Bartlet: You are the Charlie Brown of missile defense. The Pentagon is Lucy.
Leo: I'm not familiar with the reference.
Bartlet: Peanuts. Charlie Brown.
Leo: I've heard of them. I'm just not conversive with them.
Bartlet: Why?
Leo: I've never read comics.
Bartlet: Were you born at age 55? Charlie Brown wanted to kick a football and Lucy would hold it except that she'd pull it away at the last minute and Charlie Brown would fall on his butt. . . . Each time Lucy would find a way to convicne Charlie Brown that this time she wouldn't pull the ball away, but she would and once again Charlie Brown would fall on his butt. By the way, the words you're looking for are, 'Oh, Good Grief.'

Leo: Cause I'm trying to convince the President to warm up to a missile shield that is suppose to save humanity and there is a limit to the number of rooms I can be in at once. . .
Toby: I don't want it in the advance text and I don't want Sam and his 14 objections. It should just be a drop-in.
Leo: I'll talk to the president.
Bartlet: It feels strange to score political points by doing the right thing. I'm victim to my own purity of character.

Toby: You don't ever go into the Oval Office mad.
Sam: I think the President's remarks were ill-advised to say the least. . . . The drop-in's the story now. . . not the energy package.
Toby: The energy package doesn't need to be a story, it's going to be a law.
Sam: . . . this cynicism of attacking your friends for political protection offends them and it offends me. It offends you and there's really nothing I can do to make you feel better about that.
Toby: We can't govern if we don't win.

Leo: I'm pushing you toward the missile shield, cause I think it works," he tells the President.
Bartlet: Based on what?
Leo: Confidence. And the understanding that there's been a time in the evolution of everything that works when it didn't work.
Bartlet: Where are you on missle defense?
Marbury: Well I think it's dangerous, illegal, fiscally irresponsible, technologically unsound, and a threat to all people everywhere. . . .
Leo: I think the world invented a nuclear weapon, and I think the world owes it to itself to see if they can't invent something that would make it irelevant.
Marbury: Well that's the right sentiment, and certainly a credible one from a man who's fought in a war. You think you can make it stop? Well, you can't. We build a shield and somebody will build a better missile.
Bartlet: Well it's a discussion for serious men. They say a statesman is a politician who's been dead for 15 years. I'd like us to be statesmen while we are still alive.

Leo: What are you looking at?
Mrs. Landingham: You're testing that preposterous contraption again.
Leo: It's not a preposterous contraption and mind your own business.
Mrs. Landingham: In my day we knew how to protect ourselves.
Leo: Well in your day you could pretty much turn back the Indians with the Daniel Boone musket, couldn't ya?
Mrs. Landingham: Ah, sarcasm. The grumpy man's wish.
Leo: Sharpen a pencil, would ya?

Bartlet: I'm a victim of my own purity of character.
Le: Whatever.