner, see a show take a walk on the boardwalk and smell the salt air... but if you're anything like me, nothing after 'sit down at a table' is going to happen.

Toby

What's the third thing?

Will

You are one of those guys.

Will

Seriously, Toby, you put me in that office and everyone who works on the speech-writing staff is gonna resent me.

Toby

Don't be ridiculous. It's a West Wing office. Everyone who works in the White House is gonna resent you.

This President can't write himself a blank check when it comes to foreign policy. Especially this President.

Will

'Especially this President?'

Yes.

Will

Because of the clause in Article 1 that says not every President gets the full powers of Commander-in-Chief?

Are you re-writing the section [of the speech]?

Will

Yes.

Dramatically?

Will

Well, I like to think that I have a certain flair...

Toby

I throw a rubber ball against the window; that means you come to me. As my frustration level grows, so does the velocity of the ball against the window.

Will

Don't you ever worry about the window breaking?

Toby

During moments of peak frustration: when the Speaker of the House threatened to repeal the 16th Amendment, a couple of Yankee games, and when Congress censured my boss...but it's always held up, that window; that window is a game-day player.

Toby

This language proposes a new doctrine for the use of force! That we use force, whenever we see an injustice we want to correct: like Mother Teresa with first-strike capability!

Will

Damn right!

Will

I heard once - I don't know if this is true - I heard once that you convinced the President to let you rewrite a section of the State of the Union with less than twenty-four hours to go. It was the second year and everybody was a Republican, whether they were or not, and people at the DNC had convinced him to include the line, 'The era of big government is over.' And you couldn't live with it. Because government should be a place where people come together and no one gets left behind. An instrument of good. And that's exactly what we heard in the State of the Union the next night.

Toby

There were maybe four people in the room when I had that conversation.

Will

Well, if I'd have been one of them, I would have repeated it to everyone I met.

Bartlet

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful and committed people can change the world. Do you know why?

Will

Because it's the only thing that ever has.

Toby

It made the news out there?

Will

A Jewish guy won a bar fight. It's news everywhere.