- Nina Howard: Hey, Will... We're journalists.
- Will McAvoy: I wish you hadn't said that.
- Nina Howard: What?
- Will McAvoy: Everything would've been cool if you hadn't said that. You just talk too much.
- Nina Howard: You have a problem with me calling myself a journalist? Only the elite few who cover stories nobody cares about get to call themselves...
- Will McAvoy: [cuts her off] I've got a guy on my staff who got hit in the head with a glass door Thursday. His forehead wouldn't stop bleeding, but he wouldn't go to a doctor 'cause I got another guy who got beat up covering Cairo. And the first guy wouldn't see a doctor until the second guy saw a doctor. I've got a producer who ran into a locked door 'cause he felt responsible for the second guy. I've got an 18-year-old kid risking his life halfway around the world and the AP who sent him there hasn't slept in three days. I've got 20-somethings who care about teachers in Wisconsin. I've got a grown woman who has to subtract with her fingers staying up all night trying to learn economics from a PhD who could be making 20 times the money three miles downtown. THEY'RE journalists.
- [Maggie cleaning up Jim's bleeding head]
- Jim Harper: Do you know what you're doing?
- Maggie Jordan: I could've been a doctor!
- Jim Harper: What happened?
- Maggie Jordan: Well, I didn't go to medical school or anything.
- Nina Howard: Tough-ass speech, but you're not gonna win.
- Will McAvoy: I don't care. I'm just a middle-aged man who never lived up to his potential. You don't want to be on the wrong end of me if I ever do.
- Will McAvoy: Come after me all you want, Nina. Come after me every day. Look through my garbage, invent things out of thin air - that's what you're paid for. But you touch my staff, and you are walking into a world of hurt. I have an hour of prime time every night, and I will re-dedicate my life to ruining yours. I also want you to send a message up the chain of whatever back room machinery that's driving this that if I so much as smell Leona Lansing's perfume on any of this, I'm going to make a meal out of both of you, and I'm not going to stop until I'm done. Look at me... and see that I'm dead serious.
- Maggie Jordan: You can't have sex in a bathtub!
- Tess Westin: Yes, you can. You just have to slip...
- Maggie Jordan: THANK YOU.
- Jim Harper: I wanted to hear more...
- Maggie Jordan: SHUT UP!
- Maggie Jordan: It's just a very bad day.
- Lisa Lambert: It's Valentine's Day. It's my favorite day.
- Maggie Jordan: Then pick another day! Because it's every guy's least favorite day. Everyone's always disappointed. Valentine's Day is the bully of holidays. It forces love on people who aren't in love. Cupid's freakish.
- Jim Harper: All right.
- Maggie Jordan: No, I'm boycotting Valentine's Day from now on. Who's with me?
- MacKenzie McHale: [Asking for a crash-course in economics for a panel] I just need you teach me a couple of things to say that'll make it look like I know something. How long did it take you to know what you know?
- Sloan Sabbith: College, grad school, doctorate, post-doctorate, practical experience - 15 years. When's the panel?
- MacKenzie McHale: Tuesday...
- Sloan Sabbith: Okay.
- MacKenzie McHale: ...morning.
- Sloan Sabbith: How about I give you three thing you can write on your hand?
- MacKenzie McHale: No! I want to know this. I think that a lot of what's going on in the world has to do with the economy.
- Sloan Sabbith: [Deadpan] You may be onto something.
- MacKenzie McHale: It's not like I need to know everything!
- Sloan Sabbith: You'll be in no danger of that.
- MacKenzie McHale: Joke well crafted.
- Sloan Sabbith: Thank you.
- MacKenzie McHale: Go home.
- Sloan Sabbith: Yep.