So it is that time again! Liz and I recently finished the third season of the beloved West Wing and so per tradition  I have selected the 21 best quotes (in my opinion) from the series. There is a mix of serious and funny ones. Cast your vote by putting what number you think is the best in the comments section. Feel free to also put in a reason!

 

1/ Charlie: Aren’t you supposed to be writing?

Toby: I am writing.

Charlie: I don’t see paper.

Toby: ‘We can sit back and admit with great sensitivity that life isn’t fair… and the less-advantaged are destined to their lot in life… and the problems of those on the other side of the world should stay there… and our leaders are cynical and can never be an instrument of change… but that, my friends, is not worthy of you; it’s not worthy of a President; it’s not worthy of a great nation; it’s not worthy of America.’ Paper’s for wimps.

 

2/ Donna: I grew up on a farm.

Josh: You grew up in a condo.

Donna: I grew up near a farm. And I was cute and I was peppy. And I always did well on my 19th Century English Literature midterm until you came along and sucked me into your life of crime!

Josh: Hey, I’m not the-

Donna: White collar crime boy! You know what they do to a girl like me on the cell block? I’ve seen those movies.

Josh: Yeah, me too.

Donna: I bet you have.

Josh: Look-

Donna: Sell my farm girl ass for a carton of Luckys.

 

3/ Operator: Hello, welcome to the Butterball Hotline.

Toby: What the hell is…

Bartlet: Shhhh. Hello!!

Operator: How can I help you, sir?

Bartlet: Well, first let me say, I think this is a wonderful service you provide.

Operator: Well, thank you. May I have your name please?

Bartlet: I’m a citizen.

Operator: I’m sure you are, sir, but if I have your name I can put your comments in our customer feedback form.

Bartlet: I’m Joe Betherson…ton. That’s one ‘t’, and with an ‘h’ in there.

Operator: And your address?

Bartlet: Fargo.

Operator: Your street address, please?

Toby: [picks up another phone, into it] Zip code, Fargo, North Dakota, right now. [hangs up]

Bartlet: My street address is 114… 54 Pruder Street, and it’s very important that you put ‘street’ down there because sometimes it gets confused with Pruder Way and Pruder Lane. Apartment 23 R… Fargo, North Dakota… [Charlie walks in with a piece of paper, Bartlet grabs it.] Zip code 50504.

Operator: Thank you. Your voice sounds very familiar to me.

Bartlet: I do radio commercials for… products.

Operator: And how can I help you?

Bartlet: [sits down] Stuffing should be stuffed inside the turkey, am I correct?

Operator: It can also be baked in a casserole dish.

Bartlet: Well, then we’d have to call it something else, wouldn’t we? [Toby sits down and puts his hand under his chin.]

Operator: I suppose.

Bartlet: If I cook it inside the turkey, is there a chance I could kill my guests? I’m not saying that’s necessarily a deal-breaker.

Operator: Well, there are some concerns. Two main bacterial problems are Salmonella and Campylobacter jejuni.

Bartlet: All right. Well, first of all, I think you made the second bacteria up, and second of all, how do I avoid it?

Operator: Make sure all the ingredients are cooked first. Sauté any vegetables, fried sausage, oysters, etc.

Bartlet: Excellent! Let’s talk temperature.

Operator: One hundred and sixty-five degrees.

Bartlet: No, see, I was testing you! The USDA calls for turkeys to be cooked to an internal temperature of 180 to 185 degrees.

Operator: Yes, sir, I was talking about the stuffing which you want to cook to 165 to avoid health risks.

Bartlet: Okay. Good testing!

Operator: Do you have an accurate thermometer?

Bartlet: Oh yeah. It was presented to me as a gift from the personal sous chef to the king of… [Toby raises his hand and Bartlet catches himself] auto sales in…

Toby: [whispering] Fargo.

Bartlet: Fargo. Phil Baharnd. The man can sell a car like… well, like anything.

Operator: Very good, sir. You have a good Thanksgiving!

Bartlet: And you do, too. Thanks a lot! [hangs up the phone] That was excellent! We should do that once a week.

 

4/ Bartlet: Were we talking about something?

CJ: I don’t know sir, when I came in here – back in the late 50′s – there was a purpose to it but then one thing led to another and I blacked out. I mean, I can hang in there with the best of them, sir but somewhere during the conversation about anise and coriander and the other fifteen spices you like to use to baste a turkey I simply lost consciousness.

Bartlet: You know that line you’re not supposed to cross with the President?

CJ: I’m coming up to it?

Bartlet: No, no, look behind you.

 

5/ Cliff: This is bush league. This is why good people hate us. This, right here. This thing. This isn’t what these hearings are about. He cannot possibly have been properly prepared by counsel for these questions, nor should he ever have to answer them publicly. And if you proceed with this line of questioning, I will resign this Committee, and wait in the tall grass for you, Congressman. Because you are killing the party.

 

6/ C.J: So, the 4-H convention.

Toby: We’re not going.

C.J: I don’t get it. How can you not want to see the butter cow?

Toby: I’m that way.

C.J: You understand it’s a life-size cow made entirely of butter.

Toby: We’re not going.

C.J: There’s also a butter Elvis and a butter Last Supper which has, I swear to God, Toby…

Toby: Butter on the table?

C.J: It’s got butter on the table right there between butter James and butter Peter, an almost mind-blowing vortex of art and material that dares the viewer to recall Marcel Duchamp.

Toby: How do they keep it from melting?

C.J: How, indeed.

Nancy: Toby, you have a phone call in the staff cabin.

Toby: Thank you.

C.J: Butter, butter, butter, butter, butter, butter, butter.

 

7/ CJ: Let me explain something to you. This is sort of my field. The people on these sites? They’re the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. The muu-muu-wearing Parliament smoker? That’s Nurse Ratcched. When Nurse Ratched is unhappy, the patients are unhappy. You? You’re McMurphy. You swoop in with your card games and fishing trips -

Josh: I didn’t swoop in, I came in the exact same way everyone else did.

CJ: Well, now I’m telling you to open the wardroom window and climb on out before they give you a pre-frontal lobotomy and I have to smother you with a pillow.

Josh: [pause] You’re…?

CJ: [nodding] I’m Chief Brombden, yes, at this particular moment. I’m assigning an intern from the press office to that website. They’re going to check it every night before they go home. If they discover you’ve been there I’m going to shove a motherboard so far up your ass – What?

Josh: Technically, I outrank you…

CJ: So far up your ass!

Josh: Okay.

CJ: Okay.

 

8/ CJ: [about the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia] Outraged? I’m barely surprised. This is a country where women aren’t allowed to drive a car. They’re not allowed to be in the company of any man other than a close relative. They’re required to adhere to a dress code that would make a Maryknoll nun look like Malibu Barbie. They beheaded a hundred and twenty-one people last year for robbery, rape, and drug trafficking. They have no free press, no elected government, no political parties. And the Royal Family allows the Religious Police to travel in groups of six carrying nightsticks and they freely and publicly beat women. But ‘Brutus is an honorable man.’ Seventeen schoolgirls were forced to burn alive because they weren’t wearing the proper clothing. Am I outraged? No… That is Saudi Arabia, our partners in peace.

 

9/ Fitzwallace: Mr. President.

Bartlet: Fitz! Fitz, you old polecat, you old so-and-so.

Fitzwallace: Trying to be “one of the fellas,” sir?

Bartlet: Yeah.

Fitzwallace: Well, well done, sir.

 

10/ Bartlet: I’m not going to the bunker. There are going to be people who aren’t going to the bunker, and when I get out I’m not going to be able to tell them what to do anymore and I like doing that. Let’s get Abbey to New Hampshire but I’m not going to the bunker. And if you say I have to, I’m walking across the alley with the Chief Justice and I’m handing John Hoynes my resignation. And as soon as he’s sworn in I’m telling him to appoint me his Vice President because I’m not going to the bunker. If the agents come, the agents come, but tell Ron he’d better bring more than a couple of guys.

 

11/ Donna: “Why are you a Republican?”
Cliff: “Because I hate poor people. I hate them, Donna. They’re all so poor, and many of ‘em talk funny, and don’t have proper table manners… my father slaved away at the Fortune 500 company he inherited so that I could go to Choate, Brown and Harvard and see that this country isn’t overrun by poor people and lesbians. No… I’m Republican because I believe in smaller government. This country was founded on the principle of freedom, and freedom stands opposed to contraints, and the bigger the government, the more the constraints.”
Donna: “Wow.”
Cliff: “You agree with that?”
Donna: “No, it’s crap, but you’re really cute.”

 

12/ Toby: “We’re a group. We’re a team. From the President and Leo on through, we’re a team. We win together, we lose together, we celebrate and we mourn together. And defeats are softened and victories sweetened because we did them together.”

 

13/ Leo: “We’ve got to meet with Albie.”
Bartlet: “He’s going to scold me. He’s been at the State Department since Truman. He thinks I’m a kid and that he outranks me.”
Leo: “You’ll be fine.”
Bartlet: “I’ve got to tell him I lost a submarine. Can I make something up like say ‘what if a friend of mine hypothetically…’”

 

14/ Leo: “I like the little things. The way a glass feels in your hand, a good glass – thick, with a heavy base. I love the sound an ice cube makes when you drop it from just the right height. Too high, and it will chip when you drop it. Chip the ice and it will melt too fast in the Scotch…”
Jordan: “You had a drink?”.
Leo: “I’m an alcoholic. I don’t have one drink. I don’t understand people who have one drink. I don’t understand people who leave half a glass of wine on the table. I don’t understand people who say they’ve had enough. How can you have enough of feeling like this? How can you not want to feel like this longer? My brain works differently.”

 

15/ Toby: “There’s always been a concern about the two Bartlets. The absent-minded
professor with the ‘Aw, Dad’ sense of humor. Disarming and unthreatening. Good for all time zones. And the Nobel Laureate. Still searching for salvation. Lonely, frustrated. Lethal. The one whose father never liked him because he was too smart.”

 

16/ Stanley: “I think Lincoln did what he thought was right, even though it meant losing half the  country. I think you don’t do what you think is right if it means losing Michigan’s electoral votes.”

 

17/ Bartlet: “Let me tell you, you’re really showing me something tonight. A lot of spunk, a lot of pluck. This game isn’t all about size, you know. There’s a little thing called heart and you’ve got it, my friend.”
Toby: “You know what, old man? The very minute they swear in the next guy you and I are going round and round.”

 

18/ Amy: “Canadian, huh?”
Donna: “Yeah.”
Amy: “You feel funnier?”
Donna: “No, but I am developing a massive inferiority complex.”

 

19/ Leo: “Toby, an encouraging word from you to Sam wouldn’t be totally out of line.”
Toby: “Sam doesn’t need to be patronized. He’ll shake it off.”
Leo: “It’d make him feel better.”
Toby: “I don’t want him feeling better, I want him feeling mad. Is there anyone you’d rather have as a blood enemy less than Sam? That’s how I want him.”

 

20/ Toby: He’s at the Yankee game right now?

Sam: Local news covered it. He said this was how ordinary Americans got their entertainment.
Toby: I’ve been to 441 baseball games in Yankee Stadium. There’s not a single person there who’s ordinary.
Sam: I know.
Toby: You making fun of the Yankees?
Sam: No.

 

21/ Bartlet: In the future, if you’re wondering, ‘Crime, boy, I don’t know’ is when I decided to kick your ass.