Quotable Sam

Season Four:

Twenty Hours in America

As Sam sleeps, his answering machine picks up...
Sam: Hi, it's Sam. I'm sleeping for a few hours right now, so you can leave a message, or if you really need me, you can shout into the machine and I'll wake up.
Josh:(shouting) Sam!!
Sam falls out of bed and knocks over a lamp getting to the phone.

Sam: Do we have some sort of condensed Reader's Digest index of...well, all human knowledge?
Ginger: We usually just use Margaret.

Sam sits on the floor of his office writing...
C.J.: Sam?
Sam: Yeah?
C.J.: Whatcha doing on the floor?
Sam: I don't know. I think it was just the closest thing.
C.J.: (helping him up) Come on, you'll get your pants all shmutsy.

C.J. has asked Sam to be a big brother for Anthony...
Sam: Maybe he'd enjoy sitting and watching me work. I could narrate what I was doing for him. "Right now I'm reading background intelligence on Central America as it relates, believe it or not, to textile imports." Ooh, intelligence. 007. See and right away I've got him going with 007.
C.J.: I'm sitting here listening, already I've turned to a life of crime.
Sam: You know I'd do it if I could.
C.J.: I do know that, shmutsy pants.
Sam: That's gonna be around for awhile, right?

Sam: How's New York?
Mallory: Richard got traded to the Blackhawks.
Sam: For a Zamboni battery?

Sam: I love Josh like a brother, and he's a world-class political mind, but until today I didn't know he was smarter than I was. I've worked here three years and eight months, and until you sit in the room all day, you can't comprehend the chaos of the Oval Office. I had one good moment talking about the global ripple effect of a budget deficit, but that was it. The rest of the day was just keeping up. And this was a pretty light day.
Mallory: One good moment is good.
Sam: Oh, I'm not complaining. One good moment is great. It's a golf shot. I gotta get back in there. That's where it's happening. (pause) You came by just to tell me you liked the speech?
Mallory: "This is a time for American heroes, and we reach for the stars..."? I'm weak.
Sam: Yeah, I think I stole that from Camelot.

(Teleplay: Aaron Sorkin)

The Red Mass

Sam: Charlie. I'm eating it on Red Mass. And I don't want to show it to Toby yet. Would you mind reading it for me and then hitting me in the head with a fairway wood?
Charlie: Yep.

Janet: Horton Wilde is in the hospital. He's had a heart attack.
Sam: Horton Wilde isn't the same as Thornton Wilder, is it?
Janet: I'm talking about California.
Sam: 'Cause if Thornton Wilder had a heart attack that'd be remarkable news.
Janet: You don't know who Horton Wilde is?
Sam: He wrote Skin of Our Teeth.
Janet: He's the Democrat running in the 47th. How is it possible that you don't know who he is?
Sam: Has a Democrat won the California 47th in the last hundred years?
Janet: No.
Sam: That's how.
Janet: Well maybe, if when the Democrats had the White House there was a little more attention paid....
Sam: To Orange County? What kind?
Janet: Knowing the candidate's name, say. This was his fourth one, by the way.
Sam: Fourth what?
Janet: Heart attack.
Sam: The Democrats have nominated someone who's had three heart attacks?
Janet: Yes.
Sam: And you think I don't care about...? What kind of signal does this send to...? I have to talk.... No, this isn't going to be a part of my life.
Janet: Wow, you just did a whole thing all by yourself.
Sam: Yeah, I do that.

(Teleplay: Aaron Sorkin)

Debate Camp

Sam: Why not just say we screwed up? "Mr. Rooker's a devoted crime fighter. We had our differences (removes his glasses), but on this all Americans can agree...."
Bartlet: Excuse me.
Sam: Yes, sir.
Bartlet: Were you doing me just then?
Sam: I was offering an answer....
Bartlet: You were doing me.
Sam: I may have slipped into it, yes.

After Sam, Larry, Ed and some other staffers sing a song during dinner...
Joey: What was that?
Sam: It's an old camp song.
Joey: What's it mean?
Sam: "Let us be merry, therefore, while we are young men. After the joys of youth, after the pains of old age, the ground will have us." True.

Sam: Anyone not doing anything at midnight--Team Toby, my cabin.

Bartlet: I don't mind blowing the knucklehead stuff like Rooker. Rooker's not knucklehead, but if I'm making mistakes there, how do I know I'm not doing it when it comes to matters like death and destruction?
Sam: Well, probably you don't, 'cause there's no manual. Sir, we expect the President to face the world in his own way, for his own time. Also, luckily for all of us, you have better advisors in that area than you do in domestic and political policy.

(Teleplay: Aaron Sorkin)

Game On

The staff decides not to do spin after the debate...
Josh: All right, just a statement. "The President's on his way to Washington to get back to work."
Sam: And there'll be a lot of drinking on the plane. I don't think that should be included in the statement.

Will: You've ghosted for senators, movie stars, I think the King of Belgium one time. Do you say anything?
Sam: No.
Will: Why?
Sam: Speechwriters don't do that.

Sam: Listen...if you can't find a Democrat, tell Mrs. Wilde...tell Kay that I'll do it.
Will: Are you kidding?
Sam: Tell her I'm a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Princeton and editor of the Duke Law Review. Tell her that I've worked for congressmen and the D-triple-C. I have seven years at Gage Whitney and for the last four I've served as Deputy Communications Director and Senior Counsel. Tell her I grew up two streets from here.
Will: I'm not gonna ask anyone else.
Sam: This is for election night if you win. I read about it before then I'm gonna deny it and we're through.

(Teleplay: Aaron Sorkin & Paul Redford)

Election Night

C.J.: On your birthday, don't we pander to you?
Sam: Not as much as I'd like.

Sam: You wrote a concession?
Toby: Of course I wrote a concession. What are you...you want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing?
Sam: No.
Toby: Then go outside, turn around three times and spit. What the hell's the matter with you?
Sam: It's like 25 degrees outside.
Toby: Go!
Josh enters and endures more teasing. Then...
Sam: He wrote a concession speech.
Josh: Of course he wrote a concession speech. Why wouldn't he? What possible reason would he have for not writing a concession speech?
Sam: The wrath from high atop the thing.
Toby: He upped and said we were gonna....
Josh: No, you gotta go outside, turn around three times and curse.
Toby: Spit.
Josh: Spit and curse.
Toby: Do everything. Go.
Josh: Go!
Toby: Go!
A little while later...
C.J.: Did you...?
Sam: Yes. I turned, I cursed, I spat, it froze.
C.J.: You can't be too careful.
Sam: I think you can.

Sam: You have to understand, this wasn't something that cost me anything. They weren't going to announce unless Wilde won. And that was never gonna happen in Orange County. It's like the Secretary of Agriculture saying, "Sure, I'm ready to assume the presidency, should the eighteen who come before me die. Why not?"
Donna: So, why not?
Sam: 'Cause it's a two point race right now.
Donna: This is very exciting.
Sam: No, it's not. The prospect of going back on my word to a recent widow....
Donna: So why go back on it?
Sam: Because the alternative is taking 90 days off to go home, lose by 20 points to a Republican Committee Chair I hate and never be able to run for public office for real, which is something I maybe wouldn't mind doing one day.

(Teleplay: Aaron Sorkin)

Process Stories

Sam: He said...what he said was this--he said, "A probable impossibility is preferable to an improbable possibility." The impossible is preferable to the improbable. What did he mean? He meant it's okay to have a broomstick sing and dance, but you shouldn't turn on the radio and hear the news report you need to hear.
Donna: Want some cake?
Sam: No.
Donna: You sure?
Sam: What kind?
Donna: Cake.
Sam: They have flavors.
Donna: I don't know.
Sam: It was a confluence of events that I'm saying if you pitched it to a Hollywood movie producer, they'd tell you that Aristotle says, "A probable impossibility is preferable to an improbable possibility."
Donna: It doesn't quite sound like them, but I understand your point.
Sam: The Midwest, the RNC exits, a dead candidate, a rain storm. It's Aristotle all over the place.

Sam: All right, look, this is extremely easy to explain. First of all...okay...how familiar are the three of you with Aristotle?
Josh: You agreed to run?
Sam: I did it for the widow. I said it for the widow. She wanted a name for election night, and I said use my name. Not thinking for a second it was ever gonna be a practical option. (noticing the red fabric draped on C.J.'s lamp shades) Can I ask, is your office now the House of the Rising Sun?
C.J.: Yes.
Toby: You did it for the widow.
Sam: Yes. And for a guy I met named Will Bailey who was running the campaign and worked his ass off and never backed off. And, by the way, navigated a dead liberal Democrat to a win against Chuck Webb. 500 races tonight, that's pretty impressive. Though it was an Aristotelian confluence of events that could only happen to me.

(Teleplay: Aaron Sorkin)

The California 47th

After realizing that the President is holding back his tax plan...
Sam: Are you crazy?!
Josh: We were just....
Sam: Have you all lost your minds?
Josh: Well, C.J., maybe.
Sam: I just assumed it wasn't ready yet. It's ready now, isn't it?
Josh: Yeah.
Sam: You're missing news cycle, after news cycle, after news cycle, but you didn't announce 'cause you didn't want to do it from Orange County.
Josh: Would you?
Sam: Yes! I say to hell with the election. There's a guy in St. Louis making $55,000 a year trying to send his kid to Notre Dame!
Bartlet: Guys, we've got to keep our voices down a little.
Aide: Sam, it's time.
Sam: If I'm going to lose, I'd like to lose doing something.

(Teleplay: Aaron Sorkin)

Red Haven's on Fire

Sam: You trapped people at Disneyland, told the French they could stick a loaf of bread up their ass, had a meeting with a Communist and things are looking up 'cause my new campaign director just made bail.

Sam: I can't just cut any chance I have for victory. The story'll be, "It's over."
Toby: No. The story's gonna be that you had the guts to stick up for what you believe and you didn't cut and run. And people are gonna remember that. I'm going to make sure of it.
Sam: I'm gonna lose.
Toby: Yeah.
Sam: There's no chance of a miracle?
Toby: No.
Sam: Well, then why are you here?
Toby: You're gonna lose and you're gonna lose huge. They're going to throw rocks at you next week. And I wanted to be standing next to you when they did.
Sam: (laughs) Really?
Toby: Yeah.
Sam: (softly) Really?
Toby: Yeah.
Sam: (finally believing it) Really?
Toby: Really.
Toby pats Sam on the shoulder, and Sam leans in for a hug. Toby hugs him back.
Sam: I'm just getting creamed. I'm just getting worked.
Toby: I know. You're not imagining it.
Sam: (chuckling) Thanks. We should get back to work.
Toby: (toasting Sam) God save the President of the United States and Sam Seaborn.

(Teleplay: Aaron Sorkin)

Season One Quotes

Season Two Quotes

Season Three Quotes

Season Seven Quotes