- President Fitzgerald Grant: You're playing the race card because I'm in love with you? Come on! Don't belittle us. It's insulting and beneath you and design to drive me away. I'm not going away.
- Olivia Pope: I don't have to drive you away. You're married and you have children. You're the leader of the Free World. You are away by definition. You are away. You're unavailable.
- President Fitzgerald Grant: So this is about Mellie?
- Olivia Pope: No, no, no! This is... I smile at her and take off my clothes for you. I wait for you. I watch for you. My whole life is you. I can't breathe because I'm waiting for you. You own me, you control me, I belong to you.
- President Fitzgerald Grant: You own me! You control me. I belong to you. You think I don't want to be a better man? You think that I don't want to dedicate myself to my marriage? You don't think I want to be honorable? To be the man you voted for? I love you. I'm in love with you. You're the love of my life. My every feeling is controlled by the look on your face. I can't breathe without you. I can't sleep without you. I wait for you, I watch for you. I exist for you. If I could escape all of this and run away with you? There's no Sally or Thomas here. You're nobody's victim, Liv. I belong to you. We're in this together.
- Cyrus Beene: Do you know who lands on the South lawn?
- Sally Langston: Cyrus, you are way out of...
- Cyrus Beene: The President of the United States!
- Sally Langston: The man has a bullet in his head. The country needs leadership. The world needs leadership.
- Cyrus Beene: He may have a bullet in his head, but it's still his lawn, Sally.
- Sally Langston: I am in charge now, and...
- Cyrus Beene: No! You're not in charge! Have you read the whole constitution, or did you stop in rapture after the second amendment?
- [first lines]
- Announcer Voice: This is a BNC news special report. Reporting live from Washington Reed Wallace.
- Reed Wallace: We have unconfirmed reports that shots were fired outside President Fitzgerald Grant's birthday gala this evening. And early reports suggest...
- [hand moves to his ear]
- Reed Wallace: What? Where is the President? Why is he... I've just been told that the President has gone to James Madison hospital. Why is he... Okay. I'm getting a report now that confirms that President Grant was not wounded. He *was* wounded? Speak up.
- Cyrus Beene: [walking in the woods together] What is that smell?
- Olivia Pope: Fresh air, sunshine, the great outdoors.
- Cyrus Beene: Fresh air makes me very nervous. I'm an indoor person.
- Olivia Pope: Somehow, I've become this person who I have no words.
- President Fitzgerald Grant: We are together. That's all that matters.
- Olivia Pope: Really? Because I'm feeling a little, I don't know, Sally Hemings/Thomas Jefferson about all this. I have to go.
- Olivia Pope: Did you need something, Mr. President?
- President Fitzgerald Grant: See, you used to sound sexy when you called me "Mr. President." Now it just sounds like I'm a gym teacher.
- Reed Wallace: [on the air] Let's talk about the first lady. If, God forbid, her husband were to die, things would happen rapidly for her. Jackie Kennedy was forced to discuss housekeeping details with lady bird Johnson four days after the assassination of President Kennedy, and she was out of the White House within two weeks of his death. One hopes that Mellie Grant, pregnant with America's baby, would be afforded a far different outcome.
- Olivia Pope: Hollis is a dangerous person.
- Cyrus Beene: We won. Hollis isn't a threat to us. No one's a threat to us, because we won.
- [last lines]
- Reed Wallace: [on the air] The FBI is issuing what's called a high alert, and they, they do have a description of a suspect. The suspect is dark-haired, average height and build, possibly with a buzz cut, seen entering the Stanworth Hotel wearing a red hoodie. This is America's most wanted man.
- Harrison Wright: [watching the news broadcast] Average height, average build, wearing a red hoodie In Washington, DC, home of the Redskins? That narrows it down to about 100,000 people.
- Abby Whelan: Don't.
- Reed Wallace: We're gonna be here all night with you. Once again, at 8:05 Eastern standard time, some 14 hours ago, President Grant was shot entering his birthday gala.