Mad Men Quotes

What are the things that make adults depressed? The master list is too comprehensive to quantify (plane crashes, unemployment, killer bees, impotence, Stringer Bell's murder, gambling addictions, crib death, the music of Bon Iver, et al.) But whenever people talk about their personal bouts of depression in the abstract, there are two obstructions I hear more than any other. The possibility that one's life is not important, and the mundane predictability of day-to-day existence. Talk to a depressed person (particularly one who's nearing midlife), and one (or both) of these problems will inevitably be described. Since the end of World War II, every generation of American children has been endlessly conditioned to believe that their lives are supposed to be great -- a meaningful life is not just possible, but required. Part of the reason forward-thinking media networks like Twitter succeed is because people want to believe that every immaterial thing they do is pertinent by default; it's interesting because it happened to them, which translates as interesting to all. At the same time, we concede that a compelling life is supposed to be spontaneous and unpredictable-- any artistic depiction of someone who does the same thing every day portrays that character as tragically imprisoned (January Jones on Mad Men, Ron Livingston in Office Space, the lyrics to "Eleanor Rigby," all novels set in affluent suburbs, pretty much every project Sam Mendes has ever conceived, etc.) If you know ~ Chuck Klosterman

You came here because we do this better than you and part of that is letting our creatives be unproductive until they are. ~ Don Draper

I teach that all men are mad. ~ Horace

Over the years, it seems 'Firefly' has only gained momentum rather than lost it. I still get letters from people who watched the show - I get more 'Firefly' than 'Mad Men' letters. ~ Christina Hendricks

There are different categories of madmen, and different types of asylums! I know absolutely nothing about the asylums that house the madman who thinks he is a space man. Would you believe that 90% of madmen are treated in outside clinics? ~ Stephen Richards

I looked up affirmative action once in Wikipedia, and it said, 'A measure by which white men are discriminated against,' and I got so mad. ~ Gloria Steinem

I keep going to a lot of places and ending up somewhere I've already been ~ Matthew Weiner

You know, 'Mad Men' is notoriously secretive with its plotlines, even with exposing them to actors on the show. ~ Alison Brie

When I did 'Ugly Betty' it was very similar to working on 'Mad Men' - great group of people in their own little world. But I don't really see a lot of difference. Of course, on the cable shows, you can tackle subjects and be more specific, because networks have to appeal to the masses, but that's constantly changing and evolving. ~ Bryan Batt

I always say the classier cousin of 'Anchorman' is 'Mad Men,' because when you really look at it, why do people really love Don Draper in 'Mad Men?' He's just a terrible guy. But we know why he's terrible, and I think that's really key to why you can be sympathetic to a character. ~ Adam McKay

To be honest, I owned one suit before I filmed 'Mad Men' - the one suit that you have to have as an adult. Outside of that, I never really felt comfortable in a suit. ~ Aaron Staton

I care about Roger Sterling, one of the most subtle and amazing characters in dramatic history [Mad men]. This guys who knows precisely who he is, yet leaves us time after time hoping desperately for him to finally grab control of his life and some responsibility for those around him. ~ Chris Matthews

Amy Pond, there's something you'd better understand about me 'cause it's important, and one day your life may depend on it: I am definitely a mad man with a box! ~ Matt Smith

It took seven years from the time I wrote Mad Men until it finally got on the screen. I lived every day with that script as if it were going to happen tomorrow. That's the faith you have to have. ~ Matthew Weiner

We don't cut up when mad men are bred by the old legitimate regular stock religions, but we can't allow wildcat religions to indulge in such disastrous experiments. ~ Mark Twain

Man cannot bear his own portrait. The image of his limits and his own determinacy exasperates him, drives him mad. ~ Paul Valery

Our lives are awkward and fragile and we have only one thing to keep us sane: pity, and the man without pity is mad. ~ Edward Bond

I've enjoyed watching 'Lost.' I'm a big fan of 'Mad Men.' ~ Timothy Hutton

I like that 'Mad Men' is now an adjective I use to describe clothing when I'm shopping: 'I like this top. It's very 'Mad Men.' ~ Alison Brie

Our worst fears lie in anticipation. ~ Don Draper

The way we dress on 'Mad Men' is so associated with old photographs, with people's parents and grandparents. ~ Christina Hendricks

I came into the advertising business in 1952, at the age of sixteen, as a delivery boy for a stuffy, old-line advertising agency named Ruthruff and Ryan, which could have served as the setting for the 'Mad Men' television series without moving a desk. ~ Jerry Della Femina

I watch 'Mad Men,' I knit scarves, I cook and am very, very normal. Honestly. ~ Annie Lennox

50 Cent is a hero to me because he's overcome so many things. He's been shot nine times and lived. I had a cousin got shot once in the ankle. Dead. I had to go to the funeral. I was mad. Man, you ain't hard! You ain't hard! ~ Bill Bellamy

I sort of feel like 'Mad Men' fans are like sci-fi fans because they are very, very devoted, and they're very loyal and very excited about it. ~ Christina Hendricks

Matt Weiner is very perceptive; there's something about the rhythms and the way people speak that is very authentic to the actor. But there are qualities that are dissimilar. The characters on 'Mad Men' are struggling with pretty profound unhappiness, but I can tell you this is a happy bunch. ~ Aaron Staton

Men in their hearts hate women. It doesn't matter how much we love them. They hate us ~ Jessica Valenti

We need to think long and hard about sanity, a word most of us cling to with a steel grip. Does fear of being regarded by others as insane confine me in a cage of "responsible" behavior that limits my freedom and cripples my ability to love? And is it in fact such a wonderful thing to be regarded as sane? After all, the chief administrator of the Holocaust, Adolph Eichmann, was declared "quite sane" by the psychiatrists who examined him before his trial in Jerusalem. Surely the same psychiatrists would have found Saint Basil, Saint Theodore and Saint Xenia all insane - and Saint Francis, and that most revered of all mad men, the Son of Man, the Savior, Jesus of Nazareth. ~ Jim Forest

I dropped out of the business for 8 years, and I taught English as a second language. Then I decided to go back to acting, and I got 'Mad Men'. ~ Randee Heller

Lesli Glatter directed an episode of 'Mad Men' and then came in to direct an episode of 'House.' And she didn't recognize me at all. ~ Anne Dudek

Most men are within a finger's breadth of being mad. ~ Diogenes

Within the U.S., you could have argued that most people who watch 'Mad Men' would watch 'House of Cards.' But the viewing is much more on par with the large-scale mainstream things like 'The Walking Dead.' It was much younger than we thought. ~ Ted Sarandos

There's nothing I don't love about 'Mad Men.' ~ Andy Cohen

I was a switchboard operator on the first season of 'Mad Men.' I was the oldest and bitterest. ~ Stephanie Courtney

I would be lucky to be remembered as Harry Crane. That being said, I think it's a goal for most actors to have the opportunity to play a variety of characters, so I hope any non-'Mad Men' role feels as separate as possible from Harry. ~ Rich Sommer

At the time I just was like, I can't believe I am on the show, and the first thing I have to do is an entire song and dance routine for the whole cast of 'Mad Men.' ~ Jessica Pare

I have read and re-read the Arusha Declaration and found nothing wrong with it except perhaps replacing a few commas here and there ... it was clear for some of us that it would only be a mad man who would stand up and defend the Arusha Declaration. ~ Julius Nyerere

Oftentimes when I do a project I do get influenced by the wardrobe. I certainly learned a lot from Mad Men and from Janie (Bryant) in particular. She's just so fabulous. ~ Christina Hendricks

A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, 'You are mad; you are not like us. ~ St. Anthony The Great

I guess working on 'Mad Men' turned me onto AMC and really got me watching the network, and so with that I got a good idea of the type of show they like to produce. ~ Eric Ladin

How I wished I'd have had a camera of my own, a mad mental camera that could register pictorial shots, of the photographic artist himself prowling about for his ultimate shot - an epic in itself. (On the road with Robert Frank, 1958) ~ Jack Kerouac

I was the nerdy one. I always played those kind of characters until Mad Men. ~ Christina Hendricks

I was taught to think outside the box. Before my grandfather was one of the original Mad Men, he and a group of other Air Force Intelligence officers formalized brainstorming as a problem solving technique. He taught the concept that creativity can be taught at Buffalo University. My dad invented toys. My mom was a photographer. ~ M.J. Rose

Before 'Mad Men,' I definitely had very dry spells and I know what those feel like, and I don't think that ever leaves you as an actor. ~ Rich Sommer

Today's a good day for Armageddon, ~ Anthony T. Hincks

('Mad Men') was my final audition of the pilot season. It had been three miserable, horrible months where I had zero callbacks, zero positive reception, one of those pilot seasons that makes you pretty sure you are never going to be an actor and never want to be an actor. And then that happened. ~ Rich Sommer

What happens on 'Mad Men' in terms of the acting and the writing and the directing, it's superior. And yes, it has tremendous cache and buzz because it's become iconic, but it also deserves all the kudos and the awards as well, because it's a beautiful show to look at. ~ Kurt Sutter

With 'Mad Men,' you feel like you're a member of Seal Team Six when you're shooting. ~ Ben Feldman

I guess maybe someone at 'Dexter' saw the 'Mad Men' stuff and thought, 'He can do this.' ~ Colin Hanks

I don't think any of us could have possibly anticipated how successful Mad Men has been. When we were working on the pilot, we loved it. We thought it was special. We hoped and prayed it'd be a success. But, we didn't count on it. ~ Elisabeth Moss

Man is quite insane. He wouldn?t know how to create a maggot, and he creates Gods by the dozen. ~ Michel De Montaigne

I once attended an advertising conference held at the Greenbrier Hotel in 1968. The dean of the original Mad Men, the great David Ogilvy, was the keynote speaker. The subject of his speech was the new creative revolution in advertising. ~ Jerry Della Femina

What happens with 'Mad Men,' it's like an Elvis Costello album; I'll watch it, and then I immediately have to watch it again. AMC will play it back-to-back. I have a tendency to yell at it when my wife's not around because if she catches me yelling at 'Mad Men,' then it gets weird. ~ Michael Weatherly

I like 'Mad Men,' and I think 'The Killing' is pretty great too. I like 'Brothers & Sisters.' ~ Betsy Brandt

I've been watching Mad Men since day one. ~ Gayle King

I don't usually watch a lot of TV, but 'Mad Men' changed my perspective. I admire Matthew Weiner who came up with the idea and wrote such a great TV series, and the broadcasting company for being bold enough to air such a series. ~ Park Chan-wook

I do feel like the end of 'Mad Men' is a sort of a coming of age. ~ Jessica Pare

A young man is so strong, so mad, so certain, and so lost. He has everything and he is able to use nothing. ~ Thomas Wolfe

I never knew what Amazon was. I've never seen any of those series, even on cable. I've never seen The Sopranos, or Mad Men. I'm out every night and when I come home, I watch the end of the baseball or basketball game, and there's Charlie Rose and I go to sleep. ~ Woody Allen

When God closes a door, he opens a dress. ~ Mad Men

It is the very error of the moon; She comes more nearer earth than she was wont, And makes men mad. ~ William Shakespeare

A lot of the fiction I read growing up was post-war American, and not all of it centers on Manhattan, but around people of the Mad Men generation, people like John Cheever and, in more modern times, Don DeLillo, who I always mention. ~ Dylan Moran

I live in New York and got a call from my agent saying there was this new role on 'Mad Men,' it might be recurring and they're seeing people tomorrow. I said, 'OK, this is one of those things where you hedge your bets, use your miles and get on a plane.' I flew out Tuesday morning and got the job on a Wednesday. ~ Cara Buono

The man is clear in his mind. But his soul is mad. ~ Patton Oswalt

I'll always miss Mad Men, of course, but it is interesting to finally answer different questions after nine years. Not that that's a criticism to anyone, but just simply as a character for nine years, you're going to get a lot of the same questions for many, many, many years. This is sort of refreshing. ~ Christina Hendricks

Nobody ever recognizes me from 'Mad Men,' because they darken my hair a little bit. ~ Anne Dudek

I would say what Mad Men has taught me has been a super elevated evaluation of text in general, and understanding subtext, and understanding where a character comes from - what he means by this or by that. ~ Ben Feldman

The 12 years that I was improvising are why I got the number of commercials I got when I was in New York and why I got 'The Devil Wears Prada,' and it's why I even got in the door for 'Mad Men.' ~ Rich Sommer

[Peggy Olson]: Just try it. ~ Matthew Weiner

Well, I'm against Bush. I'm definitely not pro-Bush. I think he's a maniac and a mad man, and I think he needs to go. As far as Kerry
you know, I think that it really came down to a choice of the lesser of two evils, and unfortunately Bush won. ~ Roger Miret

What bizarre things does not one find in a great city when one knows how to walk about and how to look! Life swarms with innocent monsters. Oh Lord my God, Thou Creator, Thou Master, Thou who hast made law and liberty, Thou the Sovereign who dost allow, Thou the Judge who dost pardon, Thou who art full of Motives and of Causes, Thou who hast (it may be) placed within my soul the love of horror in order to turn my hear to Thee, like the cure which follows the knife; Oh Lord, have pity, have pity upon the mad men and women that we are! Oh Creator, is it possible that monsters should exist in the eyes of Him alone who knoweth why they exist, how they have made themselves, and how they would have made themselves, and could not? ~ Charles Baudelaire

Matthew Wiener on 'Mad Men' writes the entire series before they start shooting, and if you have that, then what you can do with character and story is not at all unlike what you can do in a novel. ~ Salman Rushdie

I'm consistently blown away by 'Mad Men.' Having spent so much time in the writers' room, I'm cursed in that anytime I watch something, I'm always calculating what the writers are up to. ~ Maria Semple

A mother deserves a day off to care for a sick child or sick parent without running into hardship - and you know what, a father does, too. It's time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a 'Mad Men' episode. ~ Barack Obama

In the industry, I got a lot of attention for 'Mad Men,' because everyone in the industry watches it. ~ Sarah Drew

Mad Men disrupts the seamlessness of ubiquity, ~ Gary R. Edgerton

With 'Mad Men,' people who grew up or were living in that time, they love to talk about what it was really like. ~ Cara Buono

They are mad men (Jews), but you should not burn them for that. ~ Voltaire

Great wine requires a mad man to grow the vine, a wise man to watch over it, a lucid poet to make it, and a lover to drink it. ~ Salvador Dali

Men are mad and gods are madder. ~ George R R Martin

I constantly remind myself that resting takes confidence. Anyone can train like a mad man but to embrace rest and to allow all the hard training to come out takes mental strength. ~ Ryan Hall

What a strange world in which a man cannot remain unique even by taking the trouble to go mad. ~ G.K. Chesterton

'Mad Men' doesn't capture one single thing about the decor, costumes, or sexual interaction. It is a total projection of contemporary snarky attitudes into the past. ~ Camille Paglia

I don't have a lot of money. I get some from Mad Men. But I don't think I'm rich. ~ Vincent Kartheiser

'Mad Men' was really my first television role, and it never feels like TV to me. It's done at such a high level. ~ January Jones

What is life if a man cannot count on his friends when he has gone mad? ~ David Gemmell

Mad Men - it seems like they try to capture this glamorized version of the '50s and '60s advertising culture. ~ Geoffrey Gray

'Mad Men' still lives in my life as the best job that I've ever had because I thought the character was genius. It was so well-written. ~ Patrick Fischler

Believe me, when I finish shooting 'Mad Men,' there's a huge chunk of time where I have a really hard time leaving my house without fake lashes on. Which is a complex because I'm not very good at applying fake lashes. ~ Jessica Pare

If you look at 'Mad Men,' it's set in the wrong decade. The style of Mad Men is really the 1950s, not the 1960s. ~ Jerry Della Femina

And when I am finished for the day I go on great binges of information, skittering from one tidbit to the next, reading in quick gulps. At once, I've downloaded six episodes of Mad Men and tweeted a review from The Millions and updated my status and liked and commented and shared. It's as if, having checked temporarily out of the great rush to witness and represent oneself online, and having spent instead a number of hours in the thick of imagination and the summer heat of my living room, I now have to scramble back into that perpetual heaving of information lest I disappear, irrelevant. ~ Anonymous

I am so mad with love that mad men say to me - be still! ~ Rumi

I've never had an audition like that before. They don't let you know about anything on 'Mad Men,' because it's a spoiler for everybody. I thought I was on the right track when I was cracking everybody up. ~ Randee Heller

I do love the clothes on 'Mad Men' because my character has been so elegant and I would never have had access to these clothes. I think Janie Bryant is a costume designing genius. They'll call and tell me, 'It will only take an hour,' and I'm like, 'I will try on the whole truck!' ~ Cara Buono

It's the cable shows that are really the most interesting - 'Mad Men,' 'Breaking Bad,' those shows are really the premiere shows on television right now. ~ Dylan McDermott

Many of the prophets of Jesus's time were thought to just be mad men, just sort of crazy people who were claiming to channel the divine. Perhaps that means we should be a little less judgmental of some of our own crazies talking about God on the corner. They might actually have found a pretty comfortable place in Jesus's time. ~ Reza Aslan

Please, with the God talk. Hate to break it to you, but there is no God. ~ Howard Stern

The fact that the Kardashians could be more popular than a show like 'Mad Men' is disgusting. It's a super disgusting part of our culture, but I still find it funny to make a joke about it. ~ Jonah Hill

We're really spoiled on 'Mad Men.' Lots of television actors use the down season to go out and get creatively fulfilled, but I feel the opposite. Anything else I get to do is just icing. ~ Christina Hendricks

If TV sitcoms idealized the American suburbs of the 1960s, the works of the artistic elite disparaged them ceaselessly, then and now. The songs of Pete Seeger, novels like Revolutionary Road, the stories of John Cheever, movies like Pleasantville and American Beauty, television series like Mad Men: in all of them, that long-ago land of lawns and houses is depicted as a country of stultifying conformity and cultural emptiness, sexual hypocrisy, alcoholism, and spiritual despair. Privilege murders the senses there, the creatives tell us. Gender roles strangle freedom. Family life turns the heart of adventure to ashes. There's bigotry and gossip and dangerous liaisons behind every closed door. Oh, the soul, the human soul! In the suburbs of fiction, she is forever dying. But ~ Andrew Klavan