Mad Men, Season 1

Don:
By love you mean big lightning bolts to the heart, where you can't eat and you can't work, and you just run off and get married and make babies. The reason you haven't felt it is because it doesn't exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me...to sell nylons.

Don:
You're born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts, but I never forget... I'm living like there's no tomorrow, 'cause there isn't one.

Joan:
He may act like he wants a secretary, but most of the time they're looking for something between a mother and a waitress. And the rest of the time, well... Go home, take a paper bag and cut some eye holes out of it. Put it over your head, look in the mirror and try and evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. And try and be honest.

Don:
Except they aren't.

Mr. Garner:
That's your slogan? "You're going to die anyway. Die with us"?

Pete:
Actually, it's a fairly well-established psychological principle that society has a death wish, and if we could just tap into that, the market potential is -

Mr. Garner:
What the hell are you talking about? Are you insane? I'm not selling rifles here. I'm in the tobacco business. We're selling America. The Indians gave it to us, for shit's sake.

Mr. Garner:
"Lucky Strikes is toasted." I get it.

Sterling:
Well, gentlemen, I don't think I have to tell you what you just witnessed here.

Lee Jr.:
I think you do.

Draper:
Advertising is based on one thing: Happiness.

Draper:
And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear.

Draper:
It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing it's okay.

Don:
We should get married.

Midge Daniels:
You think I'd make a good ex-wife?

Don:
Let me ask you something, what do women want?

Roger:
Who cares?

Roger:
Psychiatry is just this year's candy pink stove.

Betty:
[To her psychiatrist] I don’t know why I’m here. I mean, I do, I’m nervous, I guess. Anxious. I don’t sleep that well. And my hands. They’re fine now, it’s like when you have a problem with your car and you go to a mechanic and it’s not doing it anymore. Not that you’re a mechanic. I guess a lot of people must come here worried about the bomb. Is that true? It’s a common nightmare, people say. I read it in a magazine. My mother always told me that it wasn’t polite to talk about yourself. She passed away recently. I guess I already said that.

Roger:
You know what? I am very comfortable with my mind. Thoughts clean and unclean, loving and… the opposite of that. But I am not a woman. And I think it behooves any man to toss all female troubles into the hands of a stranger.

Paul Kinsey:
Sterling Cooper is positively Cro-Magnon. I have a friend - I’m not even going to say what agency - but all they do is smoke Mary Jane and play darts. And honestly, I think they’re the best store on the street.

Rachel Menken:
It's hard to get caught in a lie.

Don:
It wasn't a lie, it was ineptitude with insufficient cover.

Roger:
I bet there were people in the Bible walking around, complaining about "kids today."

Don:
Kids today, they have no one to look up to. 'Cause they're looking up to us.

Pete:
I have ideas.

Don:
I'm sure you do. Sterling Cooper has more failed artists and intellectuals than the Third Reich.

Roger:
I bet daily friendship with that bottle attracts more people to advertising than any salary you can dream of.

Don:
It's the way I got in.

Roger:
So enjoy it.

Don:
I'm doin' my best here.

Roger:
No, you're not. You don't know how to drink. Your whole generation, you drink for the wrong reasons. My generation, we drink because it's good, because it feels better than unbuttoning your collar, because we deserve it. We drink because it's what men do.

Don:
What about shaky hands, I see a lot of that with you boys?

Roger:
No joke. Your kind with your gloomy thoughts and your worries, you're all busy licking some imaginary wound.

Don:
Not all imaginary.

Roger:
Yeah, boo hoo.

Don:
Maybe I'm not as comfortable being powerless as you are.

Roger:
What you did is totally unacceptable.

Pete:
I realize that.

Roger:
I want you to be very clear about this: You were fired. I wanted you out. Cooper wanted you out. And you would be...if it weren't for this man. [motions to Don] He thought you deserved another chance. That's right. He fought for you.

Pete:
I don't know what to say.

Roger:
Say nothing. You are here because of Don Draper's largess.

Pete:
Thank you. Thank you so much.

Roger:
Now, I know that your generation went to college instead of serving, so I'll illuminate you. This man is your commanding officer. You live and die in his shadow. Understood?

Pete:
[nods vigorously] I won't let you down, Don.

Roger:
Jesus! Campbell...don't ever say that.

Betty:
I liked your girl Peggy. She’s fresh.

Don:
As the driven snow.

Midge Daniels:
[to Don on the phone as Peggy listens] I want you to pull my hair and ravish me and leave me for dead.

Joan:
Roger, if you had your way, I would be stranded in some paperweight with my legs stuck in the air.

Don:
Mourning is just extended self-pity.

Don:
Well, some men like eyebrows... and all men like Joan Crawford. Salvatore couldn't stop talking about it.

Roy:
So, what do you do, Don?

Don:
I blow up bridges.

Midge Daniels:
Don's in advertising.

Roy:
No way. Madison Avenue? What a gas!

Midge Daniels:
We all have to serve somebody.

Roy:
Perpetuating the lie. How do you sleep at night?

Don:
On a bed made of money.

Midge Daniels:
Isn't this an education!

Roy:
You hucksters in your tower created the religion of mass consumption.

Don:
People want to be told what to do so badly that they'll listen to anyone.

Roy:
When you say "people", I have a feeling you're talking about thou.

Don:
And I have a feeling that you spent more time on your hair this morning [points to Midge] than she did.

Ken Cosgrove:
[after Joan bends over in front of the one-way mirror] I wanna stand and salute that.

Pete:
You ever been hunting, Peggy?

Peggy:
No, I don't think so.

Pete:
You either have or you haven't. I went a couple of times. With my uncle. New Hampshire.

Peggy:
I saw my cousin shoot a rabbit by Coney Island.

Pete:
It's an incredible sensation. You have to be very quiet. Take it down with the first shot or you scare it away. Then sometimes you have to go up and finish it off. Then you tie it to the bumper and go home. But do you know what I've always wanted to do? I would pick it up, throw its back legs over my shoulder, and I would drag it through the snow to this little cabin. And there, I'd hang it up between a couple of trees, cut it open, and drain it, dress it. Then I'd take my big hunting knife and I'd cut this loin right out the side. And I'd go into the cabin and there'd be this woman waiting for me. Standing by one of those old stoves with a big black pipe. And I'd hand it to her and she'd put it in a cast iron skillet and then I'd sit at the table. And she'd bring it to me. And I'd wipe my knife on my knee. And then I would eat it. While she watches.

Peggy:
That would be wonderful.

Roger:
[to Don, about making a pass at Betty] At some point, we've all parked in the wrong garage.

Roger:
[to Don, on children] One minute you're drinking at the bar and they come and tell you your kids been born. Next thing you know, they're heading off to college.

Betty:
[to Don, as he grabs her arm] You want to bounce me off the walls? Would that make you feel better?

Don:
Sometimes I feel like I'm living with a child.

Midge's Friend:
Dig. Ad man's got a heart.

Midge Daniels:
The grown-ups are talking.

Midge's Friend:
Don't defend him. [to Don] Toothpaste doesn't solve anything. Dacron sure as hell won't bring back those ten dead kids in Biloxi.

Don:
Neither will buying some Tokaj wine and leaning up against a wall in Grand Central pretending you're a vagrant.

Midge's Friend:
You know what it's like to watch all you ants go into your hive? I wipe my ass with the Wall Street Journal.

Woman:
How come every time we have a party the ladies have to sit and listen to the men talk?

Midge's Friend:
Look at you. Satisfied, dreaming up jingles for soap flakes and spot remover, telling yourself you're free.

Don:
Oh, my God. Stop talking and make something of yourself.

Roy:
Like you? You make the lie. You invent want. You're for them... not us.

Don:
Well, I hate to break it to you, but there is no big lie. There is no system. The universe is indifferent.

Midge's Friend:
Aww man, why did you have to say that?

Don:
[speaking to a client] Listen, I'm not here to tell you about Jesus. You already know about Jesus, either he lives in your heart or he doesn't.

Joan:
Peggy, this isn't China. There's no money in virginity.

Roger:
What else is there?

Don:
I don't know. Life being lived? I'd like to stop talking about it and get back to it.

Betty:
I miss [my mother]. I understand that. It's good and bad. She wanted me to be beautiful so I could find a man. There's nothing wrong with that. But then what? Just sit and smoke and let it go till you're in a box?

Roger:
Remember, Don...when God closes a door, he opens a dress.

Roger:
You know what my father used to say? "Being with a client is like being in a marriage. Sometimes you get into it for the wrong reasons, and eventually they hit you in the face."

Don:
[to Pete Campbell] The day you sign a client is the day you start losing him.

[a few minutes later]

Roger:
The day you sign a client is the day you start losing him.

Don:
You don't really believe that.

Pete:
The president is a product. Don’t forget that.

Roger:
[after suffering a heart attack] All these years I thought it would be the ulcer. I did everything they told me, I drank the cream, ate the butter. Then I get hit with a coronary.

Roger:
Look, I want to tell you something because you're very dear to me and I hope you understand it comes from the bottom of my damaged, damaged heart. You are the finest piece of ass I ever had and I don't care who knows it. I am so glad I got to roam those hillsides.

Joan:
Stop it.

Peggy:
Those people - in Manhattan - they are better than us. Because they want things they haven't seen.

Bert:
[to Pete] The Japanese have a saying: a man is whatever room he is in, and right now Donald Draper is in this room.

Pete:
What are you doing? Where are you going?

Don:
I'm going to take care of this right now.

Pete:
Is this some sort of thing like in the movies where I have a gun and you don't think I'm going to shoot you? I will shoot you.

Pete:
Why can't you give me what I want? I've earned this job. I deserve it.

Don:
Why? Because your parents are rich? Because you went to prep school and have a $5.00 haircut? You've been given everything. You've never worked for anything in your life.

Joan:
[to Peggy about her new job] I said congratulations, didn't I? Although, sometimes when people get what they want they realize how limited their goals were.

Don:
Well, technology is a glittering lure. But there is a rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash – if they have a sentimental bond with the product. My first job I was in house at a fur company, with this old pro of a copywriter, a Greek, named Teddy. Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is “new.” It creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion. He also talked about a deeper bond with a product: nostalgia. It’s delicate, but potent. [to receptionist] Sweetheart? [receptionist turns off lights, Don starts slide show featuring photos of his family.] Teddy told me that in Greek, "nostalgia" literally means the pain from an old wound. It’s a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a space ship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, forwards. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels: round and around, and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved.

:Don: Suggesting that our customers have a What did you call it? A death wish? I just don't see that on a billboard.