Great Speeches in TV History

"Two men walk into a bar. The first man orders a scotch and soda. The second man remembers something he'd forgotten, and it doubles him over with pain. He falls to the floor, shaking, and then through the floor and into the earth. He looks back up at the first man, but he doesn't call out to him. They're not that close."

"Hey, I want to say something! I've been trying to be more honest lately and I just need to say a few things. I did the coal walk! Just, I did it. Michael, you couldn't even do that. Maybe I should be your boss. Wow, I feel really good right now.

Why didn't any of you come to my art show? I invited all of you. That really sucked. It's like sometimes some of you act like I don't even exist.

Jim, I called off my wedding because of you. And now we're not even friends. And things are just, like, weird between us, and that sucks. And I miss you. You were my best friend before you went to Stamford, and I really miss you. I shouldn't have been with Roy, and there were a lot of reasons to call off my wedding. But the truth is, I didn't care about any of those reasons until I met you. And now you're with someone else and that's fine. It's... whatever. That's not what I'm-I'm not-okay, my feet really hurt. The thing that I'm just trying to say to you, Jim-and to everyone else in the circle, I guess-is that I miss having fun with you. Just you, not everyone in the circle. Okay, I am gonna go walk in the water now. Yeah, it's a good day."

Homicide: Life on the Street is just loaded with them, these are just a couple:

"Is that what you're asking, Lieutenant? To make it a murder? A murder with no murderer? A murder that can't be solved? If you order me to do it, I'll do it. Hell, my clearance rate is so low these days one more open murder isn't going to make much difference. Everyone says 'Do it for Steve', and I keep thinking that if he chose to commit suicide, what right to I have - what right does ANY of us have - to make that go away? I don't agree with what he did, but if that was his final statement, should I wipe that clear just for our peace of mind? I mean, nobody wants to admit it, but everyone knows what happened."

"I've been a cop for a long time. And drugs out there, we're never gonna win that. There's a hundred open-air drug markets in this city and fifty thousand drug fiends out there. And we are taking on human desires with lawyers, and jailhouses, and lockups, and you and I both know human desire is kicking us in the ass."

Not the greatest fan of West Wing, but still this was a pretty damn good one:

"You're a son of a bitch, you know that? She bought her first new car and you hit her with a drunk driver. What? Was that supposed to be funny? "You can't conceive, nor can I, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God," says Graham Greene. I don't know who's ass he was kissing there 'cause I think you're just vindictive. What was Josh Lyman? A warning shot? That was my son. What did I ever do to yours except praise his glory and praise his name? There's a tropical storm that's gaining speed and power. They say we haven't had a storm this bad since you took out that tender ship of mine in the North Atlantic last year, 68 crew. You know what a tender ship does? It fixes the other ships. It doesn't even carry guns. It just goes around and fixes the other ships and delivers the mail. That's all it can do. Gratias tibi ago, domine. Yes, I lied. It was a sin. I've committed many sins. Have I displeased you, you feckless thug? 3.8 million new jobs, that wasn't good? Bailed out Mexico. Increased foreign trade. Thirty million new acres of land for conservation. Put Mendoza on the bench. We're not fighting a war. I've raised three children. That's not enough to buy me out of the doghouse? Haec credam a deo pio? A deo iusto, a deo scito? Cruciatus in crucem. Tuus in terra servus, nuntius fui. Officium perfeci. Cruciatus in crucem. Eas in crucem"

"10-to-1, we're gone when the smoke clears. They will do everything in their power to destroy us. So...I need you to be sure. Power endures. We can't bring down the Senior Partners, but for one bright, shining moment, we can show them that they don't own us. You need to decide for yourselves if that's worth dying for. I can't order you to do this. I can't do it without you."

"Hey, I'm sure you guys got grievances, but Dick Hoffman? What do you owe this guy? It's all talk. He's out of touch with reality, Dick. You think if push came to shove he'd give a fuck about you? You look like a smart guy. I can see why your local puts their faith in you to do the right thing. I'm just saying, if it was me? I got kids that depend on me, like yourself. And to waste my votes on somebody like Dick Hoffman? I might as well put a bullet in my head, here... and here... and here."

Rath leads off with the two I would've chosen. Well played.

"The humans, I think, knew they were doomed. But where another race would surrender to despair, the humans fought back with even greater strength. They made the Minbari fight for every inch of space. In my life, I have never seen anything like it. They would weep, They would pray, They would say goodbye to their loved ones, then throw themselves without fear or hesitation into the very face of death itself, never surrendering. No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable, could help but be moved to tears by their courage, their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships they used guns. When they ran out of guns they used knives and sticks, and bare hands. They were magnificent. I only hope that when it is my time, I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes in the end. They did this for two years. They never ran out of courage. But in the end, they ran out of time."

Granted, made for TV movie, but with this montage of music and video, my god, it's one of the few times I've been brought to tears by television.

"I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I have you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police? Here's one that's really important because we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you? One last thing: while you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the Ignorant Tight-Ass Club, in this building, when the President stands, nobody sits."

EDIT: Nevermind, didn't see it posted already.

"They used to say if man could fly, he'd have wings. But he did fly. He discovered he had to. Do you wish that the first Apollo mission hadn't reached the moon or that we hadn't gone on to Mars or the nearest star? That's like saying you wish that you still operated with scalpels and sewed your patients up with catgut like your great-great-greatgreat-grandfather used to. I'm in command. I could order this. But I'm not. Because Dr. McCoy is right in pointing out the enormous danger potential in any contact with life and intelligence as fantastically advanced as this. But I must point out that the possibilities, the potential for knowledge and advancement
is equally great. Risk. Risk is our business. That's what the starship is all about. That's why we're aboard her."

"I'm gonna rise up. I'm gonna kick a little ass. I'm gonna kick some ass in the U.S.A. I'm gonna climb a mountain. I'm gonna sew a flag. I'm gonna fly on an eagle. I'm gonna kick some butt. I'm gonna drive big trucks. I'm gonna rule this world. I'm gonna kick some ass. I'm gonna rise up. Gonna kick a little ass. Rock on flyin' eagle!"

"I'm beyond tired. I'm beyond scared. I'm standing on the mouth of hell and it's gonna swallow me whole. And it'll choke on me. We're not ready? They're not ready. They think we're gonna wait for the end to come, like we always do. I'm done waiting. They want an apocalypse? We'll give them one. Anyone else who wants to run? Do it now, 'cause we just became an army. We just declared war. From now on we won't just face our worst fears, we will seek them out. We will find them and cut out their hearts till the First shows itself for what it really is. And I'll kill myself. There is only one thing on earth more powerful than evil, and that's us. Any questions?"

"Well, I don't think our maker wants to hear from me right now. Because he knows I'm going to go out in this plane and I'm going to remove one of His creations from His universe. And when I get back, I'm going to drink a bottle of scotch as if it was Chiggy Von Richtofen's blood and celebrate his death."

"Some goddamn point a man's due to stop arguing with his-self and feeling twice the goddamn fool he knows he is 'cause he can't be something he tries to be every goddamn day without once getting to dinnertime and fucking it up. I don't want to fight it anymore, understand me Charlie? And I don't want you pissing in my ear about it. Can you let me go to hell the way I want to?"

"The Sunday before you killed my wife, Teri and I went to the boardwalk in Venice...just watching all the rollerbladers and musicians, laughing at the crazy people, spending time together. And Teri sees this sno-cone stand. She giggles like a kid. She takes off running, she wants to get in line, she wants one. I remember I was watching her, I was just....I couldn't help myself. When I look up at her, she's talking to this old lady in line behind her and the two of them are laughing, and I'm thinking to myself, 'How the hell does she do that? How does she strike up a conversation with an absolute stranger?' And they just start laughing. Like they'd been friends forever. That's a gift. I remember thinking, 'God, I wish I could do that.' But I can't. That was Teri. My wife. That's what you took from this world, Nina. That's what you took from me and my daughter. I just wanted you to know that."

"You think I'm a loser? Because I have a stinking job that I hate, a family that doesn't respect me, and a whole city that curses the day I was born? Well, that may mean loser to you, but let me tell you something. Every day when I wake up in the morning, I know it's not going to get any better until I go back to sleep. So I get up. I have my watered-down Tang and my still-frozen Pop Tart. I get in my car with no gas, no upholstery, and six more payments. I fight honking traffic just for the privilege of putting cheap shoes onto the cloven hooves of people like you. I'll never play football like I wanted to. I'll never know the touch of a beautiful woman. And I'll never know the joy of driving through the city without a bag over my head. But I'm not a loser. Because, despite it all, me and every other guy who'll never be what they wanted to be, is out there, being what we don't want to be, forty hours a week, for life. And the fact that I didn't put a gun in my mouth years ago - that little fact makes me a winner, baby."

"The people you work with, are people you were just thrown together with. You don't know them, it wasn't your choice. And yet you spend more time with them than you do your friends or your family, but probably all you've got in common, is the fact that you walk around on the same bit of carpet for eight hours a day. And so, obviously, when someone comes in, who you, you have a connection with-yeah. And Dawn was a ray of sunshine in my life. It meant a lot. But if I'm really being honest, I never really thought it would have a happy ending. I don't know what a happy ending is. Life isn't about endings is it? It's a series of moments, and erm...it's like if you turn the camera off, it's not an ending is it? I'm still here, my life's not over. Come back here in ten years, see how I'm doing then. Because I could be married with kids, you don't know. Life just goes on."

This is why the UK version is better.

"I suppose now I'm doomed, I can tell you.

Gazpacho soup. It was the greatest night of my life. I'd been invited to the Captain's Table. I'd only been with the company fourteen years. Six officers and me! They called me "Arnold." We had gazpacho soup for starters. I didn't know gazpacho soup was meant to be served cold. I called over the chef and I told him to take it away and bring it back hot. He did. The looks on their faces still haunt me today! I thought they were laughing at the chef, when all the time they were laughing at me as I ate my piping hot gazpacho soup. I never ate at the Captain's Table again. That was the end of my career.

If only they'd've mentioned it in Basic Training! Instead of climbing up and down ropes and crawling on your elbows through tunnels. If only, just once, they'd said, "Gazpacho soup is served cold!" I could've been an admiral by now! Instead of a nothing, which is what I am, let's face it.

I never got off the bottom rung. And do you know why? Because I didn't have the right knobby parents. I bet Todd Hunter was fed gazpacho soup the moment he was on solids. No, I bet he was breast-fed with it! One side gazpacho soup and the other side freely dispensing chilled champagne! Phbbbbttttt.....!

Since the Wire is over now, I feel a couple of monologues that deserve to be mangled at drama schools far and wide:

"Don't matter who did what to who at this point. Fact is, we went to war, and now, there ain't no going back. I mean, shit, it's what war is, you know? Once you in it...you in it. If it's a lie, then we fight on that lie. But we gotta fight!"

"So you got one, right? That's good. That's like a 40 degree day. Ain't nobody got nuttin to say about a 40 degree day. 50? Bring a smile to ya face. 60? Shit, niggas is damn near BBQ-ing out in that mothefucka. Go down to 20, niggas get they bitch on, get they blood complainin'. But 40? Nobody give a fuck about 40. Nobody remember 40, and y'all niggas is giving me way too many 40 degree days! What the fuck!"

"Bullshit, boy. No victim? I just came from Tasha's people, remember? All this death, you don't think that ripples out? You don't even know what the fuck I'm talking about...I was a few years ahead of you at Edmonson, but I know you remember the neighborhood, how it was. We had some bad boys for real. It wasn't about guns, so much as knowing what to do with yo hands. Those boys could really rack....My father had me on the straight, but like any young man I wanted to be hard too. So I would turn up at all the house parties where the tough boys hung. Shit, they knew I wasn't one of them. Them hard cases would come up to me and say "Go home, schoolboy, you don't belong here." Didn't realize at the time what they were doing for me. As rough as that neighborhood could be, we had us a community, nobody no victim who didn't matter. And now, all we got is bodies, and predatory motherfuckers like you. And out where that girl fell, I saw kids acting like Omar, calling you by name, glorifying yo ass. It makes me sick, motherfucker, how far we done fell."

"Hey listen to me, you little fuckin piece of shit! I'ma tell you one thing, and one thing only, about the Western boys you are playing with! We do not lose! And we do not forget! And we do not give up! Ever! So I'm only going to say this one time! If you march your ass out right now and put the bracelets on, we will not kick the living shit outta you! But if you make us go into them weeds for you, or if you make us come out here tomorrow night, catch you on a corner, I swear to fucking Christ, we will beat you longer and harder than you beat your own dick! Because you do not get to win, shitbird, we do!"

"I been doing this a long time. I ain't never said nothing to no cop...(sigh) I feel old. I been out there since I was 13. I ain't never fucked up a count, never stole off a package, never did some shit that I wasn't told to do, I been straight up. But what come back? Hmm? You think if I got jammed up on some shit, they'd be like "Aight, yeah. Bodie been there. Bodie hang tough. We got his pay lawyer, we got a bail." They want me to stand with them, right? But where the fuck they at when they supposed to be standing by us? I mean, when shit goes bad, and there's hell to pay, where they at? This game is rigged, man. We be like them little bitches on the chess board....Yo, I'm not snitching on none of my boys. Not my corner, and not no Barksdale people, or what's left of em. But Marlo, this nigga, and his kind, man, they gotta fall. They gotta....I'll do what I gotta. I don't give a fuck. Just don't ask me to live on my fucking knees, you know?"

One more...

"What to say about this piece of shit here? Fuck if I don't find myself without the right words! Me, as gifted a goldenthroat as any of you cocksuckers, being loose of religion, are ever likely to hear? What can I say about the dearly departed? I mean, really? Shut up, it's coming to me. Uh, he was the black sheep, the permanent pariah. He asked no quarter of the bosses and none was given. He learned no lessons. He acknowledged no mistakes. He was as stubborn a mick as ever stumbled out of the northeast parishes to take a patrolman's shield. He brooked no authority, he did what he wanted to do and h-he said what he wanted to say, and in the end, he gave you the clearances. He was natural police, yes he was. And I don't say that about many people, even when they're here on the felt. I don't give that one up unless it happens to be true. Natural po-lice...But Christ, what an asshole! And I'm not talking about the ordinary gaping orifice that all of us possess. I mean, an all-encompassing, all-consuming, out-of-proportion-to-every-other-facet-of-his-humanity chasm, from whose born, if I may quote Shakespeare, no traveler has ever returned...To conclude, to conclude, I say: He gave us 13 years on the line. Not enough for a pension. But enough for us to know, that, despite his negilible Irish ancestry, his defects of personality, and his inconstant sobriety and hygiene, he was a true murder police. Jimmy, I say this seriously. If I was laying there dead on some Baltimore street corner, I'd want it to be you standing over me, catching the case. Because, brother, when you were good, you were the best we had."

George Costanza: The sea was angry that day, my friends - like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli. I got about fifty feet out and suddenly the great beast appeared before me. I tell you he was ten stories high if he was a foot. As if sensing my presence, he let out a great bellow. I said, "Easy, big fella!" And then, as I watched him struggling, I realized that something was obstructing its breathing. From where I was standing, I could see directly into the eye of the great fish.
Jerry: Mammal.
George Costanza: Whatever.
Cosmo Kramer: Well, what did you do next?
George Costanza: Well then, from out of nowhere, a huge tidal wave lifted me, tossed me like a cork, and I found myself right on top of him - face to face with the blowhole. I could barely see from the waves crashing down upon me but I knew something was there. So I reached my hand in, felt around, and pulled out the obstruction.
[George reveals the obstruction to be a golf ball]
Cosmo Kramer: What is that, a Titleist?
[George nods]
Cosmo Kramer: Hole in one, huh?

Damn, beaten to it. Second on the West Wing Two Cathedrals speech.

Great to see some Wire quotes up there. The stuff of Bunk and McNulty in the box in Season 5 is legendary.

Now, I see what the fuck’s in front of me, and I don’t pretend it’s somethin’ else. I was fuckin’ her and now I’m gonna fuck you, if you don’t piss me off or open your yap at the wrong fuckin’ time. The only time you’re to open-- you’re supposed to open your yap is so I can put my fuckin’ prick in it. Otherwise, you shut the fuck up. Now, hold onto that, huh? [Hands bottle over] Point is, the minister’s gotta fuckin’ die. I mean, that’s the—that’s the fuckin’ point. He’s gonna die sooner or later I mean, he’s makin’ a fuckin’ jerk of himself, and, I mean, well, why-- why go on with that? Who’s-- who’s gonna benefit from that, huh? No, you just gotta kill it and put an end to it. You-- you don’t linger on about it, you don’t fuckin’ go around weepin’ about it, and you don’t, you know, behave like a kid with a sore thumb, you know, a loco suckin’ it, now “mmm, my poor fucking thumb!” I mean, you-- you gotta behave like a grown fuckin’ man, huh? You gotta shut the fuck up. Don’t be sorry, don’t look fuckin’ back, because, believe me, no one gives a fuck. You understand?

Whore: Yeah.

You shut the fuck up, huh? Gimme that! [Grabs bottle] Hey, you suck my dick and shut the fuck up, huh? Come here. Come on. Now then, here. The place where I found you, huh, is where this warrant’s from. Could you believe that I may have stuck a knife in someone’s guts 12 hours before you got on the wagon we headed out for fuckin’ Laramie in? No! Because I don’t look fuckin’ backwards. I do what I have to do and go on. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? You got a stagecoach to catch or somethin’, huh? Slow the fuck up. Did you know the orphanage part of the building you lived in, behind it, she ran a whorehouse, huh? Oh, so you knew? So, so what are you fuckin’ lookin’ at then, huh? God. Now, I’ll tell you somethin’ you don’t know. Before she ran a girls orphanage, fat Mrs. Fucking Anderson ran the boys orphanage on fucking Euclid avenue, as I would see her fat ass waddling out the boys dormitory at 5 o’clock in the fucking mornin’, every fuckin’ morning she blew her stupid fuckin’ cowbell and woke us all the fuck up. And my fuckin’ mother dropped me the fuck off there with 7 dollars and 60 some odd fuckin’ cents on her way to suckin’ cock in… in Georgia. And I didn’t get to count the fuckin’ cents before the fuckin’ door opened, and there, Mrs. Fat Ass Fuckin’ Anderson, who sold you to me. I had to give her 7 dollars and 60 odd fuckin’ cents that my mother shoved in my fuckin’ hand before she hammered 1, 2, 3, 4 times on the fuckin’ door and scurried off down fuckin’ Euclid Avenue, probably 30 fuckin’ years before you were fuckin’ born. Then around Cape Horn and up to San Francisco, where she probably became Mayor or some other type success story, unless by some fucking chance she wound up as a ditch for fuckin’ cum. Now, fucking go faster, hmm? [grunting] Okay, go ahead and spit it out. You don’t need to swallow. You just spit it out. Mmm. Anyways.

"I had this dream. It's my pop's 100th birthday, even though he'd been dead for years. The whole family's there -- grandkids, everybody. He's wearing one of these gold paper crowns, like at Burger King. Anyway, I give him his present, this mellifluous box -- ribbons. He opens it up then looks at me. This gaze of absolute disappointment. There's nothing in the box. So he hands it back to me. 'Go fill it up,' he says. 'Come back when I'm 200.'

We have this ritual at my house for years. Our kids are in boarding school. Every night I come home from work, I strip down, jump naked in the pool. Nicole brings me a scotch and water. We sit, relax a little, talk. I go up to bed, the air conditioning. She brings me a light dinner on a tray. One night during all that fighting with John, I come home, I'm exhausted. So tired, so tense, I skip the pool. I go right upstairs, flop on the bed. Nicole comes up with a drink. She says, 'Darling, I think it's time you took a rest.' I say, 'I'm gonna. We're gonna take a vacation.' She says, 'That's not what I meant. I don't want to be the wealthiest widow on Long Island. I want you to quit now.' I'm not ashamed to say that she made me cry. That wonderful loving woman.

That dream with my father, the empty box -- It wasn't about being boss. It was about being happy."

And to complete the Wire awesomeness, one I overlooked...

All the guys at the bar, Jimmy, all the girls...they don't show up at your wake. And not because they don't like you. But because, they never knew your last name. And a month later, someone tells them "Ah, Jimmy died." "Jimmy who?" "Jimmy the cop." "Ohhh," they say, "him." And all the people on the job, all the people you spent all those hours in the radio car with, the guys with their feet up on the desk telling stories, who shorted you on the food runs, who signed your overtime slips? In the end, they're not gonna be there either. Family, that's it. Family, and if you're lucky, one or two friends that are the same as family. That's all the best of us get. Everything else, just...

Jim Halpert: Hey, uh, can I talk to you about something?
Pam Beesley: About when you want to give me more of your money?
Jim Halpert: No, I...
Pam Beesley: Did you want to do that now? We can go inside. I'm feeling kind of good tonight.
Jim Halpert: I was just... I am in love with you.
Pam Beesley: [No longer smiling] What?
Jim Halpert: I'm really sorry if that's weird for you to hear, but I needed you to hear it. Probably not good timing. I know that, I just...
Pam Beesley: [Stunned] What are you doing? What do you expect me to say to that?
Jim Halpert: I just needed you to know. Once.
Pam Beesley: Well, I... I can't...
Jim Halpert: Yeah...
Pam Beesley: You have no idea...
Jim Halpert: Don't do that...
Pam Beesley: ...what your friendship means to me.
Jim Halpert: C'mon. I don't want to do that. I want to be more than that.
Pam Beesley: I can't.
[a small tear runs down Jim's face]
Pam Beesley: I'm really sorry... if you misinterpreted things. It's probably my fault.
Jim Halpert: [Trying to recover] Not your fault. I'm sorry I misinterpreted our friendship.

Shouldn't there be some sort of identifying words before these so if there are spoilers (like the Wire which I am on season 2 of) we can avoid them?

Cliff: Well ya see, Norm, it's like this. A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers.

Possible spoilers for "Rescue Me":

"I want you to take away the hope, man, that's the thing that's killing me. You know,it's just... it's like, uh... I'm just hanging here, man. Hope is making me think I can fix my marriage, you know? The day of Jimmy's funeral... you stood up on that altar and you said, "Sometimes we don't know why God does the things that he does." But I'm telling you... Mick... if he takes my little girl tonight... I'm going to want to know why."

Dr. Cox: Lemme ask you a quick question: are you trying to make my head explode? Because you have no idea just how frustrating it is working your ass off trying to inflate a tiny little balloon inside somebody's clogged artery when all that person has to do, really is - oh, I don't know - go for a walk in the morning or choke down a fresh green salad. And you come back here looking like that? And, I know here, I know I'm supposed to be Dr. Give-A-Crap, but you wanna hear the God's honest truth? And this is a fact: you are what you eat. And you clearly went out and devoured a big fat guy, didn't ya?
__________________________________________________ ________________


Dr. Cox: All right, bring it in here, you knuckleheads. Come on, take a knee if you need to, you confoundits. I have been on since midnight, so I stand here with my usual level of contempt for all of you, but with the added wrinkle of having thirteen cups of Nurse Roberts' piss-poor excuse for coffee passing pretty much straight through me. The not-so-hidden message being, of course, that if you screw up today: Haaa-I'm gonna hit ya hard! Haaa-I'm gonna hit ya fast! Now then, I think some of you may have noticed that all twenty-seven of the patients that were here in the I.C.U. when I started last night are still alive, and I damn-sure intend for them to still be breathing when I get the hell out of here at midnight. I think you understand what kind of opportunity we have in front of us

"Lie to me."

"Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after."

"Liar."

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"A vision I had in my sleep last night. As distinguished from a dream which is a mere sorting and cataloging of the day’s events by the subconscious. This was a vision. As clear as a mountain stream. The mind revealing itself to itself. In my vision I was on a veranda of a vast estate, a palazzo of some fantastic proportion. There seemed to emanate from it a light from within this gleaming, radiant marble. I’d known this place. I, in fact, had been born and raised there. This was my first return. A reunion with the deepest wellsprings of my being. Wandering about I noticed happily that the house had been immaculately maintained. There’d been added a number of additional rooms but in a way that blended so seamlessly with the original construction one would never detect any difference. Returning to the house’s grand foyer came a knock on the door. My son was standing there. He was happy and care free. Clearly living a life of deep harmony and joy. We embraced. Warm and loving embrace, nothing withheld. We were, in this moment, one. My vision ended and I awoke with a tremendous feeling of optimism and confidence in you and your future. That was my vision, it was you."

Great episode. Maybe I should dig op my old videotapes this weekend.

Sorely lacking in BSG.
"The Cylon War is long over, yet we must not forget the reasons why so many sacrificed so much in the cause of freedom. The cost of wearing the uniform can be high, but sometimes it's too high.
You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question, why? Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed, spite, jealousy. And we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we've done. Like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. When that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn't our fault, not really. You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore."
Adama: Are they the lucky ones? That's what you're thinking, isn't it? We're a long way from home. We've jumped way beyond the red line, into uncharted space. Limited supplies, limited fuel. No allies, and now, no hope? Maybe it would have been better for us to have died quickly, back on the Colonies with our families, instead of dying out here slowly, in the emptiness of dark space. Where shall we go? What shall we do? Life here began out there. Those are the first words of the sacred scrolls, and they were told to us by the Lords of Kobol, many countless centuries ago. And they made it perfectly clear that we are not alone in this universe. Elosha, there's a thirteenth colony of humankind, is there not?
Elosha: Yes. The scrolls tell us a thirteenth tribe left Kobol in the early days. They travelled far and made their home upon a planet called Earth, which circled a distant and unknown star.
Adama: It's not unknown. I know where it is! Earth. The most guarded secret we have. The location was only known by the senior commanders of the fleet, and we dare not share it with the public. Not while there was a Cylon threat upon us. For now we have a refuge to go to. A refuge the Cylons know nothing about. It won't be an easy journey. It'll be long, and arduous. But I promise you one thing: on the memory of those lying here before you, we shall find it, and Earth shall become our new home. So say we all!


I came to Galactica to tell a story. In all honesty I thought I knew what that story was before I ever set foot there: how an arrogant military let their egos get in the way of doing their jobs, safeguarding the lives of the civilian population. But I found out that the truth was more complex than that. These people aren't Cylons. They're not robots blindly following orders and polishing their boots. They're people. Deeply flawed, yes, but deeply human too, and maybe that's saying the same thing. What struck me most is that despite it all - the hardships, the stress, the ever present danger of being killed - despite all that, they never give up. They never lie down in the road and let the truck run them over. They wake up in the morning, put on their uniforms and do their jobs. Every day. No pay, no rest, no hope of ever laying down the burden or letting someone else do the job. There are no relief troops coming, no Colonial Fleet training new recruits every day. The people on Galactica are it. They are the thin line of blue that separates us from the Cylons. Lt. Gaeta told me a remarkable statistic; not a single member of Galactica's crew has asked to resign, not one. Think about that. If you wore the uniform wouldn't you want to quit? To step aside and say "enough! Let someone else protect the fleet"? I know I would. But then, I don't wear a uniform. Most of us don't, most of us never will. The story of Galactica isn't that people make bad decisions under pressure, it's that those mistakes are the exception. Most of the time the men and women serving under Commander Adama get it right. The proof is that our fleet survives. And with Galactica at our side, we will endure.

Lee id the defendant make mistakes? Sure he did, serious mistakes, but did he actually commit any crimes? Did he commit treason? No. It was an impossible situation. When the Cylons arrived what could he possibly do? What could anyone have done? I mean, ask yourself, what would you have done? What would you have done? If he had refused to surrender, the Cylons would've probably nuked the planet, right then and there. So did he appear to co-operate with the Cylons? Sure, so did hundreds of others. What's the difference between him and them? The President issued a blanket pardon. They were all forgiven, no questions asked. Colonel Tigh? Colonel Tigh used suicide bombers, killed dozens of people, forgiven. Lieutenant Agathon and chief Tyrol murdered an officer on the Pegasus, forgiven. The admiral? The admiral instituted a military coup d'etat against the President, forgiven. And me? Well, where do I begin? I shot down a civilian passenger ship, the Olympic Carrier, over a thousand people on board, forgiven. I raised my weapon to a superior officer, committed an act of mutiny, forgiven. And then on the very day when Baltar surrendered to those Cylons, I, as commander of Pegasus, jumped away! I left everybody on that planet, alone, undefended for months. I even tried to persuade the admiral never to return, to abandon you all there for good. If I'd had my way nobody would have made it off that planet. I'm the coward, I'm the traitor, I'm forgiven. I'd say we're very forgiving of mistakes. We make our own laws now, our own justice, and we've been pretty creative with ways to let people off the hook. For everything from theft to murder. And we've had to be, because we're not a civilization anymore, we are a gang, and we're on the run, and we have to fight to survive. We have to break rules, we have to bend laws, we have to improvise! But not this time, no, not this time, not for Gaius Baltar. No, you, you have to die! You have to die, because, well, because we don't like you very much. Because you're arrogant, because you're weak, because you're a coward, and we, the mob, want to throw you out the airlock because you didn't stand up to the Cylons and get yourself killed in the process! That's justice now! You should've been killed back on New Caprica, but since you had the temerity to live, we're going to execute you now. That's justice!
[crowd murmurs angrily]
Judge : Order, order!
Lee : This case, this case is built on emotion, on anger, bitterness, but most of all it's built on shame. It's about the shame of what we did to ourselves back on that planet. It's about the guilt of those of us who ran away, who ran away. And we are trying to dump all of that guilt and all that shame onto one man, and then flush him out the airlock, and just hope that that gets rid of it all. So that we can live with ourselves. But that won't work. That won't work. That's not justice, not to me. Not to me.
Lampkin : No further questions.

I doubt it's that hard to preface where the quote is from considering most of us aren't television whores, sorry if its asking too much.

This was a pretty great one from the third season of Friday Night Lights:

"Two years ago, I was afraid of wanting anything. I figured wanting would lead to trying, and trying would lead to failure. But now I find I can't stop wanting. I want to fly somewhere in first class. I want to travel to Europe on a business trip. I want to get invited to the White House. I want to learn about the world. I want to surprise myself. I want to be important. I want to be the best person I can be. I want to define myself, instead of having others define me. I want to win, and have people be happy for me. And I want to lose and get over it. I want to not be afraid of the unknown. I want to grow up to be generous and big-hearted, the way that people have been with me. I want an interesting and surprising life. It's not that I think I'm going to get all these things. I just want the possibility of getting them. College represents the possibility. The possibility that things are going to change. I can't wait."

It might be a bit overwrought on the page, but with the context, source, and presentation, it's very moving.

It's all in the presentation, though. The montage and music that accompanies the essay and its placement in what I think is the best episode of the series put it over the top for me. Also, I always liked Tyra as a character more than the Riggins.

You guys watch WAY more TV than I do and I know I'm sort of playing to typecast here, but I've always found this little nugget rather moving:

"HOMER! You're not allowed to have hurt feelings right now. There's a little girl upstairs who needs you - her confidence in her father has been shaken and no little girl can be happy unless she has faith in her DADDY!"

Not as weighty as most of these, but very funny, from last week's Office:

"Look, it doesn't take a genius to know that any organization thrives when it has two leaders. Go ahead, name a country that doesn't have two presidents, a boat that sets sail without two captains. And of course, where would Catholicism be without the Popes?"

That's the moment I fell in love with Supernatural. Just a perfect summation of the blue collar mythicness of the show.

My favorite one from "Scrubs":
JD(To a depressed, drunken Dr. Cox, after several of his patients died because of organ transplants he authorized in the previous episode):
"I tried to convince myself the reason I didn't come in before was because of you coming into work drunk. But that's not it. I was scared. I guess after all this time, I still think of you as like this super hero, who will help me out of any situation I'm in. I needed that. But that's my problem, you know? And I'll deal with that. I guess I came over here to tell you how proud of you I am. Not because you did the best you could for those patients, but because after 20 years of being a doctor, when things go badly, you still take it this hard. And I gotta tell you man, I mean, that's the kind of doctor I want to be."

Nobody does wordy antagonism like Deadwood:

"Sure you want to quit playing, Jack? Game's all that's between you and gettin called a cunt. That dropped eye a yours looks like a hood on a cunt to me, Jack. When you talk your mouth looks like a cunt moving."
"I ain't gonna get in a gunfight with you, Hickock."
"But you will run your cunt mouth at me. And I will take it to play poker."

Or good old fashioned chivalry:

"...And it's not for me to tell anyone in this camp what to do, much as I don't want anyone else getting their throats cut or scalps lifted or any other godless thing these godless bloodthirsty heathens do, or if someone wants to ride out in darkest night. But I will tell you this. I would use tonight to get myself organized, and ride out in the morning clear-headed. And starting tomorrow morning, I will offer a personal fifty dollar bounty for every decapitated head of as many of these godless heathen cocksuckers as anyone can bring in tomorrow, with no upper limit. And that's all I say on that subject, except next round is on the House. And God rest the souls of that family...
(crosses self, bows head momentarily)
...And pussy's half price, next fifteen minutes."

"Past hope. Past kindness or consideration. Past justice. Past satisfaction. Past warmth or cold or comfort. Past love. But past surprise? What an endlessly unfolding tedium life would then become. "

"Believing yourself past surprise does not commend you to me as a friend. A man inadequately sophisticated, or merely ignorant or simply stupid, may believe himself past surprise, then be surprised to discover, for example, that Mr. Hearst already knows of my inclinations and finds them immaterial. Suggesting, as a corollary, that your skills for blackmail and manipulation no longer are assets to you, and for your fatuous belief in their efficacy, in fact have become liabilities. In short, you’ve overplayed your hand. Now I should think in consequence, now recognizing yourself as a man past his time, that during this last transitional period you would devote yourself with grateful and quiet diligence to such uses as others may still find you suitable."

"Including youth, Mr. Manuel? And why not beauty? Not credibly restored, perhaps, but as a new non-negotiable term? Would you not have, too, your brother Charlie resurrected? Would you stipulate your envy of him be purged surely, you’ll insist that Charlie retain certain defects—his ineffable self-deceptions, for example, which were your joy in life to rebuke, and purpose, so far as you had one. I suppose you would see removed those qualities which caused you to love him, and the obliviousness to danger which allowed you to shed his blood."

Conflict of interest!