100 Best Madam Secretary Quotes

Elizabeth: [Trying to force her suitcase closed, she smashes her hand while sitting on it] Ow! Ow, ah! Dammit!
Henry: Are you okay? What is happening?
Elizabeth: Will you please sit on my suitcase while I close it?
Henry: Can you say that again in a slow, sexy voice?

Jake,: Dr McCord?
Elizabeth: Yeah?
Jake,: Hey, can I talk to you about my thesis?
Elizabeth: Uh, sure during office hours.
Jake,: Yeah, your office hours don't really work for me.
Elizabeth: [laughs] Sorry to hear that.
Jake,: Thing is, I don't really want to write about the Cold War.
Elizabeth: You're aware that the class is called "Postwar Politics and the Cold War.
Jake,: Yeah, but I feel like it's been done.
Elizabeth: That's why they call it history, Jake.
Jake,: Thing is, my theory is that we are living through a new cold war.
Elizabeth: All right, compare and contrast to the original and convince me.
Jake,: Great; Also, I'll need an extension. My parents are coming to town and they're very needy.
Elizabeth: Oh. My husband bought tickets to the opera this weekend. I mean, normally, I love the opera, but I got to tell you, it's been a hell of a week, and the thought of sitting in a dimly lit room with a bunch of people singing at me in Italian it's just gonna make me fall asleep.
Jake,: I'm so sorry.
Elizabeth: I thought we were telling each other our problems. No extension. Enjoy your parents.

Elizabeth: Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. Benjamin Franklin.

Elizabeth: SPOILER
[last lines]
Elizabeth: [Commenting on what her brother, Will Adams, had said earlier in the episode about his painful memory of being unable to help their mother at the scene of a fatal accident when he was 13 years old] I don't believe the last thing mom saw was you failing her. The last thing she saw was that you were okay. And she knew that we would have each other. I think she was all right, knowing that.

Blake: [about a government report they've just read] It's like a horror film. Bioterror weaponry, diseases that jump from animals to humans, accelerated climate change, demon robots who will take over the world.
Daisy: Well, a demon robot is welcome to take over my world as long as he cleans my bathroom and organizes my stuff.
Matt: You know, I'm gonna get a 3-D printer, use it to make another 3-D printer, then return the first one. I'm no fool.

Elizabeth: Sometimes I just, I miss being a professor. You know, my biggest worry was whether or not a a student was cutting seminar. And now I spend my days doing things that I can't discuss with you and and most nights sitting up wondering whether or not my predecessor, Vincent Marsh, was killed.
Henry: Are you gonna bring that up at the spy reunion?

Russell: Sometimes democracy just blows.

Stephanie: Do we have any cereal?
Elizabeth: Come on, I made eggs! I read Julia Child's entire chapter on eggs and I am telling you that these .. are very close .. to approximating something from that.
[pointing at her book]
Jason: Dad puts, uh, green stuff in it. Chives. And shallots.
Elizabeth: Scramble shaming? Really?

Elizabeth: [Testifying before the Senate committee] Forces had been unleashed to destabilize the security of our country. I put myself in harm's way to ensure the safety of our country. I would do it again, sir. So, Mr. Chairman, I'd say the only reason that we're here today, luxuriating in the smug banality of this senate hearing instead of ducking for cover in all-out war is because I had the decency to violate section 793 of title 18. Thank you.
[Stands]
Elizabeth: No. Let me rephrase that. You're welcome.
[Takes Henry's hand and leaves]

[last lines]
Elizabeth: [reviewing pictures provided to them] Someone is stalking our kids.

[last lines]
President: So, what do you say, are you up for catching the most wanted terrorist in the world?
Henry: Yeah, I'm in.

Henry: When *every*thing seems to be lacking in integrity, you know what you do? You find it in yourself. You change the world right from where you're standing.

Michael: You're in a knife fight with Chairman Burke. The way to win a knife fight is to bring a gun and waste the son of a bitch.

Stephanie: I don't know what I'm going to do yet. I need more than half a day to think about it.
Elizabeth: Well, let me take the mystery out of it for you. You're going back to college.
Stephanie: Not back to Lovell. I alerted my advisors and signed the forms.
Elizabeth: Your cerebral cortex isn't fully formed until you're 25 years old. That's the decision-making part of your brain. That's science.
Stephanie: Good night, Mom...

Elizabeth: Ecosystem restoration could have a real effect on saving permafrost.
President: By bringing back woolly mammoth... I don't remember that kinda thing going well in Jurassic Park.

Congressman Lee Baskin: Colin Mitchell was a pain in the ass; but he's the kind of pain in the ass that makes this country great. His wife Claire told me something that Colin liked to say. I've come to believe it myself: "The stories we want to hear the least are the ones we need to hear the most."

Henry: Listen we didn't do anything wrong.
Michael: That doesn't matter.

Blake: Sorry. We've been calling since this morning, but, uh... we didn't have any signal. What's that smell?
Nadine: We have good news. They reached an agreement in Brussels to solve the Greek debt crisis.
Elizabeth: Oh, thank God. And horse crap.
Nadine: I beg your pardon.
Elizabeth: That's what that smell is.
Blake: Oh.
Henry: Well, another global depression avoided. Lunch?

Matt: Spoiler
[giving a commencement speech as a last-minute substitute for Secretary McCord, who has traveled oversees with her husband, Henry McCord for a delicate covert activity]
Matt: In this world of relentless self-promotion, we've all been raised to think that the limelight is the only light worth seeking. But that isn't the case. And if I can impart one thing today, a small simple truth to carry with you as you walk through those gates, it's this:
[scene switches to the McCords, with Matt's speech continuing as a voiceover]
Matt: Achievement is often anonymous. Some of the greatest things have been done by people you have never heard of... quietly dedicating their lives to improving your own.

Nadine: [at a karaoke bar discussing the state of the world] If we turned things around once, I believe we can do it again. Sometimes you have to have faith in people... Do not ever tell anyone I said that.
Blake: Yes, ma'am.
Nadine: Meanwhile, that's why God created alcohol and music. Now, get up there and sing.
Blake: Uh, why?
Nadine: Because you can.

Elizabeth: [to Matt] I know it's difficult to do your best work when you don't believe in the cause. I know that I would have a very hard time writing anything nice about kale. Which is why I'm thrilled that you will be writing my remarks for the World Food Prize Lunch.

President: You opened Pandora's box over there!
Elizabeth: [During an increasingly heated argument with the President and First Lady] Now I'm Pandora? What'd they do to her? Chain her to a rock?
Henry: That was Prometheus.

Henry: Consider giviing your mum a break.
Stephanie: God, dad. You would defend her if she was standing over a bloody corpse, with a knife.
Henry: I would not. It would totally depend on who the corpse was.
Stephanie: You guys really don't know me at all, do you ?
Henry: Other than sucking snot out of your nose with a tube when you were two days old, I'm barely acquainted with you.

Chancellor: Sir. You and your Secretary of State are not part of this meeting.
President: We are now.
Chancellor: What I mean is, you are not welcome.
Elizabeth: Oh. We'll get over it.

[last lines]
Stephanie: You can't ground me. I have to work.
Elizabeth: Work and home. Two weeks...
Stephanie: This is ridiculous. I'm an adult.
Elizabeth: I guess that's why most adults don't live with their parents.
Stephanie: Mom? I'm really glad about Dad. It was horrible.
[they hug]
Elizabeth: I am really sorry you had to go through that. You're still grounded.

Ambassador: The Beko, like wayward children, scream at even the slightest discipline. But such whining is to be expected as our nation purifies itself of decadent and poisonous outside influences.
Elizabeth: By that, do you mean educated women, or expensive watches?

[last lines]
Elizabeth: [about their daughter] You're a huge force in her life. Maybe she just needs to tear you down a little to make some room for herself. Not to mention the guy.
Henry: Okay, so when she hates you, it's a crisis, and when it's my turn, it's just natural progression.
Elizabeth: I know. It's so weird, that. I'm glad you're back...

Stephanie: [in the family kitchen] So, uh be honest, how worried should I be about ISIS?
Elizabeth: You let me worry about ISIS. You worry about getting your dad up at 7:00. He's got a flight to catch.

Blake: [about his fruitless search for a home for a portrait of Vincent Marsh] I've tried everything.
Daisy: National Portrait Gallery?
Matt: Library of Congress? How about the state house in Illinois? He served there once in the...
Blake: The general assembly. I've tried everything is not a sentence I use lightly. Lest you attempt to keep saying names of museums.

Stephanie: Do you remember in the fifth grade when I almost quit that school backpacking trip because I was afraid of heights, and I really didn't want to go rock-climbing?
Elizabeth: You would be amazed how much parents block out.
Stephanie: And do you remember what you said to me when I called you in a panic?
Elizabeth: No, but I feel like I'm about to be embarrassed.
Stephanie: You said, "Honey, you are the descendent of some of the greatest heroes and scoundrels that the Commonwealth of Virginia has ever seen. If you've got one thing "running through your veins, it's guts. Now, don't call me back until you're at the top of that mountain, little girl."
Elizabeth: I actually said that?
Stephanie: Yup.
Elizabeth: Oh, what a pain in the ass I am.
[laughing]
Elizabeth: And why did I sound like Dolly Parton?

Russell: Elizabeth, you know the Chief Justice.
Chief: Madam Secretary.
Elizabeth: Yes, I actually took your constitutional law class at UVA.
[pauses then whispers]
Elizabeth: I got an A.
Chief: [Whispering back] I remember.

Henry: I don't understand this whole kale thing. It used to grow wild in the backyard when I was a kid, and now it's the basis for a $20 salad.

Henry: [Via phone] How bad did I make things for you?
Elizabeth: You're still my hero.
Henry: No, I'm not. I went off like a hopped up undergrad.
Elizabeth: You did what I have been wanting to do all day. Instead, I have to listen to my staff imply that I shouldn't be sitting down with the virgin goddess of Nepal while my slutty daughter is all over the internet.
[Under her breath to Grant]
Elizabeth: Not you.
Henry: [In a hushed reverent tone] You have a meeting with the Kumari?
Elizabeth: [to Grant, endeared and in love] He knows what a Kumari is.
[to Henry]
Elizabeth: Don't ever change.

Henry: [to his son] Your knowledge is a mile wide and an inch deep. Do you know what that makes you? A poser. A dilettante.

Father: Wasn't it, um, Thomas Aquinas who once said that a man of God who is not in trouble is not doing his job?
Henry: I'm pretty sure he never said anything of the kind.
Father: Well, he should have.

Elizabeth: [hypothetical after-her discussion before leaving for Iran] Make sure the kids don't like new Mrs. McCord more than they like me.
Henry: Well, I'm marrying her, and I already don't like her, so... Is that it?
Elizabeth: Well what else do YOU think we need to cover?
Henry: [lays her down and starts kissing her] If this is our last night together...
Elizabeth: Computer passwords?
Henry: Wow.

Elizabeth: [joining her kids in the survivor's chapel] I thought religion was the opiate of the masses.
Jason: It is. But sometimes you need a good hit.

Elizabeth: Our two countries have always found a way to work out our differences amicably.
Canadian: Right.
Elizabeth: I mean, at least since the War of 1812. Not to bring up a touchy subject.
Canadian: And why would it be touchy?
Elizabeth: Well, we won.
Canadian: Madam Secretary? The War of 1812 was a draw...

Matt: Okay. Is your dog named after G. Gordon Liddy? Because that explains a lot.

Elizabeth: [to Henry] You're very cute when you're overwhelmed by intelligence.

Elizabeth: I floated to Foreign Minister Gorev that you would give his daughter an "A" if he would convince his government to sell Pakistan a certain defensive weapons system. I was totally skeptical that he would go for it, but then, I mean, you know how important his daughter's grade is to him.
Elizabeth: I know! It's crazy. Nuts! "Arms for As".
Henry: Please tell me you're kidding.

Elizabeth: [to her staff] That was a big mess.
Michael: That was a sack full of mangled kittens in the hot sun two weeks old. That's what that was.

Theodore: [about to take the oath of office to become Acting President] Oh, all right, right. The president will come back. I mean, he survived one assassination attempt. He's hard to kill.
Elizabeth: What do you mean, Senator?
Theodore: What do you think I mean? Talking about that Charles Manson lady. Tried to shoot him.
Elizabeth: Well, that was President Ford.
Theodore: Ah. Of course, you're right. I meant Hinckley. Where do I sign?
Elizabeth: Um... actually, Senator, Mm-hmm? I-I believe it is also protocol... you have to state the full name of the current President. For the record.
Theodore: Of course. Sure. Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Russell: I'm sorry. Could we ask the senator to step outside? Just for a moment, while we prepare? Is that all right?
Theodore: That's fine.
Russell: Thank you.
Theodore: Sure.
Russell: [whispers] What the hell?
Aide: Senator Gates had a series of mini strokes a few months ago, but we are working diligently to get him through his final term. He has his good days and his bad days.
Russell: But basically, he's incompetent?
Aide: To take the oath of office for President? Probably.
Russell: Then I think we have to go to the next in line.
Attorney: That would be the Secretary of State.

Blake: Don't let that dog near my desk. Either one of them.

TV: If the court rules in Evans' favor, it could not only revoke Dalton's presidency, it could spark a constitutional crisis that would shake the very foundation our government was built upon.
Henry: [entering the room] What's shaking the very foundation now?

Will: SPOILER
[Discussing an argument that had happened between him, on one side, and his sister and brother-in-law, Elizabeth and Henry McCord, on the other]
Will: You know, when the three of us were fighting, it felt... distantly familiar. And I thought, "This is weird, all these messy feelings flying around. What is it?" And then I remembered, like going back in a time machine, that this is family. And I've been running from it my whole life because I'm afraid of losing it... again.
Elizabeth: You're not gonna lose us.

Chinese: China is playing a long game, Madam Secretary. When we come for you, it won't be with missiles and cyber attacks. We'll repossess you.

[Elizabeth is having a panic attack before the singing act for the Eastern Trade Conference. Daisy and Nadine find her breathing into a paper bag, with Blake by her side]
Daisy: You all right, ma'am?
Elizabeth: [composing herself] Yup. How much time do I have?
Nadine: Ten minutes. Or as long as you want...
Elizabeth: [faintly] Okay. Okay...
[Elizabeth looks over the lyrics and tries humming to the lyrics of "For the Longest Time". However, this only causes her anxiety to spike]
Elizabeth: [distressed] I can't, I can't, I can't do it.
Nadine: Okay, Okay, Okay! We do have a tangency plan.
Elizabeth: What is it?
Nadine: [smiles] You're looking at it.
[Scene cuts to Nadine, Daisy and Blake singing a stellar a cappella performance of the Eastern Trade rendition of The Longest Time to the audience]

Russell: If it's any consolation, that's not how the President sees it. He thinks you saved his ass. Told me to tell you that.
Elizabeth: Were you ? Going to tell me that ?
Russell: I haven't decided.

Nadine: Look, if we just release a statement, the press will calm down.
Elizabeth: Anything we feed them is going to make them hungrier. Let's wait until we have something to say. Like, for example, I've been fired.

Elizabeth: [after her speech] You think Minister Samant is warming up to me yet?
Nadine: Possibly.
Elizabeth: What is that? Is that a smile? Or a smirk?
Nadine: It's a little of both. It's a smirkle.

Elizabeth: [Explaining to the team why Blake was out drinking with his counterparts for the German government] Blake was on a fact finding mission for me last night. Although the public urination was his idea.
Blake: Nature calls the same in any language.
Matt: Wait. So you were talking to her the whole time.
Blake: Except for the part when I was in a lockup with a skinhead and a mime.
Nadine: Ma'am. These trade craft episodes would work even better if you would fill us all in.
Elizabeth: No. That's actually the opposite of how they work.

[walking in to the suite to see a buffet spread]
Elizabeth: Well played, Dr McCord.
Henry: You're not the only one in this marriage capable of a charm offensive.
Elizabeth: It's perfect
Henry: How's Nadine ?
Elizabeth: She's okay. She wants to know the truth about Marsh as much as I do.
Henry: What about you ?
Elizabeth: I'm hungry. But you know what I want to do before we eat ?
Henry: I know what I want to do.
Elizabeth: Call the kids.
Henry: That's exactly what I was thinking.
[jarring awake from a post coital slumber]
Elizabeth: We got to call the kids!
Henry: Call the kids.

Elizabeth: [discussing their son] So if he doesn't make the team, he won't have friends, but if he does, he'll end up in traction.
Henry: It's a paradox.
Elizabeth: We have to let him try out, don't we?
Henry: I think we do.
[lowering his voice]
Henry: But for what it's worth, we played catch just now for, like, half an hour...
[rolling his eyes]
Elizabeth: [exhales] That is such a relief... I am a terrible parent.
Henry: I've been meaning to tell you.

Nadine: The Honorable Lester Clark, Ambassador of Canada, is still in your office.
Elizabeth: Holy crap!
Nadine: Which is not soundproof.
Elizabeth: Damn it. Is he mad?
Nadine: In a Canadian kind of way.

Stephanie: [visiting her mother's office] Ah God, I'm running out of time. I am so gonna get fired.
Blake: Well, uh I have an extra like, a dressier blouse that I keep in a stash for your mom. Maybe that'll work?
Stephanie: Yeah. Okay, thanks. I guess I just groveled for nothing.
Blake: Well, it's good training for a career in Washington.

Michael: [Walks up to Blake's desk with his dog at his side] Good afternoon. Is she in?
Blake: I'm sorry. You are...
Michael: Michael Barnow.
[Looks at his dog]
Michael: This is Gordon. You must be Blake.
Blake: Uh... yes. Um, I don't have...
Michael: She knows I'm coming.
[Starts towards Elizabeth's office]
Blake: Wait a minute. Uh... this is not a dog friendly environment.
Michael: It's okay. He's not sensitive.

Nadine: [turns away from Matt to get something for him from another room in her home]
Matt: [with facial expressions that register surprise at the high quality and luxury of Nadine's furnishings, artwork, and mementos] You know, I always figured that you lived more like a...
Nadine: [turns back around toward Matt and raises one eyebrow, as if to stop him from saying something inadvertently insulting]
Matt: ...I just mean more like me. Half of my furniture is from Ikea. And that's the good half.

Henry: I find the whole "not getting personally invested" thing challenging.
Elizabeth: I know. It's one of the many things I love about you, Dr. Henry McCord. That and your total arm-candy-ness.
Henry: [pulls her behind a pillar] Want to make out in the rose garden?
Elizabeth: Maybe I can score a key to the Lincoln Bedroom.

Henry: You know what my dad said to me the night before I got married? "Marriage is the nicest way to confront your own inadequacies on a daily basis."
Stephanie: You should write that in a song.
Henry: It's also the greatest journey you'll ever go on. And you get to go on it with your best friend.

Elizabeth: Just so you know, this call is going to entail what we in diplomatic circles refer to as me eating a big plate of crap.
Glenn: Roger that, ma'am.

Henry: I don't want to work for a competing Department of government.
Elizabeth: State and Defense don't compete. We, we compare and contrast expertise often in an openly hostile manner.

Blake: Is it too early to start drinking? Asking for a friend.

Arthur: It's cruel to flirt with someone you just dumped.
Stephanie: I did not dump you. I made the responsible choice and chose not to continue the relationship.
Arthur: Okay. Well, it's cruel to flirt with someone after that. Look, I'm just asking, just, could you hide behind a mask of professionalism? Like I'm doing.

Stephanie: [explaining her desire to attend an Ivy League law school for the sake of doing non-profit, social-cause work] To do good you have to *be* good... I mean, maybe the best? The bad guys, they have all the help they need. But regular people who just need help? They... they have to settle for whoever they can get and usually it's no and...
Russell: Okay. I'm going to give you a piece of advice, and I want you to listen closely 'cause you won't hear it from your parents, Stephanie McCord.
Stephanie: Okay.
Russell: If you want to do good...
[breaths in audibly; sighs]
Russell: you've got to be prepared to do bad. Okay? To be canny and watchful and mean, so *when* the bad guys come, you know just where to stick the knife, 'cause it is a fight to the death, and that is the *only language* they understand.
Stephanie: I don't believe that.
Russell: [sighs] You will.

Elizabeth: [to Zahed's children] Nice to meet you.
Abdol: So you're from the Great Satan?
Marajel: Abdol, really?
Abdol: A joke, Mother.
Elizabeth: I thought it was funny.
Marajel: You're lucky our guest is forgiving.
Abdol: Americans can joke about themselves. It is part of their culture. Is that not true, Secretary McCord?
Elizabeth: Okay, first of all, your English is better than my kids'. And secondly, yes, Americans can laugh about themselves. Although not enough politicians do.

Elizabeth: Can you just call? Why do you never call?
Russell: You mind telling me how some lunatic-fringe Bible camp just turned into a flaming pile of crap?

Matt: I wanna slay dragons, not play whack-a-mole with evil.

Blake: Ma'am. Mr. Jackson is uncharacteristically here at an appointed time.

Elizabeth: [end of day conversation] Chen said, "Idealism kills. Mutual interests save lives." Do you think he's right?
Henry: Uh, well, for starters, "mutual interests" aren't always the same as equal ones. So, his own statement is an ideal, used to justify his self-interest.
Elizabeth: Oh, man! I wish I would've said that.

Nadine: You can't dissuade people with that much integrity. They're in the pocket of big truth.

Elizabeth: [at the podium] Stop me if you've heard this one before. A multinational, non-denominational person walks into an uncontroversial establishment
[laughter all around the room]
Elizabeth: Ah. You have heard it.

Elizabeth: [Opening her son's summer school report card] I'm excited.
Henry: Really excited. And, listen, son, whatever's in there, we're both really proud of you.
Elizabeth: Holy crap!
Henry: Holy crap!

Elizabeth: I think the thing getting lost here, Mr. and Mrs. Lindstrom, is your son's passionate commitment to social justice. Young people rising up against the abuse of power has been a force for change many times in this country, and Brian was right. Not about the mining contract. That was legitimate. But about the larger issue. The brutal legacy of colonialism asserting itself once again in Chile. That turned out to be true. And, Brian, without you guys and the Chilean citizens rising up against what you thought was wrong, the Inhawoji people might not have dared raised their voices, too, and found a world ready to listen.
Brian: Thanks, Mrs. Secretary.
Blake: Madam Secretary.
Elizabeth: Don't stop speaking truth to power. But, maybe the best way to call upon our better selves is for you to show us yours.

Jay: Why are we dealing with these people? How could we?
Elizabeth: Because I have to weigh Izad Ahmadi's life against the prospect of a nuclear bomb going off in New York, DC, Tel Aviv. Millions of lives.

Elizabeth: [to her daughter at the supper table] Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah! Sweetie, what are you doing? Just pushing your food around. We agreed. I cook one night a week, and we all just get through it.

Henry: [interrupting the hushed conversation with his wife] Hey, buddy. Everything okay?
George: [spinning around] Hank. Where'd you come from?
Henry: The bedroom... I live here.

[last lines]
Andrew: You can still salvage this, sir. It's not too late to get on board.
President: Forget it, Andrew. It's over.
Andrew: Not by a long shot, Mr. President. The coup is already in motion, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

Elizabeth: [passing through the master bathroom] It feels like I literally just got home, and now I'm turning around to go right back out again. I hate it. It's why I never became a rockstar. That and I can't sing.
Henry: Uh, rockstars sleep in. You're jumping out of bed at 4AM answering emails.

Elizabeth: Daisy, I don't really care, but if you really believe that no one knew you guys were still together, then I strongly advise you never go into clandestine services.
Daisy: Copy that.

Ambassador: [about her human rights assertions] Madam Secretary, I found your speech most distressing.
Elizabeth: I'm very pleased to hear that.

Elizabeth: [reheating coffee in the microwave] Reheated lasagna, baby.
Henry: [staring into the refrigerator] We are livin' the dream...

Elizabeth: [She and Henry are watching a cooking show and more or less talking over each other] I can't believe it. He's going for risotto.
Henry: You always lose with that one. It's the Waterloo of food.
Elizabeth: Right? I know. What is the deal? You can't cook it fast.
Henry: Like gnocchi.
Elizabeth: They ought to know it.
Henry: Gnocchi.
Elizabeth: They never learn.
Henry: They always lose with gnocchi, too.
Elizabeth: Well. Because you think it's gonna be good, but it's not. In the end, it really is just doughy potato balls.
Henry: That's what I'm sayin'.
Elizabeth: That's it.

Stephanie: [looking at memorial invitation for George] Remember those bad magic tricks he used to do?
Elizabeth: You never fell for those?
Stephanie: [laughing] No!
Elizabeth: Even as a kid?
Stephanie: No, they were terrible. He was funny, though.
Elizabeth: He could hide an entire top secret operations, make it disappear into thin air, but not a quarter.

Stephanie: Great. Great. Yeah, okay. C'mon guys, delete the photos.
Douchey: Or, what? Your mom and her fascist goons will hunt me down?
Alison: Fascism is the direct opposite of a representative democracy, which you happen to be lucky enough to live in thanks to people like our mother who defend it every single day. And, by the way, you attacking and trying to silence people because they don't agree with what you think kind of makes *you* the fascist.

Everard: You think war is expensive? Wait until you get a load of peace.

Elizabeth: Maybe that should be my epitaph. "She tried her best, but people still got hurt."
Henry: Not "She liked eating popcorn at really weird times?"

Elizabeth: How did you get water pressure up to the second floor?
Henry: Mad skills. I called a plumber.

[last lines]
President: [addressing the nation] Let us remember the immortal words of our 16th president. "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in." God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

Nelly: I'm finally catching up with social media. Evolve or die, right? I suppose you have some theologian's perspective on all this cultural narcissism, Henry?
Henry: Well, I just think it's an expansion of self-representation. I get it.
Elizabeth: Spoken like a man who checks his Facebook page, like, never. I have Facebook?

Daisy: [staff meeting] We need to release a statement.
Matt: Explaining your mystery daughter.
Blake: Not a "mystery" daughter.
Elizabeth: By "mystery" do you mean born out of wedlock, or sired by aliens?
Matt: Well, we'd like to remove all doubt about either of those speculations.
Elizabeth: Knock yourself out. Can we talk about matters of national security now...

Russell: [waiting in her office] You want to tell me how those kids got released?
Elizabeth: I guess the Syrians saw the error of their ways.
Russell: So that would be a "no."
Elizabeth: I got the president to sign off.
Russell: How could you do that without my knowledge?
Elizabeth: I, I don't know. By blatantly circumnavigating your authority?
Russell: You'd better learn how to work with me instead of around me.
Elizabeth: My first choice, as well. I used your stylist, didn't I?

Stephanie: [a heart-to-heart about Jareth] He was kind of a totally different person, too. I mean like snobby, and he cared what school everybody went to. He was, like, turning away from me if I made the wrong joke.
Elizabeth: Sounds like you guys definitely have some stuff to talk about.
Stephanie: I don't want you to think he's a bad person. He's just... British, it turns out.

[first lines]
Mary: I've put the full weight of the Justice Department behind this operation. We'll have eyes, ears and GPS on Director Munsey 24-7. He will have no ability to contact anyone by any means at any time. He will have no access to anything with a signal or anything that could be used as a communication device of any kind. We'll give him the appearance of freedom, monitoring him discreetly, so no one other than him will know. Mr. President, I assure you that Director Munsey won't be able to renew a magazine subscription, much less reach out to his co-conspirators.
President: And we're sure we're on solid legal footing here?
Mary: Munsey admitted plotting an illegal coup against Iran, in direct violation of Executive Order 12-triple-three. We have 72 hours to do what we please.
President: Then the firing squad... It's still available to me, isn't it, Mary?

Michael: [At McCord's silence when Russell announces that White House Counsel has stated she does not have to testify at the Senate hearing] Fantastic. This is the part where you say thank you, Russell, for your top notch voodoo.
[Under his breath to Russell]
Michael: Of course, I mean prowess.

Matt: [strums a note on a balalaika, a traditional Russian stringed instrument, that he sees on Nadine's coffee table]
Nadine: That's lovely isn't it? That was a present from Boris Yeltsin.
Matt: Do you play?
Nadine: I dabble.
Matt: [laughs]
Nadine: I had to learn for an experimental piece my dance troupe did in Minsk.
Matt: [impressed and surprised, raises his eyebrows] Here's to unexpected skills.

Henry: [about her anxiety attack] Navy SEALs get this, you know. You tougher than a Navy SEAL?
Elizabeth: Maybe, like, a-a really runty one.

Russell: [Gesturing to a large briefcase] This is the football. It's a remote device that can authorize a nuclear attack in the unlikely event that we are required to do that.
[a Colonel hands Elizabeth a small card]
Russell: This is the biscuit. It's an authenticator card containing all the launching codes. That stays with you. The football stays with the Colonel who's never far away.
Elizabeth: [Shakes the Colonel's hand] Thank you, Colonel. I hope we never work together.
Colonel: My hope as well, Ma'am.

Nadine: I think Blake's a little rattled. His message has a typo.

Michael 'Mike B.' Barnow: Pompous tools run the world, you might as well get on their good side.