- Leo McGarry: What have you got?
- C.J. Cregg: Nothing. You know why?
- Leo McGarry: Rollins likes us.
- C.J. Cregg: I don't know if he likes us, but he doesn't hate us.
- Leo McGarry: Well, that's just 'cause he doesn't know us.
- C.J. Cregg: Leo, we need to be investigated by someone who wants to kill us just to watch us die. We need someone perceived by the American people to be irresponsible, untrustworthy, partisan, ambitious, and thirsty for the limelight. Am I crazy, or is this not a job for the U. S. House of Representatives?
- Leo McGarry: Well, they'll get around to it sooner or later.
- C.J. Cregg: So let's make it sooner - let's make it now. Rollins is driving them crazy. He's moving too slow. He won't talk to the press. They're ready to jump. I swear to God, Leo, I think we can move the show.
- Leo McGarry: You got a briefing now?
- C.J. Cregg: Yeah.
- Leo McGarry: Show me what you're starting with.
- C.J. Cregg: Yeah.
- Sam Seaborn: So, listen, there's a fire in Yellowstone Park.
- Josh Lyman: Well, put it out.
- Sam Seaborn: Technically, I'm not a professional firefighter, though there was a time I wanted to be.
- Josh Lyman: When?
- Sam Seaborn: When I was four.
- Josh Lyman: When I was four, I wanted to be a ballerina.
- Sam Seaborn: Yeah?
- Josh Lyman: I don't like to talk about it.
- Sam Seaborn: Ballerina?
- Josh Lyman: I'd kinda like that not to get around.
- Sam Seaborn: Yeah. No chance of that.
- President Josiah Bartlet: [Later, that same day] Josh?
- Josh Lyman: Yes, sir?
- President Josiah Bartlet: A ballerina?
- Josh Lyman: Yeah, I didn't... I didn't know what it was at the time. I liked the word.
- President Josiah Bartlet: We'll go with that for now.
- Josh Lyman: Can I ask you something?
- Donna Moss: I had a plan.
- Josh Lyman: When you say, "in one of these boxes..."?
- Donna Moss: I had a plan. Each box is numbered. There's a piece of paper with a number and a corresponding description of the contents of each box.
- Josh Lyman: Well, where's the piece of paper?
- [pause]
- Josh Lyman: It's in one of these boxes.
- Donna Moss: I had a plan. I grew up on a farm.
- Josh Lyman: You grew up in a condo.
- Donna Moss: I grew up near a farm. And I was cute, and I was peppy, and I always did well on my nineteenth-century English literature midterm until you came along and sucked me into your life of crime.
- Josh Lyman: Hey, I'm not the...
- Donna Moss: White-collar crime boy. You know what they do to a girl like me on that cell block? I've seen those movies.
- Josh Lyman: Yeah, me, too.
- Donna Moss: I'll bet you have.
- Josh Lyman: Look...
- Donna Moss: Sell my farm girl ass for a carton of Luckys.
- Josh Lyman: Hey, seriously, you need to sleep for a while.
- Donna Moss: I can't yet. 'Cause in one of these boxes are Fed Ex receipts and mail-room records for any gifts or packages sent to senior staff, and in one of these boxes is a piece of paper which says which box it's in!
- Josh Lyman: I'll be in the office.
- Donna Moss: Your office is down a corridor, about two hundred feet from here. Try not to commit any felonies on the way.
- Josh Lyman: I'll do my best.
- Donna Moss: Yeah.
- [Josh leaves the room]
- Sam Seaborn: Josh?
- Josh Lyman: Donna's like, two, three days away from unspooling. It's pretty fun to watch...
- C.J. Cregg: I want you to get with one of your friends in the press room from a conservative paper.
- Ainsley Hayes: You really think we have a secret handshake, don't you?
- C.J. Cregg: Do you?
- Ainsley Hayes: Yes.
- Donna Moss: Why are you a Republican?
- Clifford Calley: 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 constraints, and the bigger the government, the more the constraints.