- President Fitzgerald Grant: You can't fix the fact that I love you, that I love you more than I love being President. I have told you that I'd give it all up for you again and again, and you know what I think? I think you don't believe me. I think you believe that I will never choose you. So this time, I'm fixing things. We are gonna sit here for the next
- [picks up a clock]
- President Fitzgerald Grant: 26 minutes. We're gonna sit here, and the clock on my marriage is going to run out. We're gonna run it out together. You're gonna watch me run out this clock. You're gonna sit here with me and watch me choose you.
- [first lines]
- Jake Ballard: [Olivia reaches the end of her swim lap] Well, someone went to summer camp.
- Mellie Grant: Tell Fitz he has 36 hours to convince me, in person, that he regrets the unfortunate choices he's made and truly wants to recommit himself to his wife and children. If he doesn't, he will have the pleasure of seeing the First Lady of the United States call her husband a whore-loving bastard on national television.
- Cyrus Beene: You wouldn't.
- Mellie Grant: Call my bluff, Cy. I dare you.
- Cyrus Beene: In your final year as First Lady, we launch your career with the full support of a successful President, and the backing of his vast political machine. With that kind of profile, that level of success, you'd win a senate seat in a landslide. But I'd consider governor of California, if I were you. Better springboard to the White House. To run as an outsider who knows the ropes, who's handled big issues in a big state.
- Mellie Grant: It's not enough. It's not what I asked for.
- Cyrus Beene: Take this deal.
- Mellie Grant: Or else... Or else what?
- Cyrus Beene: Flip the page.
- Mellie Grant: It's blank.
- Cyrus Beene: 'Cause that's how much political capital you'll have. After the whisper campaign we'll start within the party about how you were complicit with the President's affair, about how you were frigid and a closeted lesbian, about how you tore the President down for your own political gain. It'll be dirty and false and relentless. And by the time we're done, the PAC money will slow to a trickle, and you won't have so much as a frenemy left inside the beltway.
- Mellie Grant: [tears up the papers] Olivia Pope just left my husband's office. I have as many friends over there as you do.
- Huck: Charlie's been his guy for at least the last two years.
- Olivia Pope: So why are you telling me this?
- Huck: Because the last woman that was sleeping with the President ended up dead in the Potomac. And I want you to stay alive.
- Cyrus Beene: [to Mellie in Blair house] What if I could get rid of Olivia Pope?
- [last lines]
- Mellie Grant: [giving TV interview] After we had the baby, after the shooting, after I stood by him through that whole terrible ordeal, I found out that... my husband was unfaithful to me.
- James Novak: Y-you're saying h-he...
- Mellie Grant: I'm saying my husband had an extramarital affair.
- David Rosen: [watching from Olivia's office] Huh. Wonder who he banged.
- Harrison Wright: I got, uh, stuff...
- [Olivia's staff all scurry out of the room]
- Mellie Grant: And I have moved out of the White House to take some time for myself while we work through this heartbreaking betrayal.
- James Novak: You're alleging that...
- Mellie Grant: No. I wish I were alleging, James.
- James Novak: So you're confirming that the President of the United States has been cheating on you, his wife?
- Mellie Grant: Yes. And... I just wanna ask the American people tonight in advance for their understanding and their forgiveness. No one's marriage is perfect, and I truly hope that given time and space, Fitz and I will be able to repair what has been broken here and emerge from this stronger and more united than ever.
- President Fitzgerald Grant: [in Olvia's shower] Hi.
- Olivia Pope: Hi.