- Michael Steadman: [jealous of Elliot's bond with Breslow] I found out about the account. I made the cold call. I set up the appointment. I did the research. I called the auditions. I booked the studio. I wrote the copy. How come he's the one who gets the shoes?
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: Michael, you know I hate to discuss business when I don't have any underwear on.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: You wanna meet for lunch later?
- Michael Steadman: No, I've got something with Gary.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: It wasn't that bad, was it?
- Michael Steadman: Not since Ed Muskie wept in the New England snow has a man so artfully shot himself in the foot as I did.
- Michael Steadman: [accidentally injuring Elliot at the office] You gotta know how sorry I am.
- Elliot Weston: Come on. Accidents happen all the time. Car wrecks, meltdowns, David Lee Roth. It happens all the time.
- Nancy Krieger Weston: I've made a terrible mistake.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: You've made a decision.
- Nancy Krieger Weston: A terrible decision.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: We won't know that for another hour.
- Nancy Krieger Weston: Oh, God. Look at all the mess here.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: Eh, it's just surface mess. There's another, much more profound mess underneath.
- Nancy Krieger Weston: I mean, I wish I just didn't feel like I was taking advantage of you, but i-it's just that I thought if the two of us could work on this computer together and I couldn't get it to work, well, then, it would never actually have been in my house, and I would feel like less of a failure taking it back.
- Michael Steadman: Could you please stop dropping little red hairs on my desk?
- Elliot Weston: Oh, sorry.
- Michael Steadman: It's okay.
- Elliot Weston: How come you didn't want Faustine to give you the once-over?
- Michael Steadman: Because hair should not be cut by people named Faustine. It should be cut by a fat man named Al wearing polyester smocks with hairy forearms.
- Elliot Weston: Traditionalist.
- Elliot Weston: [playing laser tag, in a Darth Vader-ish voice] How dumb can carbon-based life get? Don't you recognize me, Luke?
- Michael Steadman: Your voice is familiar.
- Elliot Weston: In subsequent films, I'll be revealed as your father.
- Michael Steadman: Father?
- Elliot Weston: Call me Pop.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: Juices not flowing?
- Michael Steadman: Deadlines. I hate deadlines. I always have. They make me feel like a deer on the thruway looking up at a pair of high beams.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: That's probably why you chose a low-pressure, open-framed business like advertising.
- Michael Steadman: It was either that or forestry, so...
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: I-I got Nancy's computer to work.
- Michael Steadman: Great.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot to check the nurturing schedule. It must be my turn.
- Michael Steadman: I'd feel a lot better if I knew Elliot was sitting on the floor of his living room as blocked as I am.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: Maybe he is.
- Michael Steadman: I know the guy. He'd put up with this hell for 15 minutes, then he'd move on to something else because he knows I'll stick with it and figure out a way to make it work.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: Well, you're linear and he's not. You make charts, he doodles.
- Michael Steadman: I doodle.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: Yeah, but your doodles are like the carvings on a Mayan temple: linear, perfect, and thought out.
- Michael Steadman: You make me sound very dull.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: Oh, you're not dull. You're very solid and very handsome. It's just that if you and Elliot both had the same approach to solving problems, I mean, what would the point be? This way, you fill in each other's gaps.
- Michael Steadman: I bet if Rob Petrie had had more support like this from Laura, he'd have had the guts to quit "The Alan Brady Show".
- Michael Steadman, Hope Murdoch Steadman: And write that novel.
- Michael Steadman: I can't believe that you just committed us to a major presentation in less than 24 hours.
- Elliot Weston: Mike, babe, it was either say yes to 24 hours or say goodbye. I figure we'll go home, kick it around on our own tonight, and mush it together in the morning.
- Michael Steadman: Mush it together? That was Warner Breslow. The man has more Clios than you have ugly neckties. You think we're gonna just go home and mush something together?
- Michael Steadman: Elliot was so smug and so innocent and so condescending.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: You're the one who blew up.
- Michael Steadman: You're the one who told me to confront him.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: I told you to talk to him, not confront him. I think the man has a right to contribute to the project.
- Michael Steadman: You can support me... or be neutral. Those are the choices today.
- Michael Steadman: Breslow made you an offer, didn't he? He asked you to dump the agency?
- Elliot Weston: Yeah. Werner hinted about it. What am I supposed to do, blow off everything we've worked for? I mean, what kind of person would even consider doing that?
- [seeing Mike's look]
- Elliot Weston: Oh, Luke, say it ain't so.
- Michael Steadman: Well, at least I wanted the opportunity to turn him down. What's the point of having a little integrity if nobody ever asks you to sell out?
- Elliot Weston: [receiving a pair of sneakers from Breslow as a gift] I guess the other day when I said that I liked the pair he was wearing, that he sent these over. What a Japanese thing to do. Wow! Hey, put yours on. We'll play some Horse.
- Michael Steadman: They're both yours.
- Elliot Weston: No, no, no. There's one pair for you, one pair for me.
- Michael Steadman: No, no. They're both your size. Your feet are so small, the only thing I could do with these would be to hang them from the rear-view mirror.
- Elliot Weston: Come on, Mike. One more game.
- Michael Steadman: No, no, no, no, no, no.
- Elliot Weston: Give me a chance to get even.
- Michael Steadman: We have to be brilliant in less than two hours. Now, come on, take that thing off and come over here and help me think of brilliant new ways to sell soft drinks.
- Elliot Weston: Oh, come on. It's just a meet and greet.
- Michael Steadman: Yes, with the man who created the concept of upscale stacking.
- Elliot Weston: Breslow's good, but he's not that good.
- Michael Steadman: He's better than us.
- Elliot Weston: He makes more money than us.
- Elliot Weston: [running late for a business meeting] It's a ten-minute drive, right?
- Michael Steadman: For me, it's a ten-minute drive.
- Elliot Weston: What's that supposed to mean?
- Michael Steadman: It means you drive like my Aunt Judith, who used to walk around the house screwing lightbulbs into empty sockets to see if electricity was leaking out.
- Ellyn Warren: I'm returning "Doctor Zhivago".
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: What'd you think?
- Ellyn Warren: Uh, women that cold shouldn't look that good.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: I thought his suggestions for the copy were kind of cute.
- Michael Steadman: How do you know what his changes were?
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: Well, Elliot put them into Nancy's computer, and Nancy thought she'd screwed it up, and I helped her save the document.
- Michael Steadman: You helped her.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: Yes.
- Michael Steadman: Blindsided in my own home. Bushwhacked in the bosom of my family.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: Bosoms have nothing to do with it.
- Michael Steadman: Honey, would you put down on the shopping list new batteries for the toothpaste?
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: Oh, really, Michael.
- Michael Steadman: You know our daughter is growing up in a world without tubes? Really, she's never gonna have to face the challenge of what to do with that little, hard plunk of toothpaste you always get when the person you love and live with forgets to put the cap back on.
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: [fixing it] There.
- Michael Steadman: How'd you do that?
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: It's just an ascending ratchet.
- Michael Steadman: A what?
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: The technology that lives in every woman's lipstick.
- Michael Steadman: And who says cosmetics are a push-off for the holidays?
- Hope Murdoch Steadman: [kissing] Can you put your clothes on? I'm having trouble controlling myself.