Top 200 Quotes From The Newsroom

Will: Was I called in on a Saturday for Bigfoot?
Neal: I think you're gonna find this interesting.
Will: I think you don't know what that word means.

Charlie: Reese, where did our stock close yesterday?
Reese: 66.
Charlie: And what's Savannah Capital offering you per share?
Blair: 81.
Charlie: [Writing on a pad of paper] 45% of the controlling shares times 66 equals...
Reese: [Pointing over Charlie's shoulder] Carry the three.
Charlie: ...times 81.

Gary: [singing as he exits the elevator and walks down the halls to the news room, shocked to see it filled with FBI agents] In olden days, a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking, but now God knows, anything goes. Good authors too who once knew better words now only use four letter words, writing- What the fuck is going on?

[Mac has changed the title display from "News Night with Will McAvoy" to "Vertigo Medicine with Will McAvoy"]
Will: I'm at least glad nobody's invented a way to digitally store images and upload them to a free website where anyone can see them.
Mackenzie: *Has* someone invented a way to digitally store images...
Will: [shouts] YouTube! YouTube! Take it down!
Mackenzie: Well, now you're just a crazy guy shouting "YouTube"!

Mackenzie: I've come here to produce a news broadcast that more closely resembles the one we did before you got popular by not bothering anyone, Leno.
Will: I think Jay and I would rather be employed, if it's all the same to you.
Mackenzie: It's not all the same to me, you punk. I've come here to take your IQ and your talent and put it to some patriotic fucking use.

Sloan: We have kind of a big brother-little sister relationship.
Will: Which one are you?

Gary: [after Mackenzie throws her phone to the ground, crushes it, and then pours tea on it] That was unusual.

Neal: [In disbelief about what was being posted on his website for ACN] The nine most overrated movies of all time.
Bree: We thought it would be fun.
Neal: For who?
Bree: For... movie fans? Look, I know this is...
Neal: And I understand that you went all the way back to The Matrix.
Bree: Yeah.
Neal: 1999.
Bree: Yeah.
Neal: All time and 14 years are two different units of measurement.

Nina: Hey, Will... We're journalists.
Will: I wish you hadn't said that.
Nina: What?
Will: Everything would've been cool if you hadn't said that. You just talk too much.
Nina: You have a problem with me calling myself a journalist? Only the elite few who cover stories nobody cares about get to call themselves...
Will: [cuts her off] I've got a guy on my staff who got hit in the head with a glass door Thursday. His forehead wouldn't stop bleeding, but he wouldn't go to a doctor 'cause I got another guy who got beat up covering Cairo. And the first guy wouldn't see a doctor until the second guy saw a doctor. I've got a producer who ran into a locked door 'cause he felt responsible for the second guy. I've got an 18-year-old kid risking his life halfway around the world and the AP who sent him there hasn't slept in three days. I've got 20-somethings who care about teachers in Wisconsin. I've got a grown woman who has to subtract with her fingers staying up all night trying to learn economics from a PhD who could be making 20 times the money three miles downtown. THEY'RE journalists.

Charlie: Have you read The New York Post?
Will: No, my eyes are connected to my brain.

Rebecca: Fourteen months ago, you went on the air and called the Tea Party 'the American Taliban'.
Will: I did.
Rebecca: And?
Will: The Taliban resented it.

Police: You're a big guy, okay? Don't do anything that's gonna make us nervous.
Lonny: Nothing I can do about being big and black at the same time.

MacKenzie: What was the third tweet? The first was you blew her off and she's a waitress and you didn't respond to that. And the second was the lost battle and you didn't respond to that. What was the third?
Will: You just lost a viewer.
MacKenzie: She knows what she's doing.

Will: People choose the facts they want now.

Will: There's a hole in the side of your boat, he says. That hole is never going to be fixed, it's never going away, and you can't get a new boat. What you have to do is bail water out faster than it's coming in.

Sloan: But that's not we he told me earlier when we were speaking...
[stops]
Charlie: Finish that sentence.
Sloan: ...off the record.

Charlie: So, here's what I need you to do.
Will: What *you* need us to do, or what the Lansings need us to do?
Charlie: At this moment, what the Lansings want is what I want. They spent the last year doing nothing but standing by us when it made a lot more sense to not- not to- not to stand by- to not stand by- I'm saying, it would have made more sense...
MacKenzie: Find your way home.
Charlie: To dump us.

Will: [to the entire newsroom] I'd like to introduce to you, the future Mrs. MacKenzie Morgan McHale McA--
[to MacKenzie]
Will: Oh, that's never going to work, is it?
Neal: [after a long silence] WHAT!

Reese: Every second you're not current a thousand people are changing the channel to the guy who is. That's the business you're in. MSNBC, FOX and CNN all say she's dead. Don, tell him. Don!
Don: It's a person. A doctor pronounces you're dead, not the news.

Charlie: I need to tell you that you're going to remember this night for the rest of your lives. It's going to be a long night and we need you to work fast and we need you to work well. But once in a while, take three seconds- you can't spare more than that- take three seconds to notice where you are and what you're doing. Will's gonna go on the air in a few minutes so that we can report that at the order of the President of the United States, US Special Forces have shot and killed Osama bin Laden.

Sloan: I like puzzles.
Don: No. you don't.
Sloan: I *love* puzzles.
Don: You literally talk back to the New York Times crossword. You yell at it.
Sloan: [Giving him a knowing look] Can I tell you something about the New York Times crossword? Very often they put the wrong number of boxes in to house the correct word.
Don: [Smiling indulgently] Yeah.

[Solomon takes the battery out of Charlie's phone and gives it back]
Charlie: I'm never gonna be able to put that back together.
Solomon: They're coming out with a better model in 6 months.
Charlie: That's very unusual for the tech-industry.

MacKenzie: First of all, I'm the EP. Don't slip...
Will: And I'm the managing editor, and I don't need you permission...
MacKenzie: Yes, you do, and you didn't ask for it 'cause you knew you wouldn't get it.

Sloan: Don't you like having a gal pal that you can hang out with where there are extra benefits like stock tips?
Don: I can't use the stock tips!
Sloan: [Much louder] Then how about the sex?
Don: [Both turn suddenly to see Jim Harper standing in the elevator looking at them. Sloan and Don enter the elevator] Hey.
Jim: Hey
Sloan: Hey
Jim: Hi
Don: [after an uncomfortable pause] It would take a long time to explain
Jim: [Cutting Don off] Yeah, yeah

Will: I don't think I'm coming back.
[MacKenzie looks at him, stunned]
Will: I don't think I am.
MacKenzie: You're coming back if I have to chop you up, put you in a duffle bag, and reassemble you at the anchor desk.

Sloan: In a post today, a citizen journalist tells us that Jimmy Kimmel was visibly intoxicated last night in the Soho House in West Hollywood.
Bree: That's right.
Sloan: Jimmy Kimmel was with his family in Cabo San Lucas last night.
Bree: People don't read this with the expectation of it being true. Everyone's...
Sloan: Excuse me?
Bree: Everyone...
Sloan: People don't have an expectation that what they're reading is true?
Bree: They read it for the immediacy.
Sloan: But you're using the word "journalism", which means that there is an expectation that what they're reading is true. But let me take it a step further. Let's pretend it was true, that Jimmy Kimmel was intoxicated last night at the Soho House in West Hollywood. It's not true, but we don't care, so let's pretend it is, since that's what we're doing anyway. Why does that belong on our website?
Bree: Honestly, I think there is a shifting definition of what's public and private space.
Sloan: There is, and we should care about that. But my question is: why should we care about a talk show host drinking at a bar?
Bree: Don't you think it's great that we're not putting people up on a pedestal and worshiping them anymore?
Sloan: I don't think celebrities are one of the bigger problems facing us, but aren't we the ones building the pedestal?

Wyatt: Is lying to corporate something you do habitually?
Sloan: Don and I like to make decisions about lying on a case by case basis.

Mackenzie: You know what you left out of your sermon? That America is the only country on the planet that, since its birth, has said over and over and over that we can do better. It's part of our DNA. People will want the news if you give it to them with integrity. Not everybody, not even a lot of people: 5%. And 5% more of anything is what makes the difference in this country. So we can do better.

Will: Miss Greer, you mentioned creeping Islam, are you concerned about creeping Christianity?
Phylis: Only that it's not creeping fast enough.
Will: Okay. Here are some things done on American soil in the name of Christianity. The Ku Klux Klan burned down black churches, raped women, murdered civil rights workers, murdered children and terrorized communities for over a century. The Neo Nazis all acted and continue to act in the name of white Christian supremacy. The Army of God fatally attacks abortion clinics and doctors across the country. The Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord targets local police and federal agents. The federal building in Oklahoma City. The attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan and the successful assassinations of Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, John Lennon, and Abraham Lincoln, all perpetrated by Christians. Miss Greer, we weren't attacked by Muslims, we were attacked by sociopaths, and I for one would join you in protesting a community center for the criminally insane, but no one is suggesting building one.

MacKenzie: Any Questions?
Jim: Sarin gas?
MacKenzie: I don't believe it either. And I also don't believe in Santa Claus but if I saw eight reindeer take flight...
Jim: You haven't seen eight reindeer. You've talked to someone who's seen eight reindeer.
Jerry: And we have someone who's tweeted about the reindeer and a third witness who's interviewed victims of the reindeer and a highly placed confidential source who's confirmed that in this place, at that time, reindeer flew.
Sloan: It could matter less, but Santa Claus has nine reindeer.
Don: Rudolph!
Sloan: Dasher Dancer Prancer...
Neal: Blitzen...
Sloan: How many is is that?
Jerry: It really doesn't matter.
Jim: You really believe we used Sarin.
Jerry: Yes.
Jim: On civilians
Jerry: Yes.
Don: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer...
Jim: What are you doing?
Don: Well, I'm just digesting what I just heard. I'm doing a fact check on the number of reindeer...
Sloan: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Comet, Blitzen, Cupid, Donner, Vixen and somebody else.
Neal: Rudolph.
Sloan: Thank you.
Don: How many was that?
Sloan: Start again. Dasher...
Jim: No.

Charlie: There's no age at which you're ok with your father dying.

Jim: I beam a signal into outer space every night, I'm not scared of your Samsung Galaxy.

Sloan: And we're joined now by Bree Dorrit, Editor of ACN Digital and Father of the Engage app. Thanks for joining us, Bree.
Bree: Hi, Sloan.
Sloan: We saw it in some of the package we just played, but tell us about Engage.
Bree: It's a map that tells you where celebrities have been sighted in New York and Los Angeles, and soon we'll be expanding to Vegas and South Beach. Anytime you want, you can scroll around and see, you know, Jude Law was shopping for condoms at Duane Reade on 57th or...
Sloan: So people are out there, and they can post a message to us and say "Kristen Bell and her kid are at the 4pm showing of How to Train Your Dragon at the Arc Light?"
Bree: And it goes right on our map instantly.
Sloan: So that when Kristen Bell and her kid come out of the movies, there are a dozen sociopaths waiting for them?
Bree: [chuckles nervously] I don't think that's likely.
Sloan: Why not?
Bree: Well, it's the price of fame, isn't it?
Sloan: No, it's not. It's a punishment for it.

Jennifer: Can you say why America is the greatest country in the world?
Sharon: Diversity and opportunity.
Moderator: Lewis?
Lewis: Freedom and freedom... so let's keep it that way.
Moderator: Will?
Will: The New York Jets.
Moderator: No, I'm going to hold you to an answer on that. What makes America the greatest country in the world?
Will: Well, Lewis and Sharon said it. Diversity and opportunity and freedom and freedom.
Moderator: I'm not letting you go back to the airport without answering the question.
Will: Well, our Constitution is a masterpiece. James Madison was a genius. The Declaration of Independence is, for me, the single greatest piece of American writing...
[Professor keeps staring]
Will: You don't look satisfied.
Moderator: One's a set of laws and the other's a declaration of war. I want a human moment from you... what about the people? Why is America...
Will: It's not the greatest country in the world, professor. That's my answer.
Moderator: You're saying...
Will: Yes.
Moderator: Let's talk about...
Will: Fine.
[Turns to Sharon]
Will: Sharon, the NEA is a loser. Yeah, it accounts for a penny out of our paycheck, but he
[gestures to Lewis]
Will: gets to hit you with it anytime he wants. It doesn't cost money, it costs votes. It costs airtime and column inches. You know why people don't like liberals? Cause they lose. If liberals are so fucking smart, how come they lose so god damn always?
Sharon: Hey!
Will: [Turns to Lewis] And with a straight face, you're gonna tell students that America is so star-spangled awesome that we're the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom. The UK. France. Italy. Germany. Spain. Australia... Belgium! has freedom... 207 sovereign states in the world, like 180 of 'em have freedom.
Moderator: Alright...
Will: [Looks at Jenny] And, yeah, you... sorority girl. Just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there are some things you should know. One of them is: There is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world. We're 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, number 4 in labor force and number 4 in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real and defense spending - where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies. Now, none of this is the fault of a 20-year-old college student, but you, nonetheless, are without a doubt a member of the worst period generation period ever period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don't know what the FUCK you're talking about!... Yosemite?
[Stunned silence; Jenny looks deeply humiliated]
Will: ... It sure used to be. We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons. We passed laws, struck down laws - for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not on poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were and we never beat our chest. We built great, big things, made ungodly technological advanced, explored the universe, cured diseases and we cultivated the world's greatest artists AND the world's greatest economy. We reached for the stars, acted like men. We aspired to intelligence, we didn't belittle it. It didn't make us feel inferior. We didn't identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election and we didn't scare so easy. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed... by great men, men who were revered. First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.
[looks back at the professor]
Will: Enough?

Sloan: The greater fool is someone with the perfect blend of self-delusion and ego to think he can succeed where others have failed. This whole country was made by greater fools.

Will: Sorority girl!
MacKenzie: [to Jennifer] Don't be scared.
Will: You're the girl, right?
Jennifer: I'm Jennifer Johnson.
Will: Just graduated North Western?
Jennifer: A year early.
Will: You asked me that moronic question... and then my world came apart, and she came here and I landed in the tabloids and then I got death threats and my job is constantly in jeopardy and you ruined my life!
MacKenzie: [to Jennifer] Again just stay calm.
Jennifer: Yes, that was me.
Will: What the hell are you doing here?
Jennifer: I'm applying for an internship.
Will: Why?
Jennifer: I watch the show. And I read the New York magazine article, and I know what a "greater fool" is. And I want to be one.
Will: [to MacKenzie, smiling] Camelot. She's the kid at the end of Camelot!
[Turns to Jennifer]
Will: Ask me again.
Jennifer: I'm sorry?
Will: Ask me your idiot question again.
Jennifer: What makes America the greatest country in the world?
Will: You do.
[to MacKenzie]
Will: Hire her.

Will: Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, founder of the Tea Party Caucus, who herself has a difficult relationship with reality, ignores the statement from the White House.

Neal: I know how you feel.
MacKenzie: I don't think you do. Because, no one's out there saying you were president of the Oxford Union when you were president of the Cambridge Union, the greatest debating society in the history of the fucking kingdom. And that kingdom's been around a long time.
Neal: Don't I know it.
MacKenzie: I don't even know if that was a sarcastic geopolitical reference to colonialism or not.
Neal: It wasn't.

Sloan: You want me to do pole dancing while explaining subprime mortgages?
MacKenzie: If you're up to it, sure.

Charlie: You were unreachable! Only one person knew where you were.
Will: It was you!

Jim: You're working two jobs. You're thoughtful and you're authentic. And I have never seen you sneer at anyone or anything. There is, believe me, no one you're not good enough for, and there's hardly anyone good enough for you. Including, it turned out, me.

[asking about people who used to work for ACN]
Will: Mohammed al Mohammed el Mohammed bin Bazir?
Don: Went to Fox.
Will: Fox hired someone with three Mohammeds in their name?

MacKenzie: And then I came back and lit a fire under your ass...
Will: You lit my ass on fire! It's not the same thing!

MacKenzie: Have you had a lot of long-distance relationships?
Will: Yes.
MacKenzie: Have any of them worked?
Will: No.
MacKenzie: Then why is this going to be different?
Will: I wasn't in love with them.
MacKenzie: ...Wait, what?

Don: You'll interview some good candidates.
Will: Don, please. I'll replace you in fifteen minutes.

General: You can't touch a shooter while he's in the process of shooting the ball, it's against the rules. The shooter goes to the foul line, takes two free throws. But what happens if the shooter brandishes a knife? Dribbling the ball and suddenly he takes out a switchblade. You're allowed to grab his arm -now- because we're not playing basketball anymore.

Charlie: Have you ever thought about having kids?
Will: You mean adopting?
Charlie: Adopting. Abducting. Meeting somebody. Getting married. Whatever it takes.

Sloan: His logic is inconsistent.
Don: How?
Sloan: He doesn't believe his source should have leaked classified documents.
Don: Neither do I.
Sloan: But, he's unwilling to help law enforcement capture the source by identifying him.
Don: He can't. I'd be unwilling, and so would you.
Sloan: I know. But, following that logic, he should also not be willing to broadcast the story. If he believes no one should ever leak because it poses a credible threat, then why is he broadcasting the story?
Don: Well, I can't speak for Will, but I will. Uh, this leak he believes is a good leak. What he's very reasonably worried about is the bad leak, so he'd prefer there are no leaks.
Sloan: You and Will are making the same unilateral decision you don't want a leaker to make.
Don: I trust strangers less than I trust me.
Sloan: Your logic is consistent though horrifying.
Jim: No one's gonna ever guess you guys are a couple.

[Maggie cleaning up Jim's bleeding head]
Jim: Do you know what you're doing?
Maggie: I could've been a doctor!
Jim: What happened?
Maggie: Well, I didn't go to medical school or anything.

Charlie: Let's open to page six, which for some reason is on page 10.

Jim: First, you go into iNews and you look over the questions the segment producer put in the rundown. Identify yourself and your news agency, summarize the segment - the length, whether it's live or not, and who we're having on from the other side.
Maggie: I'm sorry, but don't I first open my eyes and notice it's a new day?
Jim: What are we talking about here?
Maggie: I've done this before.
Jim: Okay.
Maggie: What is this magic box in front of me?
Jim: Have I done something to you?
Maggie: I swear I was just thinking the exact same thing. I have no idea why I'm being mean to you.
Jim: Now that you know that, do you think you'll stop?
Maggie: That's the thing - it doesn't feel like it. I'm just being honest.
Jim: I can't ask for more than that, except rational thought.

Maggie: How come no one's yelling at me?
Jim: You know how bad you screwed up, right?
Maggie: Yes.
Jim: Is there anyone who feels worse than you do?
Maggie: No.
Jim: Then I doubt it'll ever happen again.

MacKenzie: What is the difference
[between corporations and people]
MacKenzie: ?
Sloan: Have you ever held the door open for someone?
MacKenzie: Yes.
Sloan: Did you ask them for money first?
MacKenzie: No.
Sloan: That's the difference.
MacKenzie: That's the right answer.

Brian: Are you prepared to talk about your Republicanism?
Will: You say that like I've got polio.
Brian: Are you prepared to talk about having polio?
Will: I grew up in a town outside a town outside Lincoln, Nebraska. My home town was a road. I was a college freshman before I *met* a Democrat.

MacKenzie: Don't stare at guests who are wearing toupees.
Will: I know, I couldn't help it.
MacKenzie: Help it!
Will: I was mesmerized, and a little bored.

Charlie: He got knocked down! We didn't get taller.

Will: Are you feeling alright? Should you be standing up? Is it alright for you to be outdoors?

Charlie: I'm a marine, Don! I will beat the shit out of you! I don't care how many protein bars you eat!

Don: [to Elliot] . What is this compulsion you have to look on the bright side? I can never count on you to be Jewish.

[Maggie brings pages to Bill as "Baba O'Riley" plays over the scenes]
Roger: Teenage wasteland / It's only teenage wasteland
Maggie: John Adams.
Roger: Teenage wasteland, oh, yeah
Maggie: Thomas Jefferson.
Roger: Teenage wasteland
Maggie: James Madison.
Roger: They're all wasted!
Maggie: George Washington.

MacKenzie: This is a sad day for dignity. I will need a dress.

MacKenzie: Will. By any chance, did you tell anyone about the pregnancy?
Will: No. Absolutely not. You're not supposed to do that until after the first semester.
MacKenzie: Trimester.
Will: Tess, Kendra, Tamara and Martin tricked me into telling them.
Gary: Congratulations to you guys. That's going to be one good looking kid.
Will: And then they might have told some people.

Leona: You know Charlie, a lot of people might argue that Will is on a witch hunt.
Charlie: And a lot of people might argue there are witches out there.

Will: This is News Night and that was a clip of Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism chief to President George W. Bush, testifying before Congress on March 24, 2004. Americans liked that moment. I liked that moment. Adults should hold themselves accountable for failure. And so tonight I'm beginning this newscast by joining Mr. Clarke in apologizing to the American people for our failure. The failure of this program during the time I've been in charge of it to successfully inform and educate the American electorate. Let me be clear that I don't apologize on behalf of all broadcast journalists, nor do all broadcast journalists owe an apology. I speak for myself. I was an accomplice to a slow and repeated and unacknowledged and unamended train wreck of failures that have brought us to now. I'm a leader in an industry that miscalled election results, hyped up terror scares, ginned up controversy, and failed to report on tectonic shifts in our country. From the collapse of the financial system to the truths about how strong we are to the dangers we actually face. I'm a leader in an industry that misdirected your attention with the dexterity of Harry Houdini while sending hundreds of thousands of our bravest young men and women off to war without due diligence. The reason we failed isn't a mystery. We took a dive for the ratings. In the infancy of mass communications, the Columbus and Magellan of broadcast journalism, William Paley and David Sarnoff, went down to Washington to cut a deal with Congress. Congress would allow the fledgling networks free use of taxpayer-owned airwaves in exchange for one public service. That public service would be one hour of air time set aside every night for informational broadcasting, or what we now call the evening news. Congress, unable to anticipate the enormous capacity television would have to deliver consumers to advertisers, failed to include in its deal the one requirement that would have changed our national discourse immeasurably for the better. Congress forgot to add that under no circumstances could there be paid advertising during informational broadcasting. They forgot to say that taxpayers will give you the airwaves for free and for 23 hours a day you should make a profit, but for one hour a night you work for us. And now those network newscasts, anchored through history by honest-to-God newsmen with names like Murrow and Reasoner and Huntley and Brinkley and Buckley and Cronkite and Rather and Russert - Now they have to compete with the likes of me. A cable anchor who's in the exact same business as the producers of Jersey Shore. And that business was good to us, News Night is quitting that business right now. It might come as a surprise to you that some of history's greatest American journalists are working right now, exceptional minds with years of experience and an unshakeable devotion to reporting the news. But these voices are a small minority now and they don't stand a chance against the circus when the circus comes to town. They're overmatched. I'm quitting the circus and switching teams. I'm going with the guys who are getting creamed. I'm moved that they still think they can win and I hope they can teach me a thing or two. From this moment on, we'll be deciding what goes on our air and how it's presented to you based on the simple truth that nothing is more important to a democracy than a well-informed electorate. We'll endeavor to put information in a broader context because we know that very little news is born at the moment it comes across our wire. We'll be the champion of facts and the mortal enemy of innuendo, speculation, hyperbole, and nonsense. We're not waiters in a restaurant serving you the stories you asked for just the way you like them prepared. Nor are we computers dispensing only the facts because news is only useful in the context of humanity. I'll make no effort to subdue my personal opinions. I will make every effort to expose you to informed opinions that are different from my own. You may ask who are we to make these decisions. We are Mackenzie McHale and myself. Miss McHale is our executive producer. She marshals the resources of over 100 reporters, producers, analysts, technicians, and her credentials are readily available. I'm News Night's managing editor and make the final decision on everything seen and heard on this program. Who are we to make these decisions? We're the media elite.

Maggie: Now, can we state clearly, unambiguously, and for the record, that neither of us likes the other in any romantic context?
Jim: I so state.
Maggie: As do I!
Lisa: [laughs uproariously and looks at both Jim and Maggie] You guys can't begin to imagine how unconvincing that was.

[last lines]
Will: Good evening.

[Will got approval to break the story 20 minutes ago]
Charlie: When did you turn into Ted Baxter?

Charlie: [In a flashback while Will is remembering] You know what, kiddo? In the old days... of about ten minutes ago... we did the news well. You know how?
[Emphatically]
Charlie: We just decided to.
[He gives Will a big smile]

Will: How many women did you date before you finally found the one?
Charlie: Doesn't matter how may I dated before. I didn't date anyone after.
Will: It probably helped that she didn't pull your heart out, throw it into an oven preheated to 450 degrees, bake it in a light honey glaze, and serve it to you on a bed of rice.

Lonny: Mr. McAvoy...
Will: You can call me Will.
Lonny: Yeah, I was gonna do that anyway. I know you're used to being the boss. But you're not anymore. At least for a little while.
Will: How long?
Lonny: Until my colleagues chase down the source of the threat or, of course, if you've been successfully assassinated.
Will: A joke?
Lonny: What'd you think?
Will: It was all right.

Rebecca: [to Neal who is about to leave the room] You're hot headed right now. Leave the flash drive on the table.
Neal: [He removes a key from a key ring and tosses it to Will] It's locked in a filing cabinet under my desk.
Will: [to Mack] Are you getting my point?
MacKenzie: Yeah, you don't want Neal to go to jail for ten days. Neither do I. But, these are the rules of cribbage.
Will: I could swallow this key, you know.
Rebecca: Yeah, cuz what criminal master mind could open an Office Depot filing cabinet without a key?
[Will glares at her]
Rebecca: You're thinking of different ways to murder me right now.

Will: How many?
MacKenzie: Bridesmaids?
Will: Yeah.
MacKenzie: Nine.
Will: Nine bridesmaids.
MacKenzie: My sisters, your sisters, Sheila, Sloane, Maggie and Diane.
Will: Who's Sheila?
MacKenzie: My brother's wife, Sheila. You've met her.
Will: And who's Diane?
MacKenzie: Sawyer.

Reese: You chose not to work for PBS. You chose not to work for NPR. You have a ratings obligation.
MacKenzie: No, you have a ratings obligation. You're in business with the advertisers. I'm in business with the viewers.
Reese: You just lost their business.

Will: What do you protect me for?
Lonny: 1,700 a week, plus health and dental.
Will: I wouldn't take a bullet for 1,700 a week.
Lonny: Me neither, pal. So I've learned how to duck.

Maggie: I have here an EPA report that's been embargoed.
Jim: How'd you get it?
Maggie: It doesn't matter. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego measured the levels of carbon dioxide atop Mauna Loa, a volcano in Hawaii, and found that it's passed a long feared milestone: 400 parts per million, which is a concentration not seen on Earth in millions of years.
Jim: [pause] Here's what happened. You started talking about CO2 levels, and I started thinking about other things in my head.

Don: Go ahead!
Sloan: Here's what we are.
Don: Bring it!
Sloan: I love spending time with you.
Don: Oh! Oh Man!
Sloan: Wait!
Don: I can't believe I'm getting Don Keefered!
Sloan: You're not! I would never Don Keefer you.

Will: If you think being an ass is gonna make me less inclined to protect you, think again, mofo. I can out-ass anyone in the tri state area.
Rebecca: He's telling the truth, Neal.
Will: You know, it feels like you're on my side, but just barely.
[shouts over his shoulder]
Will: Jenna!
Rebecca: You make that poor girl work on a Saturday?
Will: She's a recent journalism school graduate. I'm just completing her education. What she's learning from me can't be found in books.
Jenna: [Pokes her head in the door] Yes?
Will: I'd like a Dr. Pepper, please.

Will: Back in 1968, when Rennie Davis and Hayden and their guys organized the SDS, it was specifically to end the Vietnam War, but that movement got eaten by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin and he Yippies.
Charlie: Hoffman and Rubin were a lot more charismatic.
Will: Yeah, but it was impossible to define what the Yippies were protesting! They were about giving the finger to anyone over 30, generically hating the American establishment, dropping out and getting high.
Charlie: And?
Will: That's how the Progressive Movement would be painted for the next 40 years. People passing out daisies to soldiers and trying to levitate The Pentagon.
Charlie: I was there, that damn near worked!
Will: No it didn't. The Pentagon is a really big building, you can't levitate it.

Sloan: [Referring to a woman she had breakfast with] She tried to give me a message in a bottle.
Don: What was it?
Sloan: Merrill's media buyer is gonna lose his job because he's been having an affair with his 24 year old assistant who used to be a circus performer.
Don: [Faraway look in his eyes] Ahhhh...
[Sloane looks at him]
Don: That was an involuntary response you'd get from any man who pictures a circus girl...

Will: Four years ago you were at the masthead at "Newsweek", turning out ten cover stories, a year and spending Sunday mornings on TV. Today, you have a blog.
Brian: Your fucking disdain for the Internet...
Will: Is matched only by your fucking disdain for the Internet.

Don: [to fellow passengers on the plane] She set the Treasury Secretary on fire.
Sloan: [to Peter] It's true.
Peter: Why?
Sloan: Just to show the other Cabinet Secretaries that I could.

Maggie: I never knew what the word smug meant until I met you.
Jim: You're 26 and you didn't know what the word smug meant until this year?
Maggie: Right there.

Charlie: [last words] I'll be back in a minute.

Sloan: Okay...
Don: Sup?
Sloan: Okay, I know we were on sketchy ground ethically and linguistically, but...
Don: Whatever you're gonna say, save it for ten seconds.
Sloan: What happens in ten seconds?
Don: Just hang on for another 5 seconds and know that we've all been there at one point or another.
Sloan: What happens in five seconds?
Charlie: [storming into the room, screaming] What in the name of holy fuck were you thinking about?

Will: I have to give you credit for thinking you can chew me out on this particular...
MacKenzie: I'll chew you out on any particular day. And by the way, when I say dump out of it, dump out of it.

Charlie: The president's gonna tell us what's going on at 10:30. He's gonna tell us. What's the virtue of breaking it five minutes early?
MacKenzie: America thinks bin Laden's alive. If I can make him dead one minute sooner, my entire life in journalism up until this point will have been worth it.

MacKenzie: Did you see Charlie?
Will: After the show. He was cleaning his 12 gauge with Maker's Mark and muttering 'Kill the wabbit.'

MacKenzie: You ever read Euripides?
Will: Yeah, I read it when I was in - no, fuck you, I haven't read Euripides.

Taylor: I have a number of questions.
Jim: I'll try to answer them with the same detail and honesty you've always answered mine.
Aubrey: What were you doing on a Sex and the City tour bus to begin with?
Jim: My girlfriend at the time liked the show and I was showing an interest in her interests.
Taylor: And Maggie didn't know you were on the bus when she shouted that she loved you?
Jim: That's not what she shouted.
Taylor: And she didn't know someone was filming it?
Jim: No.
Taylor: So it was kind of a gaffe?... Life and death and you guys can't get past "corporations are people".
Jim: How fast are we supposed to get past "Hispanics should self-deport" or "I'm not concerned with the very poor"?
Taylor: "There's a safety net there" was the end of that sentence, and plainly his concern is with the middle class.
Jim: The middle class are the very poor.
Aubrey: The better point is we don't need clean air and water regulations. We don't need FEMA. We don't need antitrust laws. We don't need the IRS or the Department of Education or the Federal Reserve. We need freedom.
Neal: What the fuck did you just say?
Aubrey: If you listen to Ron Paul
Neal: I have. He's a batty old crank who wrote instruction manuals on how to get away with shooting the black kid who's stealing your car. He's not Betty White.
Aubrey: He didn't write those letters.
Neal: Yes, he did. And then he signed them and then he charged money for them. So I don't give a shit if he wants to legalize weed. I can already dial the phone and have an ounce delivered to this table before the check comes.
Hallie: Then for God's sake do it.
Jim: The check will never come.
Taylor: They won't let Romney get his message out, either.
Jim: Someone should tell him if he wants to get his message out, he should consider appearing on a network where the entire audience isn't already voting for him and that if he's gonna be the businessman president, he should run on his business record instead of pretending he's never heard of it and that if faith is important to his good works and personal narrative, he shouldn't be afraid it'll creep us out.
Taylor: It's been suggested.
Jim: And?
Taylor: I was fired. I was fired tonight.

Will: Okay, please help me. I need to fully understand what's happening here.
MacKenzie: I'm seven weeks pregnant, and there's like a 5 in 9 chance that it's yours.

[last lines]
Will: Good evening. From New York City, I'm Will McAvoy. ACN is now able to report and confirm that for the first time in almost three decades, the world has no reason to fear Osama bin Laden. In just a moment, in a live address to the nation, the president will announce that in a coordinated operation under the cover of darkness, US Special Forces tonight killed the leader of al-Qaeda and the mastermind behind the deadly attack of September 11th, 2001. It's been nine years, seven months, and 20 days since America's most wanted criminal took from us 2,977 American sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, friends and colleagues. We were transformed that morning into a different nation, more fearful and so, of course, more hostile. And while nothing, not even this victory our country has waited for for such a long time, can bring back the souls lost on that terrible morning in New York City, in Virginia, in a field in Pennsylvania, and all across America and the world, let tonight serve as a welcome reminder that throughout our history, America's darkest days have always been followed by its finest hours. Here now, from the East Room of the White House, the President of the United States.

Leona: You've made a career out of being likable.
Will: I'd like to make a career out of doing the news.

Charlie: I was in a bar in Da Nang...
Will: Just now?
Charlie: 1969. I was embedded with the 144th Artillery for UPI, and I was sitting there with a warm Coke watching a beautiful Vietnamese woman doing an exotic dance right in the middle of everybody. A beautiful, beautiful woman, and I thought to myself "I will never know what it is to be with a woman like that." And at that exact moment, the woman spun twice, teetered over, and fell right into my lap. That was a story about how sometimes some things just fall into your lap.

Charlie: You're suspended with pay until I figure out...
Sloan: [Sloan cut's him off] They were lying about a public safety issue.
Charlie: You're suspended with pay...
Sloan: [Sloan cut's him again screaming] I don't want the goddamn pay!
Charlie: Don't front off with me, girl!
Sloan: Don't call me girl, sir!
Don: Hey!
Don: Everybody calm the f**k down!

Mackenzie: You're going on a date with a cheerleader?
Will: Not a high school cheerleader, a professional cheerleader.
Mackenzie: That doesn't make it better!
Will: Can I help you?
Mackenzie: She's a student!
Will: A graduate student.
Mackenzie: In philosophy?
Will: Physical therapy.
Mackenzie: There are better ways to get back at me.
Will: I'll put up a suggestion box.
Mackenzie: Can I warn you about something? You're a rich and famous person, and for that reason only, she may want to sleep with you.
Will: That didn't sound like something that should come with a warning, that sounded like something that should come with balloons.
Mackenzie: I loathe you right now.
Will: You have ink on your face.
Mackenzie: I WORK WITH PENS!
Will: Get a grip.
Mackenzie: Yeah! I know!

Will: We stood in my office this morning...
MacKenzie: Will...
Will: ...and I said under no circumstances did I want anyone to know what happened, and you said yes, and yes again. I mean it really, it really seemed like you understood. And then, you sent an e-mail, explaining in some detail, what happened. And then you copied 47 reporters on it.
MacKenzie: Can we go into your office?
Will: You know how sometimes something happens in an instant that's so astonishing you just... shut down?
MacKenzie: Of course, that's understand...
Will: [yelling] THAT DOESN'T! FUCKING! HAPPEN! TO ME!
MacKenzie: We need some privacy.
Will: [Sarcastically] REALLY?
MacKenzie: We're going to go into Will's office, I want everyone to delete the e-mail...
Martin: Mac, I think I just accidentally forwarded it to corporate.
Will: Will:
[Will angrily charges at Martin and is blocked by Mackenzie and Maggie]
Will: WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?
MacKenzie: [frantically] I was sending an e-mail to you, but accidentally sent it to Sloan Sabbith, but I either did or didn't type the asterisk, and it went to staff instead of Sloan.
Will: Why were you sending it at all?
MacKenzie: Because... And here's where I think I'm on firmer ground... She said that you cheated on me and you were an arse! Which is not true, I'm changing minds, Will, I'm changing minds all over the place!
Will: [pointing at his office] Get in there!
MacKenzie: Sure.

MacKenzie: The source risked everything. Neal's hiding in South America. Will's facing a grand jury. Fahda and his family fled the country. And it was for nothing!
Reese: Mac.
MacKenzie: It was for nothing!
Reese: Yeah. Selling the company's the only way you get to live to fight another day.
MacKenzie: Do we *ever* get to *win* one?

Sloan: Since I'm never going to see you again after Friday, I feel I can tell you something...
Don: We'll see each other again!
Sloan: Maybe not, after I say what I'm going to say.
Don: ...and you're not leaving.
Sloan: I don't know who told you you're a bad guy, but somebody did. Somebody along the way. Somebody or something convinced you of it, because you think you're a bad guy... and you're just not. I'm socially inept, but even I know that. So because you're a bad guy you try to do things you think a good guy would do. Like committing to somebody you like, but maybe don't love. A sweet, smart, wholesome midwestern girl.
Don: [Stares at her, amazed]
Sloan: I could be wrong. I almost always am.
Don: Why are you single?
Sloan: A lot of men are intimidated by my intelligence.
Don: No, seriously.
Sloan: Because you never asked me out.

Don: I love you every day. Today's just an excuse to spend a night in a hotel room.

MacKenzie: One more thing... we lost Jan Brewer and had to replace her with a crazy professor and her website, a member of a citizen's militia, and a former second runner-up in the Miss USA Pageant. It's going to be fine. You'll carry them. They'll barely have to speak.
Will: [stunned silence]
MacKenzie: Now you've shut down, right?
Will: ...Who fucked up?
MacKenzie: Now you know I'm not going to tell you that.
Will: Okay.

Will: Mac, get in here with Charlie right now.
Mackenzie: Is everything...
Will: Right now!
[points to Charlie as he enters the room]
Will: You tell Leona that if she wants me out of this chair, she better bring more than just a couple of guys.
Charlie: That's exactly what I'll fucking tell her!
Will: I'm not fucking around, Charlie!
Charlie: Feet of fucking steel!
Will: Mac
Mackenzie: I'm sorry.
Will: It's not your fault
Mackenzie: I fucked everything up.
Will: It's gonna be all right.
Don: [Entering the studio] What the fuck is going on?
Will: You're a fucking newsman, Don! I ever tell you otherwise, you punch me in the face!
Don: Okay, but you're back in 30.

Will: Let's do sports, Charlie. We love sports.
Charlie: You mean like try out for a team?
Will: I do not mean try out for a team. No.

Reese: I know everyone on this floor thinks I'm an asshole. But, I run a good company. And that's all I've ever wanted to do. Run a good company that makes good products. And we may have a political difference on this, but I take a lot of pride in being a job creator.
Sloan: Okay.
Reese: You really want to argue the indisputable fact that I cut paychecks to 141,000 people?
Sloan: Our difference of opinion isn't political; it's religious. I'm an economist and in my church it's your customers who are the job creators. And no one here thinks you're an asshole.
Reese: Really?
Don: [Just entering the room] I do.

Charlie: [In a flashback, in reference to his grandson playing "How I got to Memphis"] I asked him, "What's a New Jersey boy doing singing about Memphis?" He told me, "'Memphis' represents finding yourself, finding the right place, being where you're supposed to be, even if you realize you should have tried to get there sooner."

Will: How does this work?
Lonny: I pick you up at your home in the morning and escort you to your office. Then I pick you up at your office at night and escort you to your home. I'm with you any place that's an unsecured area.
Will: What's an unsecured area?
Lonny: Anyplace that isn't your home or your office.
Will: I'm single. What about a date?
Lonny: I don't think we should get romantically involved.
Will: You get one joke a day.

Will: I'm not smug; I'm having a crisis of confidence.

Sloan: [sighs, turns to Will] Please I have to fix this now. Help me. I need wisdom.
MacKenzie: [interrupts] I have wisdom.
Sloan: Kenzie I love you, but a Japanese man's honor is at stake, and sometimes your wisdom leeds to... like...
[imitates explosion]
Sloan: .
MacKenzie: [looks at Sloan for a few seconds] No, I get it.

Maggie: You can't have sex in a bathtub!
Tess: Yes, you can. You just have to slip...
Maggie: THANK YOU.
Jim: I wanted to hear more...
Maggie: SHUT UP!

Will: Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann thinks our troops are the best.
[Bachmann clip]
Will: Presidential candidate Herman Cain wil not apologize for having the biggest, baddest, greatest military on the planet.
[Cain clip]
Will: Presidential candidate Mitt Romney would like the rest of us to support the troops even more than we already do.
[Romney clip]
Will: And presidential candidate Rick Santorum marvels, as we all do, at the selfless act of volunteering to serve in a time of war.
[Santorum clip]
Will: Stephen Hill is a decorated captain in the US Army, where he's been a reservist for twenty years. He is, this very night, serving in combat in Iraq, as he was last night, when he asked this question via YouTube at the GOP debate in Orlando, Florida:
Capt. Stephen Hill: [clip] In 2010 when I was deployed to Iraq, I had to lie about who I was because I'm a gay soldier and I didn't want to lose my job. My question is, under one of your presidencies, do you intend to circumvent the progress that's been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military?
[boos from crowd at debate]
Will: That was a big room full of Republican primary voters booing an American combat soldier who, as he was speaking, was in combat. The audience members who were booing were in Orlando. Soon, they'll surely be in hell, though not soon enough. Not everyone was booing: there were people in the audience who heard Captain Hill say that when he was deployed to Iraq, he was worried that if his sexuality was discovered, they might not let him go, as opposed to most of us, who, if told we were being deployed to Iraq, would go Corporal Klinger faster than you could pull on a yellow taffeta picnic dress. I'm sure there were even some people in the building who stood up for Captain Hill, people who had the simple strength of character to turn to the fraction of a human in the seat next to them and say, "How many different kinds of disgusting do you have to be to boo a man who volunteered to fight and die for you?" I'm sure those people were there. I'm sure there were many of them. But unfortunately, none of them were on the stage. Not one of these would-be Commanders-in-Chief took a moment to stand with a line officer. They let him stand alone. Soldiers never do that. Leaders never do that. Witless bullies and hapless punks do it all the time. The only President on the stage last night was Stephen Hill. Godspeed, Captain Hill, and come home soon. A grateful nation is waiting to say, "Thank you." That's News Night for September twenty-third. Terry Smith is up next with the Capitol Report. I'm Will McAvoy. Good night.

MacKenzie: [while Will lies in a hospital bed, Jim reveals to them that Don is about to ask Maggie to move in with him. She scolds Jim for continuing to date Lisa rather than pursue a relationship with Maggie] You've got to do something before he asks her.
Jim: No!
MacKenzie: Why not?
Will: It doesn't seem like a very nice thing to do to Don or Maggie or Lisa.
MacKenzie: So you're willing to end up like the two of us? A strong, beautiful, vital woman and a hallowed-out shell of a man.
Will: [to MacKenzie] You know I'm awake now?
MacKenzie: [to Jim] That's a dead person speaking, basically. And now I'm gonna have to spend the next God knows how many hours in mourning.
Will: Please go back to work.
MacKenzie: He will.
Will: [to MacKenzie] I'm talking to you.

Will: [to a bartender] I thought I saw someone I knew in the audience. And she was prompting me. I was asked a question from the audience, and she wrote an answer down on a pad and pointed to it the way a producer would. But, it was a hallucination. Which I didn't think those really happened, but they do. Never doubt them again.
[the bartender simply nods as if in understanding, but is otherwise silent]
Will: You're not as helpful as your movie counterparts.

Don: How would you want to be asked?
Sloan: To move in with a guy?
Don: Yeah.
Sloan: By having the guy say, "Will you marry me?"

Don: Let me out! Let me out, and I will push the plane to the gate.

Will: [talking about MacKenzie] I was married to her for 11 minutes before I was taken to jail. Yes, I miss my wife.

Wade: You know I'm an assistant US attorney for the southern district, right?
Will: Yeah
Wade: Well, right now, my job is prosecuting financial crime.
Will: Well, you know, Wade, fell free to start any time.

Don: ...The law can acquit. The Internet never will. The Internet is used for vigilantism every day. But this is a whole new level and if we go there, we're truly fucked.
Mary: I'm not a vigilante.
Don: Do you want to live in a world where...
Mary: [interrupts] Do you want to hear the advice I get? I mean, this is real advice. In pamphlets. Say you have a boyfriend. Wear a wedding ring. I'm supposed to protect myself from a man by pretending I'm the property of another man. And, of course, there's no shortage of good fashion advice.
Don: Mary...
Mary: When you came in here, you wanted to go to a public place because you were scared I'd cry rape. I'm scared of getting raped. I'm scared all the time. I'm scared all the time. So you know what my site does? It scares you. It scares the living shit out of any guy who thinks even once about putting his hands on someone without an invitation.
Don: You're right to name your attacker. You may even be obligated to. But the site is gonna clobber an innocent person and there is no chance that it won't. And if you face off with the guy you've accused on TV, it is going to be a lawless food fight with irreversible, irretrievable consequences. Teams will be formed, you will be slut-shamed, and you won't get the justice you're looking for. That's why I'm asking you to refuse.

Charlie: Reese, the newsroom became a courtroom because I felt the American public needed a fucking lawyer.

Leona: Let's start over. And this time, disabuse yourself of the idea that this is a conversation between equals, where I make an argument, you make a counter-argument, and we both agree to disagree.

Don: Yes.
Sloan: Yes, what?
Don: Yes, I'd love having a gal pal with no commitment and tons of sex.
Sloan: Great.
Don: Just not you.
Sloan: What's wrong with me?
Don: Plenty, but I really like you anyway.
Sloan: I'm not good at not being alone. It's what I'm used to.
Don: Let me know if you want to get good at it.
[He walks down the hall]
Sloan: [to his back] The sex is good.
Don: Thank you.

Don: [Cocky, still wearing a headset] Freedom won, and not a bullet was fired.
Jim: [Just as smug as Don] Let this day be recorded in the all...
Maggie: Your fly's unzipped.
[She leaves the control room]
Jim: I'm not sure how I feel about new confident Maggie.
Don: She's lookin' good.
Sloan: [From the studio set] I can still hear you.
Don: [pause] Do you think there's any chance she's, uh...
Sloan: I'm not pretending.

Will: What does winning look like to you?
Mackenzie: Reclaiming the fourth estate. Reclaiming journalism as an honorable profession. A nightly newscast that informs a debate worthy of a great nation. Civility, respect and a return to what's important; the death of bitchiness; the death of gossip and voyeurism; speaking truth to stupid. No demographic sweet spot; a place where we can all come together.

Neal: You embarrass me. It took me a long time to build ACN Digital. I was laughed at by the people in this newsroom. People I respect and respect what I did around here, but I built this into a tool that gathered, expanded on and disseminated information that's useful. I kept telling my colleagues and my bosses that the internet is user sensitive just like most things and I watched from a thousand miles away while you proved that. You embarrass me.

Don: You are a member of a godless, soulless race of extortionists.
Rebecca: That's fair.

Don: Oh, blow me.
Will: I want you to not use that language in front of women and forever not suggest that image to me.

Jim: Tell me about the complaint.
Maggie: There was a desk producer who saw Will yell at me about something.
Jim: What?
Maggie: Doesn't matter.
Jim: What?
Maggie: Doesn't matter.
Jim: [looks at Maggie]
Maggie: I mixed up Georgia the State with...
Jim: No!
Maggie: yes, Georgia the country.
Jim: And this was...
Maggie: Yup.
Jim: during the invasion.
Maggie: This isn't about me.
Jim: You thought the Russians invaded Atlanta?
Maggie: In retrospect it seems farfetched.

Sloan: I need the name and contact information of the person who bought the book.
Neal: Tonight?
Sloan: You need to hurry before the trail gets cold.
Neal: You think the book may have been bought by a bank robber?
Sloan: Look at my face.
Neal: I know.
Sloan: Does it seem like I one want to be sassed?
Neal: It does not.

Leona: Charlie, did I ever tell you about the time my parents saw 'You Can't Take it With You' on Broadway?
Charlie: That was $42,000.
Leona: No. $42,350. And it was the last $350 that were the hardest. Sold my clothes. Dealt a little weed.
Reese: Mom.
Leona: Oh, I'm- I'm just kidding. I didn't sell my clothes.

Maggie: How can you be biased towards fairness?
MacKenzie: There aren't two sides to every story. Some stories have five sides some only have one.
Tess: I still don't underst...
Will: Bias towards fairness means that if the entire congressional Republican caucus were to walk in to the House and propose a resolution stating that the Earth was flat, the Times would lead with "Democrats and Republicans Can't Agree on Shape of Earth."

Neal: A study in the "Astrophysical Journal" estimates that there are ten trillion planetary systems in the known universe.
Jim: Which one are you from?

Charlie: I'm too old to be governed by fear of dumb people.

[about Obama's visit to India and the absurdly exaggerated figure of the cost]
Will: In spite of there being no source for this information, to say nothing of the absurdity of the figure, Fox News grabs the baton.
Glenn: So he's travelling with 34 warships, an entourage-
[footage stops]
Will: Oh yeah, and he added 34 warships. Or, 14% of the U.S. Navy.

Will: I only seem liberal because I believe that hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure and not gay marriage.

Will: Sharron Angle's angry because the press is reporting what she says to the press. The statement goes on; "We needed to have the press to be our friend. We wanted them to ask the questions we want to answer". Do not laugh, I felt the exact same way about the bar exam.
Control: Rounds of laughter from people inside the control room.
MacKenzie: Whoa! Will just made a joke.

Jim: Do we even have Sarin gas?
Jerry: We're not supposed to. They were supposed to be destroyed by 2007 according to the Chemical Weapons convention but it wasn't. We still have it. The DOD confirms that.
Jim: We may have it, but we've never used it. We didn't use it in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the First Gulf War and we were fighting people that did have...
Jerry: Those all happened before 9/11. We torture people now. We kidnap them, wire tap them...
Jim: Drop deadly gas on civilians?
Jerry: It happened, Jim. This is the one we know about.

Reese: I think your resignation should be accepted immediately and we should write Dantana a check and get to the business of rebooting this once respected brand.
Charlie: Then why don't you?
Reese: My mom says I can't.

Will: Come after me all you want, Nina. Come after me every day. Look through my garbage, invent things out of thin air - that's what you're paid for. But you touch my staff, and you are walking into a world of hurt. I have an hour of prime time every night, and I will re-dedicate my life to ruining yours. I also want you to send a message up the chain of whatever back room machinery that's driving this that if I so much as smell Leona Lansing's perfume on any of this, I'm going to make a meal out of both of you, and I'm not going to stop until I'm done. Look at me... and see that I'm dead serious.

Don: You have to let us off this plane.
Flight: I'm not letting you unbuckle your seatbelt, you think I'm letting you off the plane?
Don: If you knew what we know -
[turns to the other passengers]
Don: which is nothing- you'd be behind us and they'd be behind us, and I think later on tonight, you're gonna be saying, 'I wish I had been more cooperative with that passenger.'
Flight: I think later on tonight you're gonna be saying, 'These handcuffs hurt my wrists.'

Maggie: I want to say something to you that's inappropriate, insubordinate, and grounds for termination. You could give Mac a break and have the women meet you at the restaurant.
Will: That was inappropriate and insubordinate, but I don't care.
Maggie: Thank you.
Will: You should know, your head's up your ass.

Will: Are we ready for the pre-tape?
MacKenzie: Yeah.
Will: Just count me down.
MacKenzie: Will...
Will: Yes, I'm sure I want to do this.
MacKenzie: Oh God, please give me a sign that I'm not doing a big thing badly.
Engineers: [Lights go out] We just lost power. The building just lost power.
MacKenzie: I didn't know he had that kind of comic timing.

Carrie: [Will takes Carrie's gun away from her and points it at Carrie, who looks stunned] Is it wrong that I'm turned on by that?
Will: Yes!

Will: I'm thinking... Yeah, that whole speech did nothing for me.

Maggie: Don't screw with me on this, James Tiberius Harper.

Elliot: Be less desperate for female friends.

Will: How often are you sleeping when I'm talking to you at night?
MacKenzie: I really have no way of knowing that.

MacKenzie: [Will has just learned about the death of his father and has stared at the news anchor's desk for 35 seconds following a commercial break] Well, I guess it's just us now.

"Sex: To your left is the famous brownstone where Carrie Bradshaw lived, loved and lost. Thanks to Carrie we all got to live the typical life of a single woman in New York City!
Maggie: [who was just splashed by the tour bus as it pulled up] Hey! No you didn't! I'm a typical single woman in New York City! I don't wear heels to work because the typical woman's job doesn't exclusively involve gallery openings! And I know Carrie must've made boatloads writing her eight-hundred-word column for a newspaper no one's ever heard of, but I just spent my last seven dollars having a bite with my best friend, who, by the way, is not available at 3 PM on a Wednesday to console me about some guy because she, too, has a job! And mostly when you fall for a guy and he's going out with your best friend, it doesn't work out! Things get really bad!

Reese: I'm the president of AWM. You don't meet me halfway. You meet me the whole way.

MacKenzie: [Asking for a crash-course in economics for a panel] I just need you teach me a couple of things to say that'll make it look like I know something. How long did it take you to know what you know?
Sloan: College, grad school, doctorate, post-doctorate, practical experience - 15 years. When's the panel?
MacKenzie: Tuesday...
Sloan: Okay.
MacKenzie: ...morning.
Sloan: How about I give you three thing you can write on your hand?
MacKenzie: No! I want to know this. I think that a lot of what's going on in the world has to do with the economy.
Sloan: [Deadpan] You may be onto something.
MacKenzie: It's not like I need to know everything!
Sloan: You'll be in no danger of that.
MacKenzie: Joke well crafted.
Sloan: Thank you.
MacKenzie: Go home.
Sloan: Yep.

Charlie: I, along with most people who don't live in Japan, am not fluent in Japanese, so I have to ask: did you just *make up* statements for someone we had live on our air?
Sloan: I didn't make them up...
Charlie: About a *deadly radiation leak*?
Sloan: I didn't make them up. He told me the reactor was going to a seven.
Charlie: When? Tonight? I'm asking, honestly, because there was a portion of the broadcast that turned into a Kurosawa movie.

Charlie: Reese, why don't you give us a minute.
Leona: He can stay.
Charlie: Reese get the fuck out.

Bryce: [about him, a Republican, co-sponsoring a bill with a Democrat] Once you're elected, you have a duty to work with other people who have been elected. My friends across the aisle have been elected.

MacKenzie: I need you to change my Wikipedia page.
Neal: Sure.
MacKenzie: I checked, and for some reason, it says I was president of the Oxford Union.
Neal: Weren't you?
MacKenzie: [Disapprovingly] No. I went to Cambridge.
Neal: Right. I knew that.
MacKenzie: Do you know who else went to Cambridge? John Milton, Charles Darwin, Jane Goodall, Alan Turing, E.M. Forster, Stephen Hawking, the King of Jordan, Prime Minister of India, and three signatories to the Declaration of Independence.
Will: Mac, I wonder if you can switch me off. You're screaming names of smart people in my ear.
MacKenzie: Sorry.
Will: They teach you that at Oxford?

Will: Ideological purity. Compromise as weakness. A fundamentalist belief in scriptural literalism. Denying science. Unmoved by facts. Undeterred by new information. A hostile fear of progress. A demonization of education. A need to control women's bodies. Severe xenophobia. Tribal mentality. Intolerance of dissent. Pathological hatred of the U.S. government. They can call themselves the Tea Party. They can call themselves conservatives. And they can even call themselves Republicans, though Republicans certainly shouldn't. But we should call them what they are - The American Taliban.

Moderator: There was a short piece on Vanity Fair's website by Marshall Westbrook, you probably saw it, where he calls you the Jay Leno of news anchors. You're popular because you don't bother anyone.
Will: Yeah.
Moderator: How do you feel about that?

Nina: The message said...
Will: You don't have to say what it said.
Nina: It said...
Will: It's all right.
Nina: It said, "Hey Mac, it's me. Look, I'm not just saying this because I'm high. I've never stopped loving you. You were spectacular tonight." Then there's a pause, and you say, "Can you believe we got Obama?"

Leona: Well, last night the voters ousted 21% of congress including seven members of the House Sub-committee on Communications and Technology. Three of those seven are AWM's most reliable friends on the Hill. The congressmen that will be replacing them are the same people that Will has been making look like fucking morons for the last six months.
Charlie: They've done a pretty good job making themselves look like morons.

MacKenzie: All right, to give us a crash course in how best to exploit this tragedy and to erase all boundaries of what should be used as entertainment, I've enlisted the help of a master of the dark arts.
Don: [Don enters room] I understand I'm needed.

Cellmate: I've got an idea tell me the name. I didn't take an oath or anything, I'll say I'll give them the name on the condition they let us both out.
Will: That's a hell of an idea.
Cellmate: Or I could just shake the name out of you.
Will: Stand up.
[Both men stand up]
Will: I want you to see that I've got four inches on you, and you're giving up thirty pounds. I'm not your wife, raise your hands above your hips and I will knock you the fuck into next week.
Cellmate: [will sits down] Your father was a drunk wasn't he?

Charlie: Hell hath no fury like the second rate.

Charlie: For a long time I've wanted to watch the news on my TV at night. Then it occurred to me: I run a news division.

Charlie: You know, it's gonna get up to 98 degrees.
Will: Next person that tells me about the damn weather...
[Looks at Jim]
Will: Do you know what you're doing here?
Jim: I've been asked to tell you about the weather.
Will: Does it feel to you like anyone in this room is in the mood for a joke?
Jim: It absolutely does not.

Will: [after being served a subpoena to appear for questioning] You think it's possible I'm not as big a TV star as I thought?

Tate: Don Keefer!
Don: Yeah?
Tate: How would you and Elliot Hirsch like to have one of the debates?
Don: Eat me.
Tate: Mr. Skinner, I'm trying to be as dip...
Charlie: When Don says "eat me," that's usually the end of the conversation.
Tate: Sloan Sabbith! You want to be a star?
Sloan: Me?
Tate: Yeah.
Sloan: Fuck you.

Will: [to Mac] I worked very hard at cultivating no friendships outside of work. And to be honest, I was doing fine cultivating no friendships inside of work until you came along.

Will: [Speaking about Mackenzie] She's indifferent to ratings, competition, corporate concerns, and, generally speaking, consequences.

Charlie: [to FBI agent] We're gonna need your first name for the banner. Is it Kip?
Rodger: Your lack of cooperation will be noted for our report.
Molly: Hope that doesn't leak to the press.
MacKenzie: I'm gonna make sure it does.
Will: I'm being cooperative. Can it be noted that some of us are being down right docile?
Charlie: So, it's Kip?
Rodger: Rodger. With a D.
Charlie: We're gonna misspell it.

Jim: Does anyone know anything about "Sex in the City?"
Tess: The show or...?
[pauses, embarrassed]
Tess: The show.

Maggie: But that wasn't what he was actually mad about. The wife of a board member died and Will asked me to send flowers. I wrote on the card, "I'm sorry about your loss. LOL".
Jim: LOL?
Maggie: I thought it meant "lots of love".
Jim: How are you still working here?
Maggie: I dodge bullets. Here comes a bullet. Boom! I'm over here. Ping! Here comes another bullet. Boom! I'm over here.

Elliot: You got three choices. One: Get back together with Maggie so you can be the regular prick that I like, and not the bonus prick I've been getting for the past week. Two: Don't get back together with Maggie, and get over it. Three: You are fired. Choose.

Will: Do we know if it's a boy or a girl?
MacKenzie: Yeah, there's a good chance it's going to be one of those two.

Sloan: Unless there's a rally...
MacKenzie: I'm sorry I've got to...
Sloan: Listen.
MacKenzie: Sloan...
Sloan: Unless there's a rally in the next 90 minutes,The Dow's gonna close down about 2.5%,S&P and NASDAQ will close down 2.3%,Let me tell you why.
MacKenzie: I don't own a lot of stock.
Sloan: Let me tell you why.
MacKenzie: I really can't.
Sloan: [shouting] Stop avoiding this!
Sloan: I just got off the phone with these guys. Listen to these quotes. These aren't from liberals. these are hardcore Wall-Street guys,Who whatever the world may think of them,Knows what they're talking about and so do I. Jamie Dimon atChase says, "Voting against raising the debt ceiling would be a moral disaster." The Barclays guys say "This debate is detached from reality." My Goldman source says "If the house Republicans continue this debate, I hope they're willing to mark the end of the dollar as a global reserve currency." Please notice he didn't say if the house republicans don't raise the debt ceiling. he said if the house republicans continue this debate. That's all it takes. Just the uncertainty. That's why the Dow's gonna close down 230 points today. Because just the debate,just the doubt,just the possibility that the House Majority might commit the most self-inflicted damage to the country since the secession of the south has caused billions in value to disappear.
MacKenzie: Sloan,I understand,I swear to God I do. But you can't say the same thing the C block?
Sloan: Don't pretend you don't know that most people watch 10 minutes of news. The first 10 minutes.
MacKenzie: The vote isn't until tomorrow night.and it's only the first vote.You said yourself it was cosmetic. Why do we have to feature it tonight?
Sloan: We should have been featuring it weeks ago. We should have been leading with it every night.
MacKenzie: Why do we have to feature it tonight?
Sloan: To give time for the people to call their congressmen and say "If you fuck with the full faith and credit of the US Treasury,You're fired." to give time for the people to jam the phone lines of the district offices. To give the people time to say, "I'm a fiscal conservative and you've got to put the pin back in the grenade right now." That's why.
MacKenzie: [pause] I'm gonna do everything I can.
Sloan: Please do.

Sloan: Somebody ratted us out?
Wyatt: Yes.
Sloan: Nobody around would drop a dime. You're blowin' smoke. Who cheesed?
Don: Okay, Mugsy.

Will: We're a team here. We're a family. But, just to be clear, he's the one that did it.

Jim: [Entering the control room] Do you have the first idea how any of this equipment works?
Don: I don't know how electricity works. Just start pressing buttons.

Maggie: It's just a very bad day.
Lisa: It's Valentine's Day. It's my favorite day.
Maggie: Then pick another day! Because it's every guy's least favorite day. Everyone's always disappointed. Valentine's Day is the bully of holidays. It forces love on people who aren't in love. Cupid's freakish.
Jim: All right.
Maggie: No, I'm boycotting Valentine's Day from now on. Who's with me?

Will: You're the spokesperson for Halliburton.
Nick: And I came on this program voluntarily.
Will: I don't have subpoena power, everyone comes on this program voluntarily.

Judge: [Don urgently wants to get out of jury duty; addresses the judge, who is not too impressed] All these people have someplace else to be. I'm sure your network can do the news without you.
Don: You're probably right but I'd hate for my boss to find that out.
Judge: [Still not impressed] Take your seat.
Don: Ah.
[Turns to one of the lawyers]
Don: Look, you don't want leaders on the jury, right? Anyone who can take charge during deliberations? I run a news broadcast five nights a week with a staff of sixty, and I bend them to my will...
[turns to the other lawyer]
Don: ... plus, I'm currently the defendant in two lawsuits being brought by the same person, so... even though I bought your client's bagel slicer at 3 a.m., and it nearly took my fingers off, there is simply no way in *hell* that I'm finding for the plaintiff...
[pulls breath to continue]
Judge: Get out of here!
Don: Thank you!

Neal: A popular discussion at the moment there's recent article projecting U.S. credit rating fallout as a result of the debt ceiling standoff.
Sloan: Yes, I heard that on the news. No wait... I didn't. I heard about Casey Anthony instead.
Neal: Well that's where I jumped in. I said, "If I can balance my checkbook, why can't the government balance its budget?"
Sloan: Mary mother of God am I sick of that insane analogy. Balancing your checkbook is to balancing the budget as driving to the supermarket is to landing on the moon.

Charlie: Leona, we don't have the trust of the public anymore.
Leona: Get it back!

Nina: Tough-ass speech, but you're not gonna win.
Will: I don't care. I'm just a middle-aged man who never lived up to his potential. You don't want to be on the wrong end of me if I ever do.

Will: [Motioning to a guitar] You mind?
Bo: No. That's right. You play guitar on the side.
Will: I'm a news anchor on the side.

Nina: Are we gonna go back to flirting, or are you gonna keep putting me down?
Will: I'm not putting you down. I'm just saying that what you do is a really bad form of pollution that makes us dumber and meaner and is destroying civilization. I'm saying, with all possible respect, that I would have more respect for you if you were a heroin dealer. And I'm speaking professionally, not personally.
Nina: Ok, Will. I'm speaking personally when I say fuck you. And you just passed up a sure thing.

Brian: And he's going to cave on the debate too.
MacKenzie: Are you sure about that?
Brian: I'm absolutely sure about that.
MacKenzie: You know what I like about Will? He's not absolutely sure about anything. He struggles with things. He's never certain he's right, and sometimes he's not, but he tries hard to be. He struggles with things.
Will: [Will hops past in the background, trying to put on his trousers. He falls] God d...
Crew: Will, are you all right?
MacKenzie: Could somebody help Will put his pants on?

Captain: Is there a problem, sir?
Don: Yeah, I was asking how paranoid you have to... you have to be...
[sees the Captain belongs to United Airlines]
Don: Captain, my name is Don Keefer. That's Elliot Hirsch and that's Sloan Sabbith. We work for Atlantis Cable News. And we wanted you and your first officer and Flight Attendant Crazy Lady to be the first ones on this plane to know that our armed forces killed Osama bin Laden for you tonight.
Captain: You're serious?
Don: Yes, sir.

Will: Listen up. I'm from Nebraska. I'm not like the rest of you. I can eat food without fear.

Will: Who else's body have you guarded.
Lonny: We don't talk about that.
Will: Okay.
Lonny: Kanye. It was awesome.

Reese: Whose idea was it to not cover the Casey Anthony trial?
Charlie: It was mine
Will: It was mine.
MacKenzie: It was mine.
Reese: I think the three of you should have a vaudeville act. I'm not kidding, I'm gonna send you on a fucking tour.

Will: I sit down with her.
Charlie: No.
Will: I tell her exactly what happened.
Charlie: No.
Will: And I appeal...
Charlie: To what?
Will: To her God-given humanity.
Charlie: God didn't give her humanity. That's why she's a gossip columnist.

Sloan: You've got a map that gives us their location.
Bree: The idea is that we are acknowledging that they're real people.
Sloan: I wonder how many of us didn't already know that. But you're doing more than acknowledging they're real people, you're beating them up for it.
Bree: Aren't they protected by the piles of money they're surrounded by?
Sloan: Okay. What's the line of demarcation? You make over x dollars a year, and now you get to be treated by us as a regular person who's basically had an electronic bracelet slapped on their ankle. What does x equal?
Bree: It would be silly to name an exact dollar amount.
Sloan: You're paid $55,000 dollars a year.
Bree: Well, that's private!
Sloan: Sorry. But that's almost twice the national average for a family of four. Do your piles of cash protect you from this interview in which I'm intentionally stripping you of your dignity? And by the way, I've managed to do it without lying once. So I'm going to give you another chance to answer my question before I answer it myself: What's the value of an unsourced, unvetted story about a grown man drinking at a bar?
[Bree stares at her in shock]
Sloan: I can't give you all the time in the world, it's entertainment. My concern isn't for the celebrities, even though as sure as we're sitting here, someone is gonna get hurt. My concern is for the rest of us, who you're turning into a wild pack of prideless punks. That's news night for June 24th. I'm Sloan Sabbith, filling in for Will McAvoy. Terry Smith is up next with the Capital Report.

Maggie: [to an ethics professor she met on a train] You can save your students a lot of time. On the first day of class tell them they know the difference between right and wrong. Do what's right. They don't need a lawyer to tell them their moral absolutes, and whenever you hear someone give a monologue defending the ethics of their position, you can be pretty sure they know they were wrong.

Charlie: [to everyone in the newsroom, clapping because CNN had to retract a prior statement] Hey!
Will: Hey!
Charlie: What are you *doing*? *Worst* moment in this guy's life and you're cheering? Why?
Will: Why?
Charlie: Because you think if someone gets in line in back of you it means the line moved? We still blew Genoa.
Will: The line didn't move!
Charlie: And if there's anyone...
Will: That's right.
Charlie: ...in the world who should be able to empathize with CNN right now, you would *think*...
Will: Wouldn't you?
Charlie: ...that it would be the people in this room!
Will: Empathy!
Charlie: He got knocked down! We didn't get taller.

Charlie: [after Will correctly stated the name of a song that was playing] You *do* play a little guitar on the side.
Will: I do a little news anchoring on the side.

Sloan: You gave me a little test.
Don: You didn't do well.
Sloan: Is this something you read in Cosmo while you were at the dentist?
Don: Yes.
Sloan: I said I'd go to the party which doesn't exist because you're a lying liar who lies a lot.

Will: [Eating Chinese food with Mac] The MSG is where the flavor comes from. The Chinese are a people who've been around for billions of years.
MacKenzie: No people have been around for billions of years.
Will: Okay. Well, some of us have read a book called the Bible - which is pretty clear about the Chinese and MSG.

Taylor: Do you call yourself a Republican so you can make a claim to credibility when you attack the GOP?
Will: No, I call myself a Republican 'cause I am one. I believe in market solutions, and I believe in common sense realities and the necessity to defend ourselves against a dangerous world and that's about it. Problem is now I have to be homophobic. I have to count the number of times people go to church. I have to deny facts and think scientific research is a long con. I have to think poor people are getting a sweet ride. And I have to have such a stunning inferiority complex that I fear education and intellect in the 21st century. But most of all, the biggest new requirement, really the only requirement, is that I have to hate Democrats. And I have to hate Chris Christie for not spitting on the President when he got off Air Force One. The two-party system is crucial to the whole operation. There is honor in being the loyal opposition. And I'm a Republican for the same reasons you are. So I hope your voice gets louder in the next four years.

Don: I too believe Will and Sloan can be a little smug, and I think you guys are showing a lot of wisdom by having me be the one to come and fix it.

Will: And you know all those times the two of you ask me why I am a Republican as if that's something that needs an explanation?
MacKenzie: I don't know what the hell you are on about.
Will: I've never heard either of you ask anyone why they're a Democrat. Well, it's right here. The purposeful suspension of common sense.

Will: Sloan this is Lonny. You'll see him around.
Lonny: Good to meet you.
Sloan: Wow. Can I tap your chest?
Lonny: Sure.
Sloan: [laughs] Holy cow.
[looking at Will]
Sloan: Have you felt his pecs?
Will: No, I haven't yet.

MacKenzie: I find your Irish stoicism...
Will: Sexy?
MacKenzie: Irritating.

Sloan: You know how there are tall women who don't mind dating shorter guys? I don't mind that you're dumb. And, Don, I mean that.