- Professor Stephen Malley: The decisions you make now, bud, can't be changed but with years and years of hard work to redo it... And in those years you become something different. Everybody does as the time passes. You get married, you get into debt... But you're never gonna be the same person you are right now. And promise and potential... It's very fickle, and it just might not be there anymore.
- Todd Hayes: Are you assuming I already made a decision? And also that I'll live to regret it?
- Professor Stephen Malley: All I'm saying is that you're an adult now... And the tough thing about adulthood is that it starts before you even know it starts, when you're already a dozen decisions into it. But what you need to know, Todd, no Lifeguard is watching anymore. You're on your own. You're your own man, and the decisions you make now are yours and yours alone from here until the end.
- Professor Stephen Malley: [to Todd metaphorically] Rome is burning. And the problem is not just with the people who started it. They're past irredeemable. The problem's with all of us who do nothing.
- Senator Jasper Irving: We walk, and Afghanistan reverts back to the Taliban. Only now the Taliban has metastasized into something infinitely more vicious and potent because they're now 2-0 versus superpowers. They butcher the people who helped us, who voted and were stupid enough to put their faith in our word. So call it not only the end of hope for 10s of millions of Afghans, but the end of American credibility, the end of America as a force for righteousness in the world. And when we're forced to go back in a couple years, and please quote me on this, we'll be squared off against a shattered Iraq, a hopeless Afghanistan, and a nuclear Iran. How many troops are we going to need then? I guarantee you'll be adding some zeros.
- Senator Jasper Irving: We're fighting a brand of evil that thinks the last 1,300 years of human progress is heresy punishable by violent death.
- Professor Stephen Malley: [quoting a German General] Nowhere else have I seen such lions led by such lambs.
- Senator Jasper Irving: Through precise military action, we will take the essential first step.
- Janine Roth: First step? But what have we been doing for the past six years, Senator? World War II took less than five.
- Senator Jasper Irving: [Antagonistically to Janine] Do you want to win the War on Terror? Yes or no?
- Professor Stephen Malley: You're good with words, Todd. But you know what would make them even better? If they had a heartbeat.
- Senator Jasper Irving: It is my responsibility, it's part of my job description to protect the American people and that is why we put this new strategy into motion now.
- Janine Roth: So when does it start?
- Senator Jasper Irving: [pauses while looking at his watch] Ten minutes ago.
- [after Arian and Ernest are shot down]
- Lt. Col. Falco: I would love to talk to the motherfucker that said this mountaintop was secure.
- Lt. Col. Falco: Suffice it to say the enemy is getting stronger and the enemy is getting uglier. We're going to put our foot on their throats.
- Senator Jasper Irving: "Mission accomplished."
- Janine Roth: Right.
- Senator Jasper Irving: Writ small. Mistake.
- Janine Roth: Mistake?
- Senator Jasper Irving: Because we now know the enemy with broken backs can still crawl.
- Professor Stephen Malley: You know, professors aren't teachers, they're salesman.
- Todd Hayes: Okay, so what do you sell?
- Professor Stephen Malley: You, to you.
- Lt. Col. Falco: You will set up camp, you will set up comms, you will set up sat links. You will patiently wait, and if fortunate enough to engage the enemy, you will introduce them to the full measure of American mean. Are we clear?
- Briefing Group: [in unison] Hoorah!
- Senator Jasper Irving: What I can say is that this strategy has patience and determination at its core. It ensures that it puts our fighting men in spots where they can face, and fight, and kill the enemy, so that we can then go on about rebuilding that country. And if it takes ten years, that's how long we stay, we do whatever it takes.
- Janine Roth: [quoting the Senator] Whatever it takes.
- Senator Jasper Irving: Whatever it takes.
- Janine Roth: Why did we send 150,000 troops to a country that did not attack us, and one-tenth that number to the one that did?
- Senator Jasper Irving: How many times are you people going to ask the same question?
- Janine Roth: Till we get the answer.
- Todd Hayes: Look, if we're gonna spend tax dollars, our tax dollars, to help people break the law in a safer way, why don't we have a designated drunk-driver lane on the highway too?
- Senator Jasper Irving: In sense we're both on the same team. We're teammates. We're both have a responsibility. You've already sold the war. Now I'm asking you to help me sell the solution.
- Professor Stephen Malley: Have you ever been to Greece?
- Todd Hayes: Greece? No.
- Professor Stephen Malley: No, because their government makes ours look like a streamlined version of the future.