- Sam Seaborn: Mallory, education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense. That's my position. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet.
- Leo McGarry: [to Sam] I don't mind you dating my only daughter, but you can't expect me not to have some fun along the way.
- Mallory O'Brian: Don't play dumb with me.
- Sam Seaborn: No, honestly, I am dumb. Most of the time I'm playing smart.
- Mallory O'Brian: You stood there and argued with me.
- Sam Seaborn: Yes.
- Mallory O'Brian: Why?
- Sam Seaborn: You made an appointment.
- Toby Ziegler: Mandy, I feel like I've lost a hundred and eighty pounds. And I'm smiling, I am... laughing. I'm enjoying the people I work with. I've got to snap out of this. What's on your mind?
- Mandy Hampton: I want you to help me get the Chinese to give us a new panda bear to replace Lum-Lum.
- Toby Ziegler: Well, that did the trick.
- Mandy Hampton: I was thinking that it would be a good idea, as a symbol to signal how serious we are about our relationship with China, if we asked them for another bear.
- Toby Ziegler: I think it would be a good idea as a symbol to signal that China is serious about their relationship with us if they stop running over their citizens with tanks.
- Josh Lyman: A panda's what I think it is, right?
- Donna Moss: Yes.
- Josh Lyman: Little Australian thing, eats the bark off the koala tree?
- Donna Moss: That's a koala bear I believe you're describing.
- Josh Lyman: The panda's the other one?
- Donna Moss: Josh, how can you not know the difference between a panda bear and a koala bear?
- Sam Seaborn: If you haven't seen C.J. do "The Jackal", then you haven't seen Shakespeare the way it's meant to be done.
- Sam Seaborn: Mallory, everything that you're saying makes sense. I just think that the state of urban schools is such that if you can save even one kid...
- Mallory O'Brian: [stands] You can save more than one kid...
- Sam Seaborn: Tell me how.
- Mallory O'Brian: By asking Congress to approve, not just a little, but a lot more money for public education.
- [Sam laughs]
- Mallory O'Brian: What?
- Sam Seaborn: [stands] Public education has been a public policy disaster for 40 years. Having spent around four trillion dollars on public schools since 1965, the result has been a steady and inexorable decline in every measurable standard of student performance, to say nothing of health and safety. But don't worry about it, because the U.S. House of Representatives is on the case. I feel better already.
- Mallory O'Brian: [beat] Wow.
- Sam Seaborn: What?
- Mallory O'Brian: For a guy who's trying to date me, that was pretty snotty.
- Sam Seaborn: Well, hang on. These are office hours. If I'd know I was working on that I would have had a whole different attitude.
- Toby Ziegler: Have them send us two
- [panda bears]
- Toby Ziegler: .
- Mandy Hampton: Second of all, China is not inclined to give us gifts right now.
- Toby Ziegler: Then get us two regular bears, a bucket of black paint, a bucket of white paint, bam-bam. Next case.
- C.J. Cregg: What happened?
- Danny Concannon: David Arbor was arrested outside a frat party. He's going to be charged with felony possession, possible intent to distribute.
- C.J. Cregg: Is there any chance David Arbor's not the son of Bob Arbor?
- [Mallory is angry at Sam before going on a date with him because of the position paper he wrote about school vouchers]
- Sam Seaborn: What kind of dates have you had that you're amazed this hasn't come up?
- Mallory O'Brian: I'm a public school teacher.
- Sam Seaborn: Seriously, the other guys - they order drinks and say: "Before we go any further I just want you to know my position on school vouchers?"
- Mallory O'Brian: Sam.
- Sam Seaborn: It's my day of jubilee.
- Mallory O'Brian: I despise you. And everything you stand for.
- Sam Seaborn: All right, my day was a little bit better a few seconds ago, but that's all right.
- Sam Seaborn: I thought you were trying to drive a wedge between us.
- Leo McGarry: Yeah, but now you're just boring the crap out of me.