- Astrid Sloan: Suicide is a uniquely traumatic experience for those left behind. Especially when there is no warning. And no note left to explain things.
- Theo Sloan: You blame yourself?
- Astrid Sloan: No.
- Theo Sloan: Maybe you should. I'm not saying it's your fault. I'm saying, lean into the idea that it is. Explore the ways in which you may be culpable. Systematically start ruling some out.
- Astrid Sloan: I didn't do anything to make River kill himself.
- Theo Sloan: Perhaps you were too cold with him. You have a tendency towards that. River seemed, um, a sensitive boy. Verging on queer. Perhaps your coldness created an insecurity.
- Astrid Sloan: No, I'm not listening to this.
- Theo Sloan: [chuckling] I'm complimenting you.
- Astrid Sloan: You called me "cold".
- Theo Sloan: Cold is good. Cold wins the day. Anything you have good in your life is because of that glacial resolve.
- Payton Hobart: [after walking in on him and Alice] What's more important, the train, the conductor, or the tracks?
- James Sullivan: Uh, I don't know, the train?
- Payton Hobart: Well, the train is what you see. It's beautiful, and powerful. The conductor drives the train, makes sure it gets where it needs to go. But the train and the conductor are just helpless steel and flesh without tracks to ride on.
- Payton Hobart: Now I'm the train, you and McAfee are the conductors, but there is a plan, James. The plan is the tracks, right? The plan is going to get us to the White House, and that plan includes winning this election. It includes me getting into Harvard, and it includes my high school sweetheart being my first lady, and what you've been doing is endangering our plans. How are we supposed to work together for the next 30 years if I have to worry you're screwing my wife?
- James Sullivan: I'm in love with your girl friend.
- Payton Hobart: I understand, okay. I understand what it means to be a planet in my solar system, okay. I'm the candidate, right? I'm the one out front with the pulpit and the money and the girl, and you're not that guy. You're the one with the ideas, behind me. Because that is where you belong, by your own admission. You can't be me, so don't try. Because we need you to keep being you.