[playing chess] Let me tell you, you're really showing me something tonight. A lot of spunk, a lot of pluck, this game isn't all about size, you know. There's a little thing called heart, and you've got it, my friend.
You know what, old man? The very minute they swear in the next guy, you and I are going round and round.
...
You think the strike against me is nobody likes the smartest kid in the class.
Ooh I don't know, sir. Being the smartest kid in the class is a pretty good pitch. It's not a strike, unless you watch it as it sails by.
I don't do that.
Check.
And I'm not a snob.
I don't believe you are.
If a guy's a good neighbor, if he puts in a day, if every once in a while he laughs, if every once in a while he thinks about somebody else, and above all else if he can find his way to compassion and-and tolerance, then he's my brother and I don't give a damn if he didn't get past fingerpainting. What I can't stomach are people who are out to convince people that the educated are soft and privileged and out to make them feel like they're less than - you know - "he may be educated, but I'm plain-spoken just like you". Especially when we know education can be the silver bullet, it can be the silver bullet Toby! For crime, poverty, unemployment, drugs, hatred-
Who are you trying to convince?
I'm saying I don't watch the pitch go by.
More from this episode
All quotes from this episode →More The West Wing quotes · These quotes come from Wikiquote's The West Wing pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.