- Olivia Pope: [to Quinn] I don't have to answer to you. I have to *produce* for you. I don't do lost causes or tilt at windmills. I don't perform miracles or the impossible. I make cold calculations about difficult situations, and I do not take on anything I know I won't win. And I will win this! I just need you to trust me. I promise you, I will not let you die in here.
- President Fitzgerald Grant: [after interjecting her favorite agenda at a news conference] You're not the president! You don't weigh in on foreign policy. Your opinion doesn't matter! You are the first lady. Your job is to plant gardens and decorate rooms and let them blog about your clothes. You're ornamental, not functional. So don't come into the oval and try to use your brain, because no one cares.
- Mellie Grant: You always did know just the right way to hurt me.
- Olivia Pope: Are you going to invade east Sudan?
- President Fitzgerald Grant: You know what I think about? The guys at Dover air force base who unload the planes that carry the coffins. There's a whole section of the military dedicated to returning soldiers killed in combat to their families for burial. Right now those guys are sitting at their desks somewhere twiddling their thumbs, collecting a salary for doing nothing. Best waste of taxpayer dollars I can think of.
- [first lines]
- Mellie Grant: Well, I was thinking yellow, but if it's a boy, the press will make an issue of a boy with a yellow nursery. So we could do primary colors. Red is strong, patriotic. Fitz, are you listening?
- President Fitzgerald Grant: [coming away from the window] What?
- Mellie Grant: I think Kimberly Mitchell will like red. DNC's logo for America's baby is red. A few of the other networks are going with blue, but that's just foolish until we reveal the sex of the baby. I should've taken Martha Stewart up on her offer to decorate the nursery.
- Olivia Pope: Ever take a bribe in this office?
- Congressman Jacob Shaw: No, Ms. Pope, I do not take bribes.
- Olivia Pope: Trade votes for campaign contributions, reveal state secrets, fund raise on government property?
- Congressman Jacob Shaw: Of course not. I don't break the law.
- Olivia Pope: I'm sure you don't, but yet, here we are. So if you didn't break the law, what did you do?
- Congressman Jacob Shaw: I had relations earlier tonight.
- Olivia Pope: In this office?
- Congressman Jacob Shaw: ...On this desk.
- Abby Whelan: [suddenly jumps up having been leaning on the desk, knocking things over]
- Olivia Pope: I need to speak to Ms. Perkins alone.
- Gary Olverman: I'm afraid that's out of the question.
- Olivia Pope: Which might be interesting if your permission entered into it.
- Judge Milton Kalev: What are you arguing, counsel?
- Harrison Wright: Copyright infringement. The government owns the recording device, so the government owns the tape.
- Brenda Swan: The government owns a sex tape?
- Harrison Wright: Why not? It's an entirely legal business enterprise.
- Brenda Swan: It's pornography!
- Harrison Wright: Come on, counselor. Who are you to tell Uncle Sam he can't get his rocks off?
- Abby Whelan: Seriously? That trial was a joke. You know it, I know it, Olivia knows it. And the only reason she won't say it is 'cause she also knows a whole hell of a lot more than she's letting on. What do you think, Huck? Ready to work across the hall from the molotov mistress?
- Huck: Olivia says we trust her, we trust her.
- Abby Whelan: Company man...
- [last lines]
- Huck: [getting into Olivia's car] She took it, everything we left for her. She's good to go.