Don Draper

Mad Men

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Played by:

Jon Hamm

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Don Draper Quotes

	Season 3 / Episode 2: - Love Among the Ruins Don Draper: In the interest of time, you want to demolish Penn Station and New York hates it. Edgar Raffit: Not all of New York - A vocal minority. Don Draper: Can they stop it? Edgar Raffit: Well, I think all the hubbub is making it unpleasant for... Don Draper: [interrupts] But they can't stop it, can they? Edgar Raffit: Why do you people insist on making us sound like villains? Don Draper: Your concern over public opinion shows a guilty conscience. What good is that serving you if what is to be done is already under way? Edgar Raffit: So let's say I don't have a guilty conscience. Don Draper: Good. And let's also say that change is neither good nor bad, it simply is. It can be greeted with terror or joy, a tantrum that says "I want it the way it was," or a dance that says, Look, something new!" Edgar Raffit: Would you draw the line at 50 percent? Don Draper: I'm not drawing a line at all. P.R. people understand this, but they can never execute it. If you don't like what is being said, then change the conversation. Edgar Raffit: What is that conversation? Don Draper: I was in California. Everything is new, and it's clean. The people are filled with hope. New York City is in decay. But Madison Square Garden is the beginning of a new city on a hill.
	Season 2 / Episode 9: - Six Month Leave Don Draper: It's your life. You don't know how long it's gonna last, but you know it doesn't end well. You've gotta move forward... as soon as you can figure out what that means.
	Season 2 / Episode 7: - The Gold Violin Anna: [flashback] Are you Donald Draper? Don Draper: Yes, I am. If it's about my circular, many of the models are gone. But, uh, I'm sure we could find you something. Anna: Oh, I'm not here to buy a car. You're a hard man to find. Don Draper: Excuse me? Anna: You're not Don Draper.
	Season 2 / Episode 5: - The New Girl Don Draper: This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.
	Season 2 / Episode 2: - Flight 1 Don Draper: I'm enjoying the story so far, but I have a feeling its not going to end well.
	Season 2 / Episode 1: - For Those Who Think Young Peggy Olson: Sex sells. Don Draper: Says who? Just so you know, the people who talk that way think that monkeys can do this. They take all this monkey crap and stick it in a briefcase, completely unaware that their success depends on something more than shoeshine.
	Season 2 / Episode 1: - For Those Who Think Young Don Draper: You are the product. You feeling something. That's what sells. Not them. Not sex. They can't do what we do and they hate us for it.
	Season 2 / Episode 1: - For Those Who Think Young Peggy Olson: Sex sells. Don Draper: Says who? Just so you know, the people who talk that way think that monkeys can do this. They take all this monkey crap and just stick it in a briefcase completely unaware that their success depends on something more than their shoeshine. YOU are the product. You- FEELING something. That's what sells. Not them. Not sex. They can't do what we do, and they hate us for it.
	Season 1 / Episode 13: - The Wheel Don Draper: Nostalgia - it's delicate, but potent. 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 spaceship, it's a time machine. It goes backwards, and 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 let's us travel the way a child travels - around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved.
	Season 1 / Episode 8: - The Hobo Code Don Draper: I hate to break it to you, but there is no big lie, there is no system, the universe is indifferent.
	Season 1 / Episode 6: - Babylon Don Draper: Utopia. Rachel Menken: Maybe. They taught us at Barnard about that word, 'utopia'. The Greeks had two meaning for it: 'eu-topos', meaning the good place, and 'u-topos' meaning the place that cannot be.
	Season 1 / Episode 4: - New Amsterdam Don Draper: Listen, Pete, I need you to go get a cardboard box. Put your things in it. Okay?
	Season 1 / Episode 4: - New Amsterdam Don Draper: Remember when I told you about Pete Campbell's last day? It's today. Roger: What'd he do? Don Draper: While we were busting our asses on the Bethelem Steel account he was at the Regis Hotel pitching copy. His copy! Roger: That little snot!
	Season 1 / Episode 4: - New Amsterdam Don Draper: [talking about Pete Campbell] He's essential to the process. We're probably luckier to have him than you are. Trudy Campbell: Oh I doubt that. Don Draper: Well, maybe you're right.
	Season 1 / Episode 4: - New Amsterdam Don Draper: [after he and his colleagues have been discussing an unusual ad from a rival agency] Well there must be something about it. We've been discussing it for fifteen minutes, and this [holds up the magazine] is Playboy.
	Season 1 / Episode 3: - Marriage of Figaro Don Draper: [to Rachel Menkin] What is this? You can't convince me for a second that you were ever unloved. [he pulls her closer and they kiss]
	Season 1 / Episode 3: - Marriage of Figaro Helen Bishop: Quite a crowd in there. Don Draper: [watching children play house] It's the same crowd out here.
	Season 1 / Episode 2: - Ladies Room Don Draper: I can't decide... if you have everything... or nothing. Midge Daniels: I live in the moment. Nothing is everything.
	Season 1 / Episode 2: - Ladies Room Midge Daniels: [finding Don outside her apartment door] 11 a.m. Did you get fired? Don Draper: Brought Betty into the city to see the doctor, but honestly, I think I'm not feeling so great. I called in sick. Midge Daniels: Don't bring that here. I'm serious, Don, don't talk to me about her. That makes me feel cruel.
	Season 1 / Episode 1: - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes Roger: Have we hired any Jews? Don Draper: Not on my watch!
	Season 1 / Episode 1: - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes Don Draper: We should get married. Midge: You think I'd make a good ex-wife?
	Season 1 / Episode 1: - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes Don Draper: People were buying cigarettes before Freud was born.
	Season 1 / Episode 1: - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes Pete Campbell: A man like you I'd follow into combat blindfolded, and I wouldn't be the first. Am I right, buddy? Don Draper: Let's take it a little slower. I don't want to wake up pregnant.
	Season 1 / Episode 1: - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes Don Draper: 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. 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, because there isn't one.
	Season 1 / Episode 1: - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes Don Draper: I'm not going to let a woman talk to me like that!
	Season 1 / Episode 1: - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes Don Draper: This is the greatest advertisting opportunity since the invention of cereal. We have six identical companies making six identical products. We can say anything we want. How do you make your cigarettes? Lee Garner, Jr.: I don't know. Lee Garner, Sr.: Shame on you. We breed insect repellant tobacco seeds, plant them in the North Carolina sunshine, grow it, cut it, cure it, toast it... Don Draper: There you go. There you go. [Writes on chalkboard and underlines: "IT'S TOASTED."] Lee Garner, Jr.: But everybody's else's tobacco is toasted. Don Draper: No. Everybody else's tobacco is poisonous. Lucky Strikes'... is toasted. Roger: Well, gentlemen, I don't think I have to tell you what you just witnessed here. Lee Garner, Jr.: I think you do. Don Draper: Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing is OK. You are OK. Lee Garner, Sr.: It's toasted. [Smiles] I get it.
	Season 1 / Episode 1: - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes Don Draper: All I have is a crush-proof box, and four out of five dead people smoked your brand.
	Unknown Episode: Don Draper: I want you to do something for me Pete. I want you to get a cardboard box, and put all your stuff in it.
	Unknown Episode: Don Draper: What do you want me to say?

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