The Best James Greer Quotes

Mike: Do you have any idea what it means to be on a team?
James: Mike, if I may, I've worked with Ryan. Is he an ass? Yes. But does that make him wrong? No, it doesn't.

[last lines]
James: If the higher-ups found out about this, they'd put me on a desk or force me into retirement.
Jack: What are you gonna do?
James: I don't know.

Gloria: I appreciate you coming up here, but I'm not sure why you would want to meet me when I'm not yet a representative of this country.
James: I think we might be able to help each other out.
Gloria: [scoffs] Your country has a history of "helping out" in elections in Latin America.

Nicolás: [coming down from his horse] Do you know anything about polo?
James: I know Ralph Lauren makes a great shirt.

Cathy: And for the record, I think your scars are kind of badass.
James: You should hear my fake stories about how I got them in the State Department.

James: [after shoot-out] Jack, you did good. Real good. For an analyst.
Jack: Fuck you.
James: Now you talk to your boss like that, you'll find yourself in a shitty cubicle writing terrorist finance briefs.
Jack: Promise?

James: You just try to look casual; like you know what you're doing.
Jack: I do know what I'm doing.
James: Good. Tell your face.

Mike: [sarcastically about mining and satellites] The mind of Jack Ryan.
James: A nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.

Matice: Man, I thought you were in Pakistan.
James: No. Back at Langley.
Matice: Headquarters?
James: Yeah.
Matice: Sorry to hear that, man.

James: When you work behind a desk, your friends don't get killed. They don't get captured. They don't go down in helicopters. But it's the work, it's the real work, that still needs to get done. And if I can't do it, someone else has to. It's time...

James: I told you to stand the fuck down, and you went behind my back and froze that account.
Jack: That was Treasury's call.
James: Oh, bullshit! The ink on that démarche may be theirs, but this was your idea.
Jack: Listen, if you're worried about this blowing back on you, don't. Okay? I'll take full responsibility.
James: Oh, is that what you think? That I'm trying to protect my career? Look around. That ship has sailed.

Mike: You guys married?
James: Divorced.
Jack: Single.
Mike: ...All right, great talk.

James: You've been doing this for how long?
Jack: Almost four years.
James: [sarcastic] Oh, almost four years. Holy shit. That's, like... wow. I am impressed.
[seriously]
James: Now, let's say that you're actually right and Suleiman or Casper the Friendly Ghost or whoever the fuck actually exists. What do you think he does when he finds out a state entity has frozen his bank account? He cuts bait and you get nothing!
Jack: How many people you know walk away from $9 million? That money means everything to him.
James: I agree. Which is why we could've sat on that bank, tracked every courier who came and went, and wrapped up the whole god damn network.
Jack: Yeah. Or we could've just watched the front door of the bank while they walked out, pulled off the next 9/11, and we didn't do a thing.
James: Get the fuck out of my office.

James: [to Ryan after church gas attack] A friend of mine in the Bureau told me a story. After 9/11, a guy who worked for American Airlines called the FBI tip line to turn himself in. He was working at Dulles the morning of the attacks, checking tickets at the gate business as usual. And these two Middle Eastern fellas come through the line. They presented their boarding passes, he checked them in and waved them on through. As they're walking away, he happened to look down at their shoes, and he notices they're cheap. Scuffed up. They don't match the first-class tickets or pressed collared shirts and new khaki pants. One hour later, those men flew that Boeing 757 into the side of the Pentagon.
James: He blamed himself for putting those hijackers onto the plane, but what should he have done? Called airport security because they had dirty shoes? Of course not. That would have been irrational. And you blaming yourself for this that's irrational, too.
[walking away]
James: Not to mention narcissistic.

Jack: I found something you got to see.
James: What am I looking at?
Jack: These are financial transactions through an app called TracEuro. You use your cell phone.
James: Yeah, they were using that in Karachi before I left.
Jack: Every one of these transactions is linked to this account opened a week and a half ago in a bank in Aden by a Saudi import/export company, but the business license of that company is less than a month old. This is a shell.
James: [not seeing the connection] Okay.
Jack: So, six SWIFT transactions have come through in the last eight days. They total over $9 million. Of all the other accounts that I've been monitoring, only two have ever gone above six figures, and barely.
James: Large transactions attract attention. Why go big now and risk popping up on our radar?
Jack: Maybe he doesn't even care about drawing attention, because whatever he's planning, he's ready now. This is it. We got him.
James: He? You mean Suleiman.
Jack: Sir, he's real. I promise you he is real. Don't you think there are people on the seventh floor that would have loved this opportunity twenty years ago the first time they heard the name Bin Laden? All I'm asking is order a démarche, freeze the account.
James: You're not there yet.
Jack: I'm not there yet? S... Sir, 9/11 cost half a million dollars. If he is real, what do you think he can do with twenty times that amount of money? We have to chase this down. Once the money's gone, he's gone. I promise you that.

Jack: I can't go to Yemen.
James: Why not?
Jack: I'm an analyst. I don't interrogate people; I write reports.
James: Well, that's gonna make a doozy. Get on the fucking plane.

President: The peace between our nations is a fragile one. For the sake of preserving it, you were never here. Understood?
James: With all respect, this isn't the first time I wasn't in Moscow.

James: That account you froze; S.A.D., Yemeni PSO picked up somebody.
Jack: Suleiman?
James: No. A couple of couriers, they think.
Jack: Wait, you said S.A.D., but I didn't order any surveillance.
James: I did.
Jack: I thought you said I wasn't there yet.
James: You weren't. But that doesn't mean you were wrong.
Jack: Well, how come you couldn't have said that instead of throwing me out of your office?
James: Because I don't know you. And I don't answer to you. Now, S.A.D. and the Yemenis are gonna run the interrogation. But you're the one that knows all this financial shit, so I need you there to make sure they know what questions to ask.

Jack: You know, there's a few other bars in DC where you can get a club soda and lime.
James: Uh, yeah. But if I went to one of those other bars, I might meet some friendly strangers, get into some conversation, end up having a good time. Only here, at this bar, can I sit next to a morose motherfucker in a J. Crew button-down. and be depressed all night...