I got a letter today that said, uh... "You're a lying liar. You lie almost as well as Bartlet." You know, black-white, rich-poor, north-south, odd-even. There may not be anything anymore that outpaces the hatred the right feels for the left or the tonnage of disrespect the left feels for the right. Donna got a letter yesterday that said, "I'm collecting all the guns you've banned, and there's a bullet with your name on it in each one." Donna. The guy's decided to focus his wrath on Donna. He's never met Donna or spoken to her, and he's never met anyone who's met Donna or spoken to her. How's it possible? How's it possible that he hates her so much? How can you not like Donna? She's from Wisconsin! Anyway, 20,000 specific threats made against U.S. targets every year, and with all that, it's still the ones who don't give you advance notice that you're worried about.
S4Evidence of Things Not Seen
Two guys in the silo. The launch sequence went on for two minutes before they had confirmation it was a meteor. But the two guys were debating with Airborne Launch Control and the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center and that gets sticky. This is missile defense. This stuff has to work.
And they're sending in a team of lawyers to look into it.
Yeah, but we're scrappy.
[laughs] A meteor fell from the sky the result being two guys are going to get court-martialed. The only two guys who apparently thought it was strange that North Korea would attack submarines in Connecticut instead of say, San Diego or Hawaii. And if it had been a real attack? Would they still have been doing point/counterpoint with NORAD?
[Will shrugs]
We failed both on a mechanical and human level. So tell me again what you have faith in.
Us.
Why?
Because with what little free time he has, Will is going to Wyoming to defend one of these guys and I don't think it is failing on a human level.
[from Leo's computer] Okay, I've searched "equinox" and "egg," and the news isn't good for the believers.
What sites did they send you to?
ThingsThatAreWrong.com.
There's no such site.
Read it!
"This has to be one of the silliest misconceptions around and it never seems to die."
They also send you to the Apocryphal Zone and Project Astro Utah.
There are no web sites supporting it?
And you gotta ask yourself, if no one on the Internet wants a piece of this, just how far from the pack have you strayed?
S4Life on Mars
I know that when life expectancy goes up, that's not victimizing undertakers.
Well argued, though I do hate you and everything you stand for.
Claudia Jean, you've only known me for four minutes. Usually it takes people the better part of an hour to hate me and everything I stand for.
I'm the Press Secretary, Boo-Boo. I don't have that kind of time.
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.
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!
Toby, either get Andy to marry you, or kill yourself.
[pause] Yeah.
Are you eating a salad?
Yeah.
Why?
'Cause I am.
I don't think I've ever seen you eat a salad. What kind of salad is it?
I don't know.
Just mixed greens?
I don't know what kind of salad it is, I'm eating a salad, okay? I'm doing it, do I have to know the names? There's no difference between them, it's a bowl of weeds!
[Charlie looks at Toby silently]
Some of them have cheese, this isn't the kind with cheese, does that answer your question?
[Charlie continues to look at Toby silently]
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 this salad, which, by the way, you could cover this thing in barbecue sauce and it still tastes like the ground, and I'm getting heckled from 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! That's all I'm saying.
Man, Toby, you're really doing everything you can do to get that woman to marry you?
[to Hoynes] You're a giant, John. You're a US Senator, the Vice-President of the United States, and presumptive nominee of your party. You cannot be taken down by this... cheap person and her customers huddled around Macy's window waiting for someone to turn themselves inside out.
So, you're our new sawbones.
A sawbones is a doctor.
Is it?
Yeah. Lawyer's a shyster.
[to Josh] I got him to say it.
I don't... Josh is a lawyer.
Well, yeah, I mean he went to law school, but...
[Josh looks at her.]
You don't practice law is all I was saying.
I don't practice law? I help write the laws, I write the laws, I make the laws, I am the law.
S4Commencement
I'm leading Bookbag's paparazzi patrol for three months.
Really? Bit of a powderpuff detail there, isn't it, fella?
Nah, I go where I'm told.
So in your training what were you taught to do if, say, a stringer for Town and Country were to get in her face?
You know I can kill you and just make up the reason why I did, right?
[about Zoey's Secret Service detail] Well, here's my question: these guys look pretty young to me, and I'm looking for something very specific. This is a father-daughter situation, and so I think what I'm looking for in terms of protection would best be characterized as... well, overwhelming force. Do they have that? Do they have the ability to just overwhelm any danger that might...do you have overwh– [To Butterfield] Do they have overwhelming force?
Attack, Wesley.
[Agent Wesley attempts to attack a female agent, who proceeds to throw him to the ground and put a handgun to his head. Zoey enters during.]
Wow!
Oh God, Dad, what are you doing?
This one here tossed Wesley like a sack of potato chips!
This speech is about creativity. In my judgment it's a home run. But what it isn't is a speech that will convince Zoey not to go to France tomorrow.
Well, let's write that one!
You want to comment on a wire report that says that the President lifted his gown and groped himself during the Invocation?
Yeah, that was a troubling moment, but he had to get his napkin.
We have a situation. We're up at black, and procedurally, the Chief of Staff is told before--
What happened?
Zoey Bartlet's missing, and there's a dead agent at the scene.
We just wrote 3900 words in five hours.
It's terrific so far.
Later, he quotes Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, and Rudy Vallée in the space of two pages.
How does he connect them?
Three people you've never heard of.
It's about creativity?
S4Twenty-Five
[to CJ] Do not get into a discussion of the President's emotional state. You have to pivot whatever you get to Commander-in-Chief...We're in control. The government is functioning. This is the most important press conference of your life.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's The West Wing pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.