- Donna Moss: Be still and listen to me. I don't know what this is. And you don't either, which is perfectly fine and understandable. Whatever the build up, it's all happened amid absurdly heightened emotional circumstances. The election. Leo's death. There's been no moment to so much as take a breath, much less figure any of this out. And now this roller coaster's plunging into the transition, with its time-pressure demands and then the inauguration and it's hit the ground running and the first hundred days, and before you know it, the midterms and the new Congress and then we're running again and four years becomes eight, and we've never had the talk. And you can lose that look of panic in your eyes, we're not going to have it now; we don't ever have to have it. But there's a window. I'd say four weeks. If we can't get it together in that time to figure out what we want from each other, then clearly, it's not worth the trouble.
- Sam Seaborn: [to Josh] I didn't come because you're a silver-tongued recruiter or because I got tired of summer in January. Santos may be the future this country wants. For all the partisan noises made, we're a nation of centrists. He may be the right man with the right message at the right time, and if he is I wanna be a part of it. But he can't do it without you. Liberal Democrats will try to force him left. Moderate Republicans will fence-sit as long as they can. It's you who's gotta make this go, who's gonna cut through the demagoguery and timidity, and make people do what they were sent here to do: actually govern. Serve the voter's interests, instead of striking poses and playing Gotcha. It's gonna be next to impossible if you're at your best and, what may only be news to you, you are nowhere near your best. Take the vacation. I haven't said I'm signing on, but I can tell you this: I won't stay unless you go. One of us is getting on a plane tonight. If it's you, you're back in a week. If it's me, I'm gone, adios, for good. Your call.
- Helen Santos: Time for a little incursion?
- President Elect Matthew Santos: [looks at his watch] Not even for a surgical strike.
- Helen Santos: I had in mind more of shock and awe.
- President Elect Matthew Santos: Oh, yeah? After 15 years of marriage I'd be shocked if you were awed.
- Helen Santos: Did you just "ma'am" me?
- Donna Moss: I... I... I seem to have.
- Helen Santos: [smirking] Don't do it again.
- Louise Thornton: Rough day?
- Josh Lyman: Nuh, typical.
- Louise Thornton: You love it, you live for it, you were born to do it, I'm the same way. Everybody tells me to get a life, although I don't know why... I find life to be terribly overrated. It's actually quite boring when it's not disappointing. Say what you will about what we do, but boring it is not.
- Josh Lyman: I know that you can parlay the Santos win into a doubling of your fee.
- Louise Thornton: Tripling, if it figures into your memoirs.
- Josh Lyman: Nothing is going to top this. Everything else's going to be a letdown.
- Louise Thornton: Letdowns that make me semi-rich, that's a tradeoff I'm willing to endure.
- Josh Lyman: You don't care about money.
- Louise Thornton: Who doesn't?
- Josh Lyman: You!
- Louise Thornton: Not as such.
- Josh Lyman: As what?
- Louise Thornton: Scorekeeping. Quantitative evidence that I'm smarter than you. Not *you*.
- Josh Lyman: Who?
- Louise Thornton: Everybody else.
- Josh Lyman: Come on board as communications director.
- Louise Thornton: Thank you, but no.
- Josh Lyman: Finish what you started.
- Louise Thornton: I'm not interested in governing.
- Josh Lyman: Campaigning's about promise; governing's about achievement. It's, it's tougher and a lot less romantic, but it's not boring. I already think you're smarter than everyone, that's why I want you down the hall. Come on, it's not like getting a life!
- Louise Thornton: That's true, look at you.