- Amos Borden: It's simple enough.
- Michael Steadman: Well, Mr. Borden, it's not the work. It's... I mean, if I do this, then it changes everything. It throws everything off. It ruins the speech. You see, it...
- Amos Borden: Michael, it's a commercial, not a soliloquy. Make the changes.
- Michael Steadman: You're knuckling under the client.
- Amos Borden: That's correct.
- Michael Steadman: You know, Mr. Borden, I don't know if I can do this. This is...
- Amos Borden: You can.
- Michael Steadman: Well, I'm not gonna do it.
- Amos Borden: Do what?
- Michael Steadman: The changes are stupid, okay? They make the agency look bad. They make me look bad, and I refuse to do it.
- Amos Borden: You know, taking an artistic stand on a quarter-page newspaper ad and jeopardizing your job to do it doesn't seem like a terribly smart move, does it? Now, save your quixotic impulses for your fiction. Do the job you're paid to do.
- Michael Steadman: [after being ordered to make changes he doesn't agree with to a client's advertisement] It's all so, so...
- Elliot Weston: Crass? Commercial?
- Michael Steadman: Ordinary. I don't want to do ordinary. That's not how I see myself. That's not how I see my life. I mean, they hire us, and then they won't let us do what we really know how to do.
- Elliot Weston: It's their candy store, Mike.
- Michael Steadman: Well, I'm getting a little sick of the candy store.
- Elliot Weston: Oh, not me. I love using my God-given talents to sell custom slip covers.
- Michael Steadman: Oh, God. Why can't we make money doing what we want to do?
- Elliot Weston: And what is it you want to do, Mike?
- Michael Steadman: I want to write.
- Elliot Weston: Yeah? So, write. What's stopping you?
- Michael Steadman: Oh, what if it turns out to be...
- Elliot Weston: Ordinary?
- Michael Steadman: Yeah.
- Elliot Weston: Yeah, welcome to the seventh circle of hell. You'll like it here, Mike. We even get cable.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: I thought we understood that with you not working, you'd be more available for Janey.
- Michael Steadman: But I am working. Looking for work counts as work. It may even be harder than actually working because it's so humiliating.
- Michael Steadman: Why didn't you just tell me?
- Elliot Weston: We always took out officer loans, and then at the end of the year, Accountant Freddie would wave his magic tax chart and turn them into bonuses. It was no problem.
- Michael Steadman: Except this year, there's no end of year. You knew that.
- Elliot Weston: Yeah, but I didn't know that when I took the loan. When I took the loan, we were up to our great expectations in Motherland Yogurt and 2% Milk.
- Michael Steadman: Well, we're stuck in something else right now, Elliot. You knew that when we talked to Accountant Fred. That's $5,000 we have to account for. $5,000, Elliot. Why didn't you just tell me? That way, we could deal with it.
- Elliot Weston: Look, I... I was... I was scared. I knew about it. I knew it was a problem. I just... I was afraid.
- Michael Steadman: Afraid of who, Elliot? Scared of what?
- Elliot Weston: Of this... of this fight we're having right now. I don't wanna have any more fights, Mike. I'm over my quota. Look, when I took the loan, we were sailing, right? And-And-And I thought it was a chance to get, you know, like, a real apartment, and, Mike, I was trying to date, and that's, like, a hundred bucks a pop even if you hate her guts.
- Michael Steadman: You're married?
- Elliot Weston: Yeah.
- Michael Steadman: Really?
- Elliot Weston: Yeah.
- Michael Steadman: Huh.
- Elliot Weston: Why?
- Michael Steadman: No, I'm just a little surprised to hear you're married, that's all.
- Elliot Weston: What are you talking about? Why?
- Michael Steadman: Well, you seem kind of, uh... kind of, uh...
- Elliot Weston: Easy now. Choose your adjective with care.
- Michael Steadman: Bohemian?
- Michael Steadman: So, did Virginia Woolf look this good when she was writing? Huh?
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: [kissing] Hello, husband.
- Michael Steadman: Hello, wife. Ah, Hope, I swear to God, that part of the ceremony, "for richer, for poorer", honest, I thought it was just boilerplate.