Abbey Bartlet quotes from The West Wing

Abbey

Okay. So just ease up on the high ground.

On that point I concede the high ground.

Abbey

And I concede I was wrong about the thing.

Good.

Abbey

However...

No. No "however". Just be wrong. Just stand there in your wrongness and be wrong and get used to it.

Abbey

[angry] I don't think it's a good idea for us to talk about this now.

Why?

Abbey

Cause you've got to focus on Columbia.

[angry] I can do two things at once.

Abbey

You don't have two things at once, Jed. You have ninety-two things at once and one of them is five hostages in Columbia.

Yes and I'd like to go about my day without this black cloud around me so I'd like to talk now!

Abbey

And I'm saying this is a longer conversation than that. I don't want you all over the place and we can talk about it later and you should focus.

What are you, my Zen master? Can I be in charge of my own mind?!

Abbey

Let me tell you something, jackass! Get as chippy as you want if that makes you feel better. I am your wife... I love you... you have a crisis... you have to deal with it. When it's done we'll talk.

[pause] I feel better already.

I didn't make the decision to run again!

Abbey

Yes, you did! [faces him angrily] If we're gonna talk about this, let's talk about this. The moves over the last few weeks... the changes in last night's speech. This whole place is in reelection mode.

That's what we do, Abbey. We run for things! From the day a Congressman is sworn in he's got to raise $10,000 a week to get reelected! A President gets to govern for eighteen months. We try to get people to vote for us and in the process we hope the people force us to do good things.

Abbey

We had a deal!

Yes, we had a deal.

Abbey

Yes, Jed. [She walks back over and sits across from him.] Look at me! [He reluctantly looks at her.] Do you get that you have M.S.?

Abbey...

Abbey

Do you get that your own immune system is shredding your brain? And I can't tell you why. [tearfully] Do you have any idea how good a doctor I am and that I can't tell you why?

I've had one episode in two years.

Abbey

Yes, but relapsing-remitting M.S. can turn into secondary-progressive M.S. oftentimes ten years after the initial diagnosis which is exactly where we'll be in two years! Do you know what that's going to look like when it happens?

I know what it's going to...

Abbey

Fatigue... an inability to get through the day...

Look...

Abbey

...memory lapses... loss of cognitive function... failure to reason... failure to think clearly. And I can't tell you if it's going to happen. I don't know if it's going to get better I don't know if it's going to get worse. But we had a deal. And that deal is how you justified keeping it a secret from the world. It's how you justified it to God. It's how you justified it to me.

Babish

"Are you not able to recognize a standard medical history form when it is put in front of your face?"

Abbey

I didn't read it! I didn't think it was important!

Babish

What else have you signed without thinking it was important? Prescriptions?

Abbey

No!

Babish

Patient instructions?

Abbey

No!

Babish

Oh, so just this?

Abbey

Oliver, I am not an expert in the diseases of the central nervous system, but I can tell you that MS is not hereditary. The President's condition has absolutely no relevance to Zoey's health status.

Babish

Well, now you're changing your story, Mrs. Bartlet.

Abbey

No, I'm not.

Babish

Did you sign it because you were absent-minded or did you sign it because you knew best?

Abbey

I signed it 'cause...I just signed it...It was a form...And I think making a big thing out of it is what makes it into a big thing!

Babish

Really?

Abbey

And I'm not a hundred percent sure that that's not what you're going for.

Babish

Why would I want to make it a big thing?

Abbey

Because defending the President in primetime looks good on a resume.

Babish

Well, I've got a pretty good-looking resume already, Mrs. Bartlet. And it's not a big thing because I say so, ma'am; it's a big thing. You're gonna get all the questions I just asked you, and quite a few more. And then they're gonna ask the President if he was in the room when you signed it. And that's when he's gonna give everyone's favorite answer from a President who has just announced that he has MS: "I. DON'T. REMEMBER."

Babish

Mrs. Bartlet, I want to talk to you about...

Abbey

[firmly] Dr. Bartlet. [pause] When did I stop being "Dr." Bartlet? When in the campaign did I decide that women were gonna like me more if I called myself "Mrs."? When did I decide that women were that stupid?

Did you know that hardly any of the guys who landed on the moon are married to the same people they were married to before they went there?

Abbey

What?

I'm just saying, it could have been worse: I could have been an astronaut.

Abbey

You could not have been an astronaut.

I would have been a great astronaut.

Abbey

You're afraid of heights, speed, fire, and small enclosed spaces.

I'd have overcome it to go to the moon.

Abbey

I know you would have. [pause] There's something important I have to say. I haven't really made up my mind yet, but at the moment, I'm leaning towards voting for you.

Words when spoken out loud for the sake of performance are music. They have rhythm and pitch and timbre and volume. These are the properties of music and music has the ability to find us and move us and lift us up in ways that literal meaning can't.

Abbey

You are an oratorical snob.

Yes, and God loves me for it.

Abbey

You said he was sending you to hell.

For other stuff, not for this.

Words when spoken out loud for the sake of performance are music. They have rhythm and pitch and timbre and volume. These are the properties of music and music has the ability to find us and move us and lift us up in ways that literal meaning can't.

Abbey

You are an oratorical snob.

Yes, and God loves me for it.

Abbey

You said he was sending you to hell.

For other stuff, not for this. You can't just trod out Ephesians, which he blew, by the way, it has nothing with husbands and wives, it's all of us. Saint Paul begins the passage: "Be subject to one another out of reverence to Christ." [passionately] "Be subject to one another." In this day and age of 24-hour cable crap, devoted to feeding the voyeuristic gluttony of the American public, hooked on a bad soap opera that's passing itself off as important, don't you think you might be able to find some relevance in verse 21? How do you end the cycle? Be subject to one another!

Abbey

So... This is about you.

No, it's not about me! Well, yes, it is about me, but tomorrow it'll be about somebody else. We'll watch Larry King and see who. [shouts] All hacks, off the stage! Right now! That's a national security order.

Abbey

I was hiking, Oliver. I was hiking. Are you really that much an enemy of nature?

Babish

Nature is to be protected from. Nature, like a woman, will seduce you with its sights...and its scents and its touch...and then it breaks your ankle, also like a woman.

Abbey

What the hell kind of dates are you going on, Oliver?

Babish

I hear ya.

Babish

You broke some laws, Abbey, and quite frankly you should be ashamed of yourself, but this investigation isn't about that.

Abbey

Look–

Babish

It's about the criminalization of politics. An attempt to do in the hearing room what they couldn't do at the ballot box.

Abbey

I understand, but we don't have the luxury...

Babish

Abbey, stop eating fruits, stop eating vegetables, it's doing something bad to you. Fruits and vegetables will seduce you, like a woman, with their...

Abbey

Oliver!

Babish

Truth isn't a luxury. You're going to go in there, you're going to swear an oath, you're going to get asked questions, and you're going to tell the truth. It's the way you stand up and say 'Stop!'

Abbey

You should be careful, Oliver. You keep talking like a person, they're going to kick you out of the bar.

Babish

I've been kicked out of bars before.

Abbey

I meant–

Babish

I know what you meant.

With the ingredients for stuffing you have to cook them before you put them in the turkey, and you're not going to know whether I did or not.

Abbey

I'll do what I always do with anything you cook. I'll wait for the girls to eat it first.

Me, too.

Abbey

They came to me. They said, "What do you think about having Thanksgiving at Camp David instead of New Hampshire?" They told me why, I said fine.

And what part are you leaving out now?

Abbey

The part where I lied to you.

Yes!

Abbey

Yes! I do that sometimes. Sometimes I don't wanna go fifteen rounds on Bess Truman and what constitutes a farm. On your behalf, I have responded to polling information telling me what I should wear, and what I should say, to say nothing of the fact that I have been subpoenaed to answer questions before Congress on how I secretly kept you alive. So explain to me now how what I did was out of line.

You know what? It was.

Abbey

[pause] I know.

Well, with the ingredients for stuffing you have to cook them before you put them in the turkey, and you're not going to know whether I did or not.

Abbey

I'll do what I always do with anything you cook. I'll wait for the girls to eat it first.

Me, too.

Lord John Marbury

Abigail! May I grasp your breasts?

I'm standing right here!

Abbey

You may kiss my cheek.

Lord John Marbury

Abigail.

Now it's a party.

Abbey

Oh. Yes, your lordship.

Lord John Marbury

Your breasts are magnificent.

Abbey

Oh. Um... thank you, John.

Lord John Marbury

May I inquire, Mr. President – the first thing that attracted you to Abigail - was it her magnificent breasts?

Abbey

It was.

You know John, there are places in the world where it might be considered rude to talk about the physical attributes of another man's wife.

Lord John Marbury

My god. Really?

Yeah.

Abbey

Amy.

Amy

Yes, ma'am?

Abbey

CJ and I are gonna get drunk. Come on.

Amy

Yes, ma'am.

Josh

You're going?

Amy

The First Lady just asked me to get boozy with her. You don't think I want to write a book one day?