The West Wing (TV Series)

Ways and Means (2001)

Janel Moloney: Donna Moss

Quotes 

• Josh Lyman : Can I ask you something?

  Donna Moss : I had a plan.

  Josh Lyman : When you say, "in one of these boxes..."?

  Donna Moss : I had a plan. Each box is numbered. There's a piece of paper with a number and a corresponding description of the contents of each box.

  Josh Lyman : Well, where's the piece of paper?

  [pause] 

  Josh Lyman : It's in one of these boxes.

  Donna Moss : I had a plan. I grew up on a farm.

  Josh Lyman : You grew up in a condo.

  Donna Moss : I grew up near a farm. And I was cute, and I was peppy, and I always did well on my nineteenth-century English literature midterm until you came along and sucked me into your life of crime.

  Josh Lyman : Hey, I'm not the...

  Donna Moss : White-collar crime boy. You know what they do to a girl like me on that cell block? I've seen those movies.

  Josh Lyman : Yeah, me, too.

  Donna Moss : I'll bet you have.

  Josh Lyman : Look...

  Donna Moss : Sell my farm girl ass for a carton of Luckys.

  Josh Lyman : Hey, seriously, you need to sleep for a while.

  Donna Moss : I can't yet. 'Cause in one of these boxes are Fed Ex receipts and mail-room records for any gifts or packages sent to senior staff, and in one of these boxes is a piece of paper which says which box it's in!

  Josh Lyman : I'll be in the office.

  Donna Moss : Your office is down a corridor, about two hundred feet from here. Try not to commit any felonies on the way.

  Josh Lyman : I'll do my best.

  Donna Moss : Yeah.

  [Josh leaves the room] 

  Sam Seaborn : Josh?

  Josh Lyman : Donna's like, two, three days away from unspooling. It's pretty fun to watch...

• Donna Moss : Why are you a Republican?

  Clifford Calley : Because I hate poor people. I hate them, Donna. They're all so poor, and many of 'em talk funny, and don't have proper table manners... my father slaved away at the Fortune 500 company he inherited so that I could go to Choate, Brown and Harvard and see that this country isn't overrun by poor people and lesbians. No... I'm Republican because I believe in smaller government. This country was founded on the principle of freedom, and freedom stands opposed to constraints, and the bigger the government, the more the constraints.