Abbey: [about Leo's heart attack] Stress actually restricts the flow of blood to the coronary arteries. What I'm saying is it's physiological. Unless you wanted him meditating his way through intelligence briefings and sleeping in a flotation device... There's nothing you did�
Bartlet: I fired him.
Abbey: What?
Bartlet: Last night at Camp David, I fired him. What does that do to the flow of blood?

Abbey: [about the Democratic convention] What are they doing?
Bartlet: Eating their young.... It's a free-for-all. I think Aaron Burr's got 20 votes.

Abbey: Amy.
Amy: Yes, ma'am?
Abbey: CJ and I are gonna get drunk. Come on.
Amy: Yes, ma'am.
Josh: You're going?
Amy: The First Lady just asked me to get boozy with her. You don't think I want to write a book one day?

Abbey: How did you live with Josh Lyman?
Amy: I'm sorry?
Abbey: How did you live with him? He beat Max out of the 12 million earmarked for vaccine education. And when I said I wanted the 12 million he said "So did I. And at the end of a prize-fight, you look at the guy who's dancing around and that's who won"? So I wanna know how you lived with him.
Amy: We never technically lived together which was the subject of many�
Abbey: Don't you wanna kill him when he says things like that?
Amy: My problem is I wanna jump him when he says things like that.
Abbey: Where'd you get your mouth?
Amy: Brown, then Yale Law School.

Abbey: I was hiking, Oliver. I was hiking. Are you really that much an enemy of nature?
Babish: Nature is to be protected from. Nature, like a woman, will seduce you with its sights...and its scents and its touch...and then it breaks your ankle, also like a woman.
Abbey: What the hell kind of dates are you going on, Oliver?
Babish: I hear ya.

Abbey: Samuel Mudd set Booth's leg after he shot Lincoln. Doctors are liable in this country if they don't treat the patient in front of them.
Bartlet: Just for the record, this is why we don't talk about foreign policy, which we do, but you don't think we do enough.
Abbey: Why?
Bartlet: Because Samuel Mudd was tried and convicted of treason for setting that leg.
Abbey: So?
Bartlet: What 'so'?
Abbey: So that's the way it goes. You set the leg.

Abbey: So we're for freedom of speech everywhere but poor countries, where they can have our help, but only if they live up to Clancy Bangert's moral standards? What the hell kind of free world are you running?
Bartlet: I really don't know, Abby. The day hasn't started yet.

Abbey: So, rumor has it you're going to have a chat with the groom tomorrow morning.
Bartlet: I am.
Abbey: Well, that will be lovely, I'm sure!
Bartlet: What? I did it with Doug!
Abbey: Yeah. I don't recall that as being an unqualified success.
Bartlet: Well, now I've had a run of it.
Abbey: You do know that talking him out of marrying your daughter is not an option.
Bartlet: Yeah. [pause] You really think it's not an option?

Abbey: So, what was it? The tube top to meet the Queen of England, or the low-rise jeans with the North Korean delegation?
CJ: Mrs. Bartlet, the press didn't know what to make of you before the MS became public. You've never been the traditional hat-knitting President's wife.
Abbey: Oh, shoot. Was that in the handbook? Maybe just get me a photographer and seven years' worth of yarn.

Abbey: That was wonderful!
Bartlet: That was fun.
Abbey: How you feeling?
Bartlet: I feel great.
Abbey: You want a glass of water?
Bartlet: No, I'm fine.
Abbey: You seem a little dry. Sure you don't want a glass of water?
Bartlet: No, I feel great.
Abbey: Maybe I should get you a glass of water, just in case. You could hold it in your hand.
Bartlet: [pause] How'd you know?
Abbey: You were off the prompter.
Bartlet: [A little teary] Just for a second, I couldn't see it.
Abbey: It's all right. There are going to be more days like this. It starts now. It's going to be harder this time.
Bartlet: Yeah, I know. We can still have tonight, though, right?
Abbey: [fighting tears; smiles] You've got lots of nights.

Abbey: Would you like me to do interviews with the Press Corps?
CJ: God, no. They're the most cynical bastards on the planet. You need to get beyond the Washington echo chamber and speak right to the people.

Abbey: You think this is your fault? It's not.
Bartlet: He's my best friend. I'm not the kind of person who has best friends.
Abbey: Because your life is your work, and so is his; your work.
Bartlet: What are you trying to say?
Abbey: You chose this; both of you. You're running a country, for God's sake, not a tree house.
Bartlet: Well, Leo stays in the tree house if he wants to. We'll work around his recovery; half-days, whatever it takes.
Abbey: He's not going to work half days. He's not going to work around his recovery. He's not going to do whatever it takes.
Bartlet: That's his decision.
Abbey: And we know what that decision is going to be.
Bartlet: So I should wake him up and fire him again? Because it worked so well the first time?
Abbey: Let's talk about this time. You've got to keep him out of that job. He'll kill himself for you if you don't.

Abbey: You're not performing at the ceremony.
Bartlet: I wasn't asked to.
CJ: Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt--
Abbey: No, that's quite all right. He was about to go into his Spencer Tracy routine.

Admiral Fitzwallace: The eagle... on the seal in the carpet. In one talon he's holding arrows and in the other an olive branch. Most of the time, the eagle is facing the olive branch, but when congress declares war, the eagle faces the arrows... How do they do that? You think they've got a second carpet sitting around in the basement someplace?
Season Two

Ainsley: [to her Republican friends about the Democratic White House staff] 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. At least don't do it in front of me. 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.