- Ambassador Kate Wyler: Shahin wants to modernise his country. He's one of the only people in the regime who gets along with the reformists and the military and the mullahs, because his father rode bikes with the supreme leader when they were 10. And inexplicably, he doesn't believe we're the great Satan.
- Billie Appiah: I understand he's valuable.
- Ambassador Kate Wyler: You don't. An Iran deal can be revoked. Clearly. What we are really doing when we negotiate with them, or with anyone, is looking for one or two friends we can call when the world is truly fucked. It is a flimsy web of relationships. But sometimes it holds. Do not tear it. Do not be an infinitely ravenous American. Use what he already gave you.
- Billie Appiah: [to Kate Wyler] Really. It's almost embarrassing. Never even occurred to me.
- Stuart Heyford: Pick someone good at the job, not the interview?
- Billie Appiah: I mean, it's bad for the guys, but for the women? Fuck me. Is she pretty but not too pretty? Appealing but not hot? Confident but not bitchy? Decisive but not bitchy?
- Stuart Heyford: Cute bitchy, but not bitchy bitchy.
- Billie Appiah: We had to come to an agreement about how many days a week the VP would wear a thong. She doesn't like them. But her team doesn't like panty lines. Weeks of my life. And then an agreement. Yes, she will wear ass-floss, but only two days out of seven, and days cannot be banked week to week. Can you imagine hiring someone for a key governing position just because you think they'd be good at it?
- Billie Appiah: The President needs someone to stop him from rambling about chicken tariffs when he needs an arms deal. The VP spends more time in the Oval than anyone who doesn't have a desk in there. First in, last out of every meeting.
- Ambassador Kate Wyler: Guys...
- Billie Appiah: You wanna know why you're on the list?
- Ambassador Kate Wyler: Uh, because I have a uterus.
- Billie Appiah: That's not - Not the only reason.
- Ambassador Kate Wyler: You spent seven years building a ticket where an elderly guy could hand the baton to an electable woman and deliver us the first female president. Now you want someone with no voting record, no baggage, no opinions. Clean me up, put me in a dress and hope I never speak.
- Billie Appiah: Yeah, I had a plan. Turned to shit.