Rory: It's not due for weeks, and I already have my essay topic picked out.
Dean: Which is?
Rory: Hillary Clinton.
Dean: Sounds perfect.
Rory: I know. She's so smart and tough and nobody thought she could win New York but she did and she's doing amazing, and have you heard her speak?
Dean: Only when you've played me the thousands of hours of C-SPAN footage you taped.
Rory: She's a great speaker, strong and persuasive with a wonderful presence, and even those suits of hers are getting better.
Dean: I'd include that in the essay.

Paris: Everyone always says that! This is my speaking voice. This is its natural volume! Fine, fine! Short-sighted morons.
Rory: What now, Paris?
Paris: We went to all this trouble to set up this stupid seminar. I say we, but let's face it, I did most of the work, and Mr. Hunter won't let me do it the way I want.
Rory: The panelists are up there. We sit across from them and ask questions. What's the problem?
Paris: It's boring and predictable and done to death. I wanted Charlie Rose.
Rory: To ask the questions?
Paris: His style. I wanted us sitting at a round table with black backdrops.
Rory: But the audience wouldn't be able to see anything.
Paris: I was working with the losers in the AV club to project it on a giant video screen. And all Mr. Hunter said was, "Paris, this isn't the Beatles at Shea Stadium." Nice anachronism, huh? Like they had video screens in sixty-three. His references are as topical as his suits.

Emily: I've unearthed some shocking statistics. I mean, do you have any idea how hot the competition is to get into a school like Harvard?
Lorelai: Well, yeah, it's very hot. It's one of the top schools in the country.
Emily: In the world. People from China, Russia, India, children from every country apply to Harvard. There's more competition than ever before.
Lorelai: Really, Mom, I know all this.
Emily: With the dot-com bust and the job market dwindling and the stock market going up and down like a yo-yo, everyone and his brother knows the best chance for success and financial security is not just to go to college, but to go to a top college. Thank you, got it, appreciate the info. Every child that applies has the same high grade point average, they've taken the same AP classes, and they're all on the student council.
Lorelai: They're not all that identical.
Emily: One college admissions officer said that he sometimes puts a random stack of applications in the yes pile and the rest in the no pile because he knows it doesn't make any difference. He doesn't even so much as glance at them.
Lorelai: That does not sound real.
Emily: And now it's the in thing for young Hollywood celebrities to go to universities. What do they call themselves, the Brat Pack?
Lorelai: About a hundred years ago.
Emily: They get into wherever they want based on name recognition. I was watching TV and that insipid Kate Hudson was talking about going to a university. If she decides to go to Harvard, she'll get right in over Rory, who we know is more qualified.

Rory: Well, I'm completely unprepared, and I have no original thoughts!
Lorelai: No, no, don't blame yourself, it's not you. It's those jerks at Harvard. I hate them!
Rory: What?
Lorelai: Well, apparently, it doesn't matter how qualified you are, those lazy-ass admissions officers just take applications and stick it in the yes and no piles without even glancing at them!
Rory: Well, it won't matter because my Hillary Clinton essay will be just like every other girl's Hillary Clinton essay because apparently that's all we can think of. I'm such a hack.
Lorelai: Is it true everyone has the same GPA? How is that possible?
Rory: Because we all take the same classes and we all give the same perfunctory run-of-the-mill responses. And I'm interested in too many things, I have to limit them. I'm gonna circle travel on my application. From now on, that is what I am interested in, travel.
Lorelai: No, no, don't do that, no! Because all those people coming from China and India and God knows where else, they're all nuts for traveling that's why they're traveling here! And jobs are dropping and dot-com bombing and something's acting like a yo-yo, I don't know what but it's not good! And over my dead body is Kate Hudson getting your spot, let me just say that right now!

Lane: [on the phone] No, wait, wait, wait, progressive rock is a really passé style now but I listed it as an influence because it was a progenitor of great things that came afterwards. I mean, I contend that you can draw a straight line from Yes to Jethro Tull to the Jam to Nirvana, bing bang boom... "Who are the Jam?" That's disturbing.

Lorelai: Hey, maybe instead of going to college, you should drop out and I could quit my job and we can form an all-girl band with Lane, you know, like Bananarama. We could call it Tangerinarama or Banana-fana-fo-fana-rama... or something.

Lane: [on the phone] You are not telling me that you did not know that Kim Deal was in the Pixies before the Breeders! I refuse to accept that! [hangs up] These kids have no sense of history.

Luke: Taylor, no, no, no, no. And every day from now on 'til the end of my life, I am gonna come in here and say, "Taylor, no!" And when I die, I'm gonna have them freeze me next to Ted Williams, and when they find the cure to what I died of and they unfreeze me, my first words are gonna be, "How's Ted?" followed closely by, "Taylor, no!"

Lorelai: So, alumna is a girl graduate.
Rory: Right.
Lorelai: And alumnus is a man.
Rory: Singular.
Lorelai: So an unmarried man?
Rory: No, not not-married. He can be married or single, all alumnus means is one man singular as opposed to many men plural.
Lorelai: And plural is alumni.
Rory: Right, and that can be girls and guys.
Lorelai: Kinky!
Rory: No, not kinky, just what it is.
Lorelai: Oh, you're no fun when you're nervous.
Rory: Oh yes, because you and I usually have so much fun with Latin.

Lane: But how'd you know I was me?
Dave: The Dead Kennedys shirt was a tip off.
Lane: Good thinking. Hey, isn't it a drag that Jello Biafra isn't singing for them anymore?
Dave: Yeah, now their front-man's that kid from the Courtship of Eddie's Father.
Lane: Yeah, what's next, Urkel joining the Wu-Tang Clan?
Dave: Or maybe Malcolm in the Middle fronting for the Butthole Surfers.
Lane: Some things are sacred.
Dave: I'm with ya on that.