"When God closes a door, he opens a dress."

"I bet there were people walking around in the Bible complaining about kids today." - Roger Sterling
Season 1, Episode 6 "Babylon"

"I shall be both dog and pony."

Season 1, Episode 11, Indian Summer

"After all, I want everything I want."

"Jesus! I’ve been living the last twenty years like I’m on shore leave. What the hell is that about"?
Season 1 Episode 10 "Long Weekend"

Roger: "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."

Season 1, Episode 4 "New Amsterdam"

Roger Sterling:
"I want the Chinamen out of the building by lunchtime."
-Season 1, Episode 3 (Marriage of Figaro)

"I guess what I'm saying is at some point, we've all parked in the wrong garage."
Season 1, Episode 7 "Red in the Face"

Did you ever get three sheets to the wind and try that thing on?

"Once they hit thirty, it's like someone turns off a light." S01, Ep10

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

Season 1, Episode 4

Roger Sterling (to Joan Holloway):
"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."
-Season 1, Episode 11 (Indian Summer)

"Psychiatry is just this year's candy pink stove." - Season 1, Episode 2 (Ladies Room)

As a psych major, I especially loved this quote! :-p

"One minute you’re drinking in a bar and they come and tell you your kid’s been born, the next thing you know they’re heading off to college."
Season 1, Red in the Face

Roger Sterling to Burt Peterson: "It wasn't easy."

Season 3, Episode 1

"Yetta Wahlenda sized mis-step. The girl. The tightrope walker. They got her off of the sidewalk with a hose last week."

Season 3, Episode 1

Don Draper: "What do women want?"

Roger Sterling "WHO CARES??!!!"

"Oysters. Twent-three floors." Season, Episode 7- Red in the Face.

Roger Sterling: "Have we hired any Jews?"
Don Draper: [caught off-guard] "Not on my watch!"
(from Season 1, Episode 1: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes)

Don Draper: "Let me ask you something... what do women want?"
Roger Sterling: "Who cares?"
(from Season 1, Episode 2: Ladies' Room)

Nothing will ever beat, "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."

I mean Roosevelt, I hated the man, but I felt like I knew him.

"Don’t you love the chase? Sometimes it doesn’t work out, those are the stakes. But when it does work out, it’s like having that first cigarette: Head gets all dizzy, your heart pounds, knees go weak. Remember that? Old business is just old business." Season 2, Episode 4 - "Three Sundays".

(as he checks out Don's new secretary Jane for the first time): "Has your wife seen that yet?"

After the Brits have made Campbell and Cosgrove Co-Heads of Accounts...
Roger: "I tried to tell them it was a stupid idea but they don't always get our inflection."

"Ever get three sheets to the wind and try that thing on?"

"Help yourself to anything...not the Stoli"

"Maybe I should drag Burt Peterson in here and fire him again."

“I like redheads. Their mouths are like a drop of strawberry jam in a glass of milk.”

Season One, "Red in the Face"

"It's not Ann-Margret."

Oh, it's so hard to decide! Though really, it's all about Slattery's delivery.. Some top contenders:

"When a man gets to a point in his life when his name's on the building, he can get an unnatural sense of entitlement."
Red in the Face (Season 1, episode 7)

"Oh take off your dress! You get a chance at American Airlines, you take it. End of discussion."
Flight 1 (season 2, episode 2)

"He's young, handsome, a Navy hero. Honestly, it shouldn't be too difficult to convince America that Dick Nixon is a winner." Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (Pilot)

above is from Season 3, Episode 4 - The Arrangements

"I like redheads. Their mouths are like a drop of strawberry jam in a glass of milk."

Season One, Episode Seven

"Do you want to be right, or do you want to be married?" -- to Don at the bar in Season 2's "Six Months' Leave"

(about the Volkswagen ad): Bernbach. He’s a Jew. If I were him, I wouldn’t want to help reindustrialize Germany.

Season 1, Episode 3 - The Marriage of Figaro

I don't even care about the wedding anymore. It's all about winning..." Season 3, Episode 2

Don Draper: What kind of company are we going to be?
Roger Sterling: The kind where everyone has a summer house?

Season 2, Episode 2 - Flight 1

To Joan, "Oysters Rockefeller, Beef Wellington, Napoleons, if we leave this lunch alone much longer it's likely to take over Europe."

Roger Sterling: Kennedy’s daring them to bomb us, right when I get a second chance.

Season 2, Episode 13, Meditations in an Emergency

Season 1: Ladies Room
"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."

Oh and meant to add this one:
Season 1: Babylon
"Aren’t you even going to have any of this? Look, we’ve got Oysters Rockefeller! Beef Wellington! Napoleons! We leave this lunch alone, it’ll take over Europe."

"Crab, Duck; Duck, Crab."
Season 2
Episode 8

"God I miss the 50s."

Aren’t you even going to have any of this? Look, we’ve got Oysters Rockefeller! Beef Wellington! Napoleons! We leave this lunch alone, it’ll take over Europe.

"Oh, look. Princess Grace swallowed a basketball." S3 Love Among the Ruins

"Eat our sweetmeats, drink our wine." Sounds like Shakespeare but isn't. S3 Love Among the Ruins

"Marriage, it's an unnatural thing. I don't know why we do it but we do." S2 Six Months Leave

"Shall we cast them in bronze and mount them on the credenza?" S1 E10

"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.'"
--Roger Sterling, quoting his pop, from Season 1, Episode 10 (Long Weekend)

"I told [Pryce] it was a stupid idea, but they don't always get our inflection."
Season 3, Episode 1

When Don asks what kind of company Sterling Cooper is going to be, Roger comes back with, "The kind where everyone has a summer house?" Season 2, Episode 2

As the group wonders why their shot-for-shot recreation of the opening of Bye, Bye, Birdie isn't right, Roger figures it out: "It's not Ann-Margret."

Season 3, Episode 4

S3E2
"You ever get three sheets to the wind and try that thing on?"

The episode where they fire Freddy Rumsen for pissing his pants:

Girl at underground gambling establishment to Don and Roger:
"Winners or losers tonight gentlemen?"

Roger:
"Losers tonight, winners in general."

Classic.

Come, eat our sweet meats. Drink our wine.
Season 3, Episode 2

Roger Sterling:

"Clients are like Marriage, you get in it for the wrong reasons and eventually, it's going to hit you in the face"

my favorite!!

I have to agree with "Do you want to be right or do you want to be married?" I try to remind myself of that often!

Roger Sterling: "All these years I thought it would be the ulcer. Did everything they told me. Drank the cream, ate the butter, I get hit with a coronary. Son of a bitch, it hurts."

Season 1, Episode 10, "Long Weekend"

Roger enlightening us about what doctors didn't know about diet in 1960.

Roger Sterling: 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 Campbell: [nods vigorously] I won't let you down, Don.
Roger Sterling: Jesus! Campbell...don't ever say that.

Episode 4, New Amsterdam
Season 1

"Who cares"

damn, can't remember the episode. OH YES,
S1E1, when Don asked "What do women want?"

No comment, just a scene: oysters.

Once in a while we all park in the wrong garage.

Can I just fire everyone?
-- Season 2, Episode 2

"Remember Don…when God closes a door, he opens a dress."
Season 1, episode title "Long Weekend"

"....Princess Grace swallowed a basketball."
Season 3, Episode 1

Do great lines told to Roger count? How about: "Your wife's name is MONA"

Best Roger Sterling line:

Roger (to Don once they’ve sold SC to the Brits):

“You’ll come in Monday and everything will be the same – only there’ll be diamonds on the doorknobs!”

Hard Marker

[to Joan] Are we actually gonna get in a fight over a movie? You know, Mona had a dream once where I hit the dog with the car. She was mad at me all day - and I never hit the dog. We don't even have a dog. (Season 1, Episode 10)

Roger (to Don once they’ve sold SC to the Brits):

“You’ll come in Monday and everything will be the same – only there’ll be diamonds on the doorknobs!”

S-2 E-10

“How do I sleep? I sleep fine…on a mattress stuffed with money!”

S1/E4

to joan in "indian summer" 1st season

"hi honey"
it not the line that gets me but the look on don and burt"s faces.

Roger: (intended to Don) "Do you have plans tonight?"
Peggy: "Uh, no, not really."
Roger: (smirking) "I'm glad you enjoyed that dear, but I was talking to Don..."

"Magical Night" Season 1, Episode 7

Better yet-
and also from RED IN THE FACE, Season 1, episode 7:
Pete (to Roger and Don): "Are you two talking?"
Roger (to Pete): "Yeah, Don and I do that all the time when you're not around." Then saying "Goodnight Paul"

From what Jon Hamm & John Slattery have stated on the DVD commentaries, they treat Peter (Vincent Kartheiser ) the same way off camera as well.

"Ever get three sheets to the wind and try that thing on?"
Season 3, Episode 1

From Love among the Ruins

Roger to Peggy: What would your father have to do for you to not want him at your wedding?

Peggy: My father passed away.

Roger: There you go. You'd do anything.

From Season One

Roger to Joan: We don't even have a dog!

From Red in the Face

Roger to Betty: Be sure and tell her (Sally) that I ate the"M" in mom.

"I blame Mona." Season three, episode 2 Love Among the Ruins. He blames MONA???!!

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told my daughter. If you put a penny in a jar every time you make love in the first year of marriage, and then you take a penny out of the jar every time you make love in the second year, you know what you have? A jar full of pennies.”

Season Two, Episode Five, ‘The New Girl’

At the meeting of the board, to vote on the merger, staring at Alice's two-headed mink stole: "I'm sorry, I don't know whose eyes to look at."

To Don in Episode 213 "Now go back to your office and figure out how much I made on the deal."

In 2.9, Six Months Leave in the elevator going down to the gambling club.

Roger: (after having paid the guy because he doesn't remember the password) Is it Milwaukee?
Guy: Yes, sir.
Roger: Son of a bitch.

"It's your life - you don't know where it's going but you know it ends badly"

Season 2

If the Buddha had a brilliant but slightly shady brother, he would be Roger Sterling, grasshoppers.

Bert Cooper
Burning incense

"It's easy adjusting to happiness." -Roger referring to being newlywed
Season 3, Ep 3

"I want the Chinamen out of the building by lunchtime."

Season 1, Episode 3

"You're the only one around here who doesn't have that stupid look on her face" - Roger to Peggy, in the elevator.

Season 3, Ep 2

"Remember Don: When God closes a door, He opens a dress" is by far the best one.

My top two fave quotes have already been posted...
"Look, we’ve got Oysters Rockefeller! Beef Wellington! Napoleons! We leave this lunch alone, it’ll take over Europe."
"I'm sorry, I don't know whose eyes to look at."

So I offer these from my favourite episode, Season 01, Episode 07, "Red in the Face":
"All I can get from this story is that Hitler didn't smoke. And I do."
"Come on over. I'll put on my whites - we'll pretend it's VJ Day."
"Can something be done about this sadness?" (holds up empty liquor bottle)
"Run? My name is on the building. They can wait for me."

"It's not Ann-Margret." (from Season 3, Episode 4, "The Arrangements")

Thanks.

"Hold off on the menus. We're going to take another lap first..."

then later, with don and freddy:
"oh, just in time. uhhh, candian club neat, will schmidt gibson, grandad rocks."

perfectly ordered.

Season 2, Episode 9

re: ascratch's: "At the meeting of the board, to vote on the merger, staring at Alice's two-headed mink stole: 'I'm sorry, I don't know whose eyes to look at.' "

HAHAHA! I forgot about that one: Good call!

It's not Ann Margaret
This season, last week's episode

Staring at Alice's mink stole: "I'm sorry, i don't know whose eyes to look at." My favorite!

Betty: Don doesn't like to talk about himself
Roger: An ad man who doesn't like to talk about himself, I think I may cry.

Season 1, Episode 2 "Ladies Room"

this blog makes me want to see all the above quotes in one collage.

"I feel like I have been on shore leave for the last 20 years"

Pete and Ken fist fighting in background at SC...Roger walks up to Don as he is leaving.....
Roger : "You taking the train"
Don : "Yeah"
Roger : "You want a ride?"
Don : "Yeah"
Roger and Don walk out the door. They never even notice the fist fight in the background - as if it happens all the time.

"Oh Jesus"! While clutching his chest in pain (second heart attack)

Season 1 episode 11

(E 303, singing in blackface) "I do this at home for her, with a little shoe polish. She thought it was a scream! Ha ha ha..."

"There you go. You'd do anything." when Peggy says her father is dead and obviously won't be at her weddind.

Season 3 episode 2

From Season 3, Ep.3 "My Old Kentucky Home":

"Will someone please get her a glass of milk?"

"You know that's the great thing about a place like this--you can come here and be happy, and you get to choose your guests."

As he's walking into Don's office with a bottle:

"They say once you start drinking alone, you're an alcoholic. I'm really trying to avoid that."

Season 2, Episode 1, "For Those Who Think Young"

"I have a very good friend... can't remember the guy's name."

Season 2, Episode 9 "Six Month Leave."

Well, in the interest of not putting a bunch of repeats, here is one of my favorites:

Season 1 Episode 9

Pete and Ken are fighting in the background.
Roger: (To Don, both pretending to be oblivious) Drop you in the station?
Don: Sure.

from The Jet Set
Roger:Of course, you might have to come in a be an advocate for yourself.
Duck: I'd be proud to present my accomplishments.
Roger: Good. Because I'm at a loss.

The Fog Season 3 Episode 5
"Now I'm going to have to give everyone a hand job."

" Did ya ever get three sheets to the wind and try that thing on?" ( Referring to the pretentious suit of armor in what's his face's office. )

"I should drop kick you from the roof"

Season 3 episode 5

The Fog: "Do you know how many hand job's I'm going to have to give?..."

Season 3, Episode 5, Guy Walks into an Advertising Agency

"Do you know how many hand jobs I'm going to have to give?"

Season 2, Episode 12, "The Mountain King"

Peggy approaches Roger to ask him for Freddy's old office. Roger says something like, "Hey, I'm in a hurry, Honey" Peggy says, "I'm a Copy Writer..." and Rogers says "Did I say something else?" Lol!! That's soooooooo Roger!

"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."

-Season 1, Episode 11 (Indian Summer)

"Do you have any idea how many hand jobs I'll have to give?" Episode 5 "Fog" When he was "flogging" Campbell for the Admiral idea to appeal to Negroes.

I so have to agree with ds3boys about the "Do you have any idea how many hand jobs I'll have to give?" to the firm's clients after the flogging of Campbell for Epsiode 305, "Fog"

While flogging Pete in "The Fog"

"I'm going to have to convincel them I had you killed!!!"

"Do you know what I like about clear liquors - vodka, gin, rum - is you can see where you're standing."
- Six Month Leave, Season Two

His lines are fantastic... but the way he delivers them is equally fantastic.

Joan walks in while Roger is playing with a paddle ball in his office.

Joan: You know, you can hear that outside.
Roger: Nobody knows what I'm doing; it's good for mystique.

Season 2 Episode 5

"God, I miss the 50's"....

RE: By lasttraintocool on September 13, 2009 2:46 AM As he's walking into Don's office with a bottle:
"They say once you start drinking alone, you're an alcoholic. I'm really trying to avoid that."

a-ha! another good one. But you forgot Draper's retort, as he hands a glass of bourbon to Sterling, which wrapped it up perfectly:
"Then I guess I'm doing us both a favor."

From Season 1 - Episode - New Amsterdam (I think).

Don pours a drink for Roger after he's just flogged Peter for trying to get Don in trouble.

"Ya' know, I bet the daily relationship with that bottle attracts more people to get into advertising than anything else."
______________________________________
From Season 3 - Episode - The Fog

Post delivery of baby Gene, Don back at office and secretary hands the phone to Don...

Don: Roger!
Roger: (while eating ice cream/pudding) Da Da...
______________________________________

"You know he's going to lose his foot!?!" (to Sterling about the new exec getting run over at the office party with the John Deere.) Sterling: "wow and just when he got it in the door...."

"In this business sometimes it comes down to-I don't like that guy." Season three; episode 5

"The Brits are coming." Season three; episode six.

I think the most recent bon mot is going to take a lot of beating, for pure Sterlingian callousness as well as quick wit.

Kinsey: He [Guy McKendrick] might lose his foot.

Sterling: Right when he got it in the door.

[3:6 -- Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency]

" I am sure somewhere, this has happened before."

"Somewhere in the history of our business, this has happened before."

Season 3, Episode 6:

"Sit down, Sissy Mary, you're pale."

Ah, the days before political correctness...

"Somewhere in this business, this has happened before"
Season 3: Episode 6 -- Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency

"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."
-Roger Sterling, Season 1, Episode 4, New Amsterdam

"Don't be a sissy mary."

Season 3, episode 6

"It looks like Hiroshima out there. Jesus."

From the last episode.... I love the way he say's it. With no offense, of course.

[walking into Don's office] I'll never get used to the fact that most of the time it looks like you're doing nothing. - "Ladies Room", Season 1

Okay, didn't follow the rules before. Here we go:

"Aren’t you even going to have any of this? Look, we’ve got Oysters Rockefeller! Beef Wellington! Napoleons! We leave this lunch alone, it’ll take over Europe." Season 1, episode 6, "Babylon"

And my other favorite: "Remember Don…when God closes a door, he opens a dress." Season 1, episode 10, Long Weekend.

Roger: "How's he doing?"
Kinsey: "He might lose his foot."
Roger: "Right when he got it in the door."

Season 3 Episode 6 - Guy walks into an advertising agency

That dialogue was a riot. I had my office laughing over that one!!

"It's never as good as you think it's going to be."

Season 3 Episode 5 - The Fog

From 6 Month Leave:
Roger & Don are casting Freddie adrift at the restaurant and Roger says: "There's a line Freddie and you WET it. "

Season 3, Episode 6: "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency"

Kinsey: He might lose his foot.
Roger: Right when he got it in the door.

Most of the good ones have already been mentioned but here's one more:

From "The Long Weekend"

Roger rides the girl into the room while saying...(southern accent)
"Don't let my spurs get on ya."

Season 3, Episode 6: Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency
Sterling says regarding the foot-chopping incident:
"Right when he got it in the door."

I never knew you were such a fan of the mollusk.
Season 1, Episode 7: Red in the Face

Season 3 Episode 6..... The John Deere guy is going to lose a foot ... My fave line Roger used... "Ah just as he got it in the door". Love his dry humor!

"You know my mother was right. It's mistake to be conspicuously happy. Some people don't like it."

Season 3, Episode 3: "My Old Kentucky Home"

"You know my mother was right. It's a mistake to be conspicuously happy. Some people don't like it."

Season 3, Episode 3: "My Old Kentucky Home"

"I didn't think you had it in you...and I mean that."

---Roger Sterling to Harry and Pete
"Shoot"
Season 1, Episode 9

Roger to Don re: the British ad mafia ''I told him it was a stupid idea, but he didn't seem to get my inflection."

Season 3, Episode 6. Roger, Pete and others are discussing the horrific accident that occurred when MacKendrick (the new British guy set to head the New York office) lost his foot to the lawnmower:

Roger says, “Right when he got it in the door!”

So good. It's true; he has the very best lines. That bastard.

Season 3, Episode 6, Roger tells the boys "Trust me: somewhere in the history of this business, this has happened before."

Season 3, Episode 6 when the British staff arrive at the firm: "The British are coming!"

The way he said it left me laughing so hard!

Season Three - Episode Ten "The Color Blue"

"I don't think it's a bad idea to outdrink your clientele."

"Well, I'm not going to sit here and brag about how big I am."

Season 3, Episode 11, "The Gypsy and the Hobo"

"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."

Season 1 - Episode 11 - Indian Summer

"Roger Sterling (about the Volkswagen ad): Bernbach. He’s a Jew. If I were him, I wouldn’t want to help reindustrialize Germany."

Season 1 - Episode 3 - Marriage of Figaro

"Roger Sterling: And now you’re sniffing around because I have a golden pork chop dangling from my neck."

Season 3 - Episode 13 - Shut the Door, Have a Seat

Sorry, I had 3. And a bajillion more. What can I say. Roger's timing and his delivery are simply the best.