Nurse: "Do you have any medical conditions?"
Bartlet: "Well, I've been shot."

Bartlet: (motioning at Ron as he is taken into hospital) "This guy's got about seven broken bones in his hand, by the way, if someone wants to give him an aspirin or something."

Zoey: "Are you in a lot of pain?"
Bartlet: "No."
Zoey: "Are you lying?"
Bartlet: "Yeah, 'cause I want these guys to tell reporters that I was brave and joking around."

Josh: "Running for president of the United States without putting social security front and center is like running for president of the Walt Disney Corporation by saying you're gonna fix the rides at Epcot."

Josh: "I don't know what we're for, I don't know what we're against, except we seem to be for winning and against somebody else winning."

Josh: "The Democrats aren't gonna nominate another liberal academic former-Governor from New England. I mean, we're dumb, but we're not that dumb."
Leo: "Nah, I think we're exactly that dumb."

Josh: "If I see the real thing in Nashua, should I tell you about it?"
Sam: "You won't have to."
Josh: "Why?"
Sam: "You've got a pretty bad poker face."

Man: "Governor Bartlet, when you were a member of Congress, you voted against the New England Dairy Farming Compact. That vote hurt me sir. I'm a businessman. That vote hurt me to the tune of maybe, 10 cents a gallon. I voted for you three times for Congress. I voted for you twice for Governor. And I'm here sir, and I'd like to ask you for an explanation."
Bartlet: (pause) "Yeah, I screwed you on that one."
Man: "I'm sorry?"
Bartlet: "I screwed you. You got hosed."
Man: "Sir, I..."
Bartlet: "And not just you. A lot of my constituents. I put the hammer to farms in Concord, Salem, Laconia, and Elem. You guys got rogered but good. Today, for the first time in history, one in five Americans living in poverty are children. One in five children live in the most abject, dangerous, hopeless, backbreaking, gut wrenching, poverty, one in five, and they're children. If fidelity to freedom and democracy is the code of our civic religion then surely, the code of our humanity is faithful service to that unwritten commandment that says 'We shall give our children better than we ourselves had.' I voted against the bill 'cause I didn't want it to be hard for people to buy milk. I stopped some money from flowing into your pocket. If that angers you, if you resent me, I completely respect that. But if you expect anything different from the president of the United States, I suggest you vote for somebody else. Thanks very much. Hope you enjoyed the chicken."

Bartlet: "Why are you doing this? You're a player. You're bigger in the party than I am - Hoynes would make you national chairman. Leo! Tell me this isn't one of the twelve steps."
Leo: "Yeah, that's what it is. Right after admitting we're powerless over alcohol and that a higher power can restore us to sanity, that's where you come in."
Bartlet: "Leo."
Leo: "Because I'm tired of it year after year after year after year having to chose between the lesser of who cares? Of trying to get myself excited about a candidate who can speak in complete sentences. Of setting the bar so low, I can hardly bear to look at it. They say a good man can't get elected President. I don't believe that. Do you?"
Bartlet: "And you think I'm that man."
Leo: "Yes."
Bartlet: "Does it matter that I'm not as sure?"
Leo: "Nah. Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you. Put it another way, fake it till you make it."

Bartlet: "Look what happened."

CJ: "At this time, we can not, we are not releasing any information whatsoever about the suspect."
Steve: "CJ, can you tell us anything, his name, where he's from, ethnicity, if you guys suspect a motive?"
CJ: "Yes, Steve. I can tell you all those things because when I said we weren't releasing any information whatsoever I meant except his name, his address, his ethnicity and what we think his motive was."

Roger: "Are you aware that the new Premiere Magazine list is coming out Monday?"
CJ: "The Hundred Most Powerful People in Hollywood."
Roger: "Yeah."
CJ: "Yes, I am, and I can tell you that you're on it, and uh, congratulations, and it must, you know, feel good being that powerful."
Roger: "I went from third to ninth! I dropped to ninth! Do you know how that looks? Do you know how many people were ahead of me?"
CJ: "Eight?"
Roger: "Lady, you're..."
CJ: "The movies were bad, Roger, all of them. Even the little kid was bad, but he's little kid, he had a couple of scenes, big eyeglasses, lisp, he's going to the Golden Globes. You know why the New Coke marketing campaign failed? Because nobody liked New Coke. The movies were bad. If the movies were unknown, I could help you, but they weren't. They were just BAD."

Toby: "CJ, you fell into the pool, there."
CJ: "I can't see!"
Toby: "Yeah, well, maybe, kind of, try to feel your way to dry land?"
CJ: "Shut up... Avert your eyes!"
Toby: "What?"
CJ: "I am climbing out of the pool, my clothes will be clingy - avert your eyes!"
Toby: (chuckling) CJ, I really didn't come here to -"
CJ: "Avert your eyes!"

Margaret: "Can I - can I just say something for the future?"
Leo: "Yeah."
Margaret: "I can sign the President's name. I have his signature down pretty good."
Leo: "You can sign the President's name?"
Margaret: "Yeah."
Leo: "On a document removing him from power and handing it to someone else."
Margaret: "Yeah!" (On Leo's look of disbelief) "Or... do you think the White House Counsel would say that was a bad idea?"
Leo: "I think the White House Counsel would say it was a coup d'etat!"
Margaret: "Well. I'd probably end up doing some time for that."
Leo: "I would think. And what the hell were you doing practicing the President's signature?"
Margaret: (leaving rapidly) "It was just for fun!"
Leo: "We've got separation of powers, checks and balances, and Margaret, vetoing things and sending them back to the Hill!"

Donna: "Actually, Josh, when I said I was assigned to you?"
Josh: "Yeah?"
Donna: "I may have been overstating it a little."

Josh: "Donna, this is a campaign for the Presidency, and there's nothing I take more seriously than that. This can't be a place where people come to find their confidence and start over."
Donna: "Why not?"
Josh: "I'm sorry?"
Donna: "Why can't it be those things?"
Josh: "Because-"
Donna: "What, is it going to interfere with my typing?"

Donna: "I think I might be good at this. I think you might find me valuable."

CJ: "Hey, Spanky."
Sam: "Oh, God. What did I do?"

CJ: "Sam, I think you have my necklace."
Sam: "I didn't want you to feel beholden to me. I didn't want it to be like an episode of 'I Dream Of Jeannie' where now you gotta save my life..."
CJ: "Sam..."
Sam: "...and the time space continium, where you have to follow me around with coconut oil and hot towels..."
CJ: "Coconut oil?"
Sam: "I'm just saying."
CJ: "Sam, I don't fell beholden to you."
Sam: "Why not? I saved you life."
CJ: "Can I have my necklace back?"

Ron: (to Toby) "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't Gina's fault, it wasn't Charlie's fault, it wasn't anybody's fault, Toby. It was an act of madmen. You think a tent was going to stop them? We got the President in the car. We got Zoey in the car. And at 150 yards, five stories up, the shooters were down 9.2 seconds after the first shot was fired. I would never let you not let me protect the President. You tell us you don't like something, we figure out something else. It was an act of madmen. Anyway, the Secret Service doesn't comment on procedure."

CJ: "This is our fifth press briefing since midnight. Obviously, there's one story that going dominating news around the world for the next few days, and it would be easy to think that President Bartlet, Joshua Lyman, and Stephanie Abbott were the only victims of a gun crime last night. They weren't. Mark Davis and Sheila Evans of Philadelphia were killed by a gun last night. He was a Biology Teacher and she was a Nursing student. Tina Bishop and Linda Larkin were killed with a gun last night. They were twelve. There were 36 homicides last night. 480 sexual assaults, 3,411 robberies, 3,685 aggravated assaults, all at gunpoint. And if anyone thinks those crimes could have been prevented if the victims themselves had been carrying guns, I'd only remind you that the President of the United States himself was shot last night while surrounded by the best trained armed guards in the history of the world. Back to the briefing."

Abbey: "Leo, is there any food in this room that isn't fried?"
Leo: "Well, if there is, let's get rid of it!"

Bartlet: "I couldn't hear you, Josh." (leans closer to listen)
Leo: "What'd he say?"
Bartlet: "He said 'What's next?'."

CJ: "Psychics at Cal Tech and the FERMI National Accelerator Lab are close to announcing what..."
Josh: "Physicists! Theoretical physicists at Cal Tech..."
CJ: "Not psychics?"
Josh: "No."
CJ: "I should jot that down."
Josh: "Please."
CJ: "I tell you if it was psychics I'd lead with it."

Sam: "CJ."
CJ: "Oh, Holy Interruptus, Batman!"
Sam: "Grant Samuels died."
CJ: "Really?"
Sam: "Yes."
CJ: "He's really dead this time?"
Sam: "Yeah."
CJ: "'Cause last time you told me he was dead and he wasn't."
Sam: "He's dead this time."
CJ: "Somebody poked him a little to see..."
Sam: "He died, CJ!"

Bartlet: "Good morning, everybody. Anybody know what the word 'acalculia' means?"
Sam: "It's the inability to form arithmetic functions. I'm sorry, Mr. President. You wanted to answer your own question, didn't you?"
Bartlet: "Yeah, but I'll get over it."
Sam: "Good for you, sir. That's very mature."
Bartlet: "Shut up."
Sam: "You're not over it yet, are you?"

Margaret: "Do you know what 'acalculia' means?"
Zoey: "Yes, because I got it at breakfast."

CJ: "It doesn't look good."
Toby: "Looks good to me."
CJ: "Well, you work for the White House, Toby. I think we were counting on your support, either way."

Toby: "I'm saying, I could've used your support in there."
CJ: "You get my support the same way I get yours. When I agree with what you're saying or when I don't care about what you're saying. This time I disagree."
Toby: "You don't think we should use the moment to get aggressive about guns and hate groups?"
CJ: "I think we were victims of a violent crime and it's unseemly to use this moment at all."

Leo: "He's making campaign calls."
Zoey: "He's not in the Office."
Leo: "He's making them from the Residence."
Zoey: "Why?"
Leo: "Your father has a very strict interpretation of something called the Pendleton Act, which prohibits campaign donations to be solicited on government property."
Zoey: "It's a little impractical for the President to step across the street to use the pay phone, isn't it?"
Leo: "Exactly."
Zoey: "Isn't the Residence government property, too?"
Leo: "Yes."
Zoey: "Then why...?"
Leo: "Because your father is a demented, demented man."

Bartlet: (to Zoey) "This is real and a man, who makes the Spanish Inquisition look like a Barbara Walters Special, is now polling at 46% in your school district, for which I have personally baked things to raise money." (to CJ) "You can go, too."
CJ: "You baked things?"

Sam: "Well, that's my office over there and the President works in that round room over there and nobody else really matters."

CJ: "In a democracy often times other people win."

Bartlet: "Toby, I'm drinking the most fantastic thing I've ever tasted in my life: chocolate syrup, cold milk, and seltzer. I know it sounds terrible, but trust me, I don't know where this has been all my life."
Toby: "It's called an egg cream, Mr. President. We invented it in Brooklyn."
Bartlet: "In Brooklyn."
Toby: "Yes, sir."
Bartlet: "Not New England?"
Toby: "There are some good things in this world not from New England, sir."
Bartlet: "Toby, don't ever let me hear you say that again."
Toby: "Yes, sir."

Bartlet: "There'll be crab puffs. New England crab puffs, by the way, made in New England."
Sam "Actually, it's Alaskan crab."
Toby: "Sam..."
Bartlet: "There's Alaskan crab in this White House?"
Toby: "He would've known the difference?"
Bartlet: "Have you tried them?"
Sam "I... yes, reluctantly. I think it was clear in the way that I ate the crab puffs that it was a gesture of protest."
Bartlet: (dangerously) "Were they good?"

Bartlet: "Forgive me, Dr. Jacobs. Are you a MD?"
Dr. Jenna Jacobs: "PhD."
Bartlet: "A PhD?"
Dr. Jacobs: "Yes, sir."
Bartlet: "In Psychology?"
Dr. Jacobs: "No, Sir."
Bartlet: "Theology?"
Dr. Jacobs: "No."
Bartlet: "Social work?"
Dr. Jacobs: "I have a PhD in English Literature."
Bartlet: "I'm asking, 'cause on your show, people call in for advice and you go by the name of Dr. Jacobs on your show. And I didn't know if maybe your listeners were confused by that, and assumed you had advanced training in Psychology, Theology, or health care."
Dr. Jacobs: "I don't believe they are confused, no sir."
Bartlet: "Good. I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination."
Dr. Jacobs: "I don't say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President. The Bible does."
Bartlet: "Yes, it does. Leviticus."
Dr. Jacobs: "Eighteen twenty-two."
Bartlet: "Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, and always clears the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath, Exodus 35:2, clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police? Here's one that's really important, 'cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town. Touching the skin of a dead pig makes us unclean, Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother, John, for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you? One last thing, while you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the Ignorant Tightass Club, in this building, when the President stands nobody sits."

Charlie: "Okay. Zoey and I are going out. I'll be on my pager."
Leo: "You're going out?"
Charlie: "Yeah."
Leo: "Charlie, you're taking extra protection, right?"
Charlie: (taken aback) "Hey, Leo..."
Leo: "Secret Service protection, Charlie. But thanks for loading me up with that image."

Josh: "Tell me democracy doesn't have a sense of humor. We sit here, we drink this beer out here on the stoop, in violation about 47 city ordinances. I don't know, Toby, it's election night. What do you say about a government that goes out of its way to protect even citizens that try to destroy it?"
Toby: "God bless America."

Mark: "I understand you've never done TV before?"
Ainsley: "No, no, not as such, no."
Mark: "Not as such? What does that mean?"
Ainsley: "It means no, I haven't done TV before."

Sam: (quietly to himself, after Ainsley kicks his ass on Captial Beat) "Please, oh, please, let them not be watching."
(cut to Toby's office)
Josh: "Toby, come quick! Sam's getting his ass kicked by a girl!"
Toby: "Ginger, get the popcorn!"

Bartlet: "I can sense civic duty a mile away."

Bartlet: "Leo, as hard as you might try, the Republican Party isn't going anywhere."
Leo: "You don't know that for sure, sir, they could all end up moving to Vancouver."

Leo: "I wanted to tell you this out where there were people so you wouldn't scream about it."
CJ: "Scream about what?"
Leo: "The woman who was on Capital Beat with Sam Sunday night."
Sam: "What about her?"
Leo: "I'm offering her a job."
Sam: "Where?"
Leo: "Here."
CJ: "Are you kidding?"
Leo: "No."
CJ: "Are you kidding?"
Leo: "No."
CJ: "Are you kidding?!"
Leo: "No."
CJ: (shrieking) "Well, what the hell made you think I wouldn't scream where there are people?!"
Leo: "I took a shot."
Sam and CJ: "LEO!"

Leo: "You have an interesting conversational style, you know that?"
Ainsley: "It's a nervous condition."
Leo: "I used to have a nervous condition."
Ainsley: "How did yours manifest itself?"
Leo: "I drank a lot of Scotch."
Ainsley: "I get sick when I drink too much."
Leo: "I get drunk when I drink too much."

CJ: "I rode the Lifecycle this morning for an hour and a half. If it was a real cycle I'd have been in Belgium by now."

Leo: (to Ainsley) "The President likes smart people who disagree with him. He wants to hear from you. The President's asking you to serve. And everything else is crap."

Sam: "This is the wrong place to talk about guns right now. I thought your column was idiotic."
Ainsley: "Imagine my surprise."
Sam: "But for a brilliant surgical team and two centimeters of a miracle, this guy's dead right now. From bullets fired from a gun bought legally. They bought guns, they loaded them, they drove from Wheeling to Rosslyn, and until they pulled the trigger they had yet to commit a crime. I am so off-the-charts tired of the gun lobby tossing around words like personal freedom and nobody calling them on it. It's not about personal freedom. And it certainly has nothing to do with public safety. It's just that some people like guns."

Ainsley: "Say they are smug and superior. Say their approach to public policy makes you want to tear your hair out. Say they like high taxes and spending your money. Say they want to take your guns and open your borders but don't call them worthless... The people I have met have been extraordinarily qualified. Their intent is good. Their commitment is true. They are righteous, and they are patriots. And I'm their lawyer."

Donna: "Welcome to the White House. My name is Donnatella Moss. I work here in the West Wing as an assistant to Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Lyman. Which, I guess, makes me Deputy Deputy Chief of Staff."

Donna: "Are we all set for the speech?"
Bartlet: "Not quite."
Donna: "What do you need, sir?"
Bartlet: "The speech."

Bartlet: "Sorry, everybody. This is going to be it. Four is my lucky number."
Donna: "This is take five, sir."
Bartlet: "Five is my lucky number. 'Fifth Take Bartlet', that's what Jack Warner used to call me."
Donna: "Did you really know Jack Warner, Mr President?"
Bartlet: "Yeah, because I used to be a contract player in Hollywood and I'm ninety-seven years old."

Josh: "Okay, uh, there's fifty thousand dollars worth of hospital bills they're saying they don't cover. You know what that means?"
Sam: "You may have to get yourself a job mowing lawns after school."

CJ: "Have you noticed that I'm one of the few people around here whose nose isn't bent out of shape over Ainsley Hayes?"
Toby: "Yeah. Listen..."
CJ: "I'm serious!"
Toby: "You heard the news and you slammed the door so hard you broke it. Okay - you heard the news and you broke the White House."
CJ: "Yeah, but I'm over it now."

Toby: (to CJ) "By the way, you are a beautiful woman. And no one around here has ever assumed you were either ambitious or stupid."

CJ: "Hey, has Leo told Tribbey about his new Associate Council yet?"
Toby: "I'll check the wire to see if any maimings have been reported."

Ainsley: "So you lied to me just then."
Leo: "I'm a politician, Ainsley. Of course I lied to you just then."

Margaret: "Lionel Tribbey is on his way over."
Ainsley: "I just want to die."
Leo: "It's the White House. You'll get used to that feeling."

Ainsley: "It's not going to be fine. He's gonna yell, and scream, I've seen him on TV..."
Leo: "Well, that's TV. He's making a full-throated defense of the President! That's what we do. Believe me, in real life, when the cameras are off..."
Lionel Tribbey: (entering, brandishing a cricket bat) "Leo! I will kill people today, Leo! I will kill people with this cricket bat, which was given to me by Her Royal Majesty Elizabeth Windsor, and then I will kill them again with my own hands!"

Bartlet: "Well, obviously, Lionel Tribbey is a brilliant lawyer who we cannot live without. Or there would be very little reason not to put him in prison."

Donna: "Take seventeen looked like it was going to be a keeper, till he went on elocution safari during the word 'protuberance'."

Bartlet: "Who cares, it's been fourteen weeks! Do these curtains close?"
Abbey: "Not here, Jed!"
Bartlet: "Yes, yes. You're right. Where?"
Abbey: "How about our bedroom?"
Bartlet: "New Hampshire is an hour and a half away by plane; I don't think I have that kind of time."
Abbey: "How about our bedroom in the residence?"
Bartlet: "Yes! We have a bedroom right here in the building. That was so smart!"

Abbey: "I have to fly to Cochrane's Mills, Pennsylvania."
Bartlet: "Where the hell is Cochrane's Mills?"
Abbey: "Pennsylvania?"

Leo: "I'll be honest with you, I didn't even know we had offices down here."
Ainsley: "That bodes well for me..."
Leo: "I wonder what else we have down here?"
Ainsley: "Bats, possibly?"

Ainsley: "I'd like to do well on this, my first assignment. Any advice you could give me that might point me the way of success would be, by me, appreciated."
Tribbey: "Well, not speaking in iambic pentameter might be a step in the right direction."

Bartlet: "Kids, I am so sorry. I have to go now, to a special meeting... of the government. I will mail you all an autographed copy of the picture we took together, and one day, you will all understand." (quickly exits, followed by Charlie and Donna)
Charlie: "Mr. President..."
Bartlet: "Take a break, Charlie."
Charlie: "She's not there, sir."
Bartlet: "I'm going to a special meeting..."
Charlie: "...of the government. Yes, sir. She had to go to Pennsylvania early. Would you like to come back inside and take another swing at the radio address?"
Bartlet: "Sure. Would you like to get that smile off your face before I send you on special assignment to the Yukon?"

Abbey: "You couldn't get off the phone?"
Bartlet: "Yeah... 'excuse me, Your Eminence, but the First Lady is a little randy, and she says I'm good to go'."
Abbey: "I am a little randy, Jed."
Bartlet: "Good, take your clothes off."
Abbey: "Wh- whatever happened to romance? A couple of cocktails, Mel Torme-"
Bartlet: "Get 'em off."
Abbey: "Okay, I'm going to the bathroom. Where I am gonna change into a special little garment I think you might enjoy!"
Bartlet: "Abbey, you have two minutes, or I swear to God I'm gonna get Mrs. Landingham drunk."

Ainsley: "Sam, do you think there's any chance that you could be rude to me tomorrow? Tomorrow is Saturday. I will be here. You can call me and be rude by phone or you can stop by and do it in person. 'Cause I think if I have to endure another disappointment today from this place that I have worshipped, I am gonna lose it. So if you could wait until tomorrow, I would appreciate it."

Season 3 Quotes
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