Elaine: [answers phone] Hello, Mr. Peterman, how are you feeling?
J. Peterman: Elaine, I'll be blunt. I'm burnt out. I'm fried. My mind is as barren as the surface of the moon. I can run that catalog no longer.
Elaine: What? Well, who's gonna do it?
J. Peterman: What about you?
Elaine: Me? Why me?
J. Peterman: Why, indeed.
Elaine: Mr. Peterman, you can't leave.
J. Peterman: I've already left, Elaine. I'm in Burma.
Elaine: Burma?
J. Peterman: You most likely know it as Myanmar. But it will always be Burma to me. Bonne chance, Elaine. [to a passerby] You there on the motorbike! Sell me one of your melons!

J. Peterman: Elaine.
Elaine: Mr. Peterman.
[After the Burmese boy chops a fruit, Mr. Peterman scolds him in a foreign tongue. The boy runs out of the cave.]
Elaine: You speak Burmese?
J. Peterman: No, Elaine, that was gibberish. So did you have any trouble finding the place?
Elaine: No, you're the only white-poet-warlord in the neighborhood.
J. Peterman: Are you an assassin?
Elaine: I work for your mail order catalog.
J. Peterman: You're an errand girl sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill.
Elaine: Well, actually, I do have a bill here. If you could just sign this expense form, I think I could still make the last fan boat out of here.
J. Peterman: I'd be happy to, Elaine. But I will have to see this hat.
Elaine: Right.

J. Peterman: So, anyway, effective immediately, Miss Benes will return to her old position, at her original salary and I, of course, will return to mine. Kudos, Elaine, on a job... done.
Elaine: What about my stock options?
J. Peterman: I think not.

J. Peterman: Elaine, do you have a moment? It's about your lover.
Elaine: Oh, yes. I know all about his little performance in the break room.
J. Peterman: Elaine, who among us hasn't snuck into the break room to nibble on a love newton?
Elaine: Love newton?
J. Peterman: I'm afraid the problem with Zach is more serious. He's back on the horse, Elaine. Smack. White palace. The Chinamen's nightcap.
Elaine: An addict? Well, it just keeps getting better!
J. Peterman: And, in a tiny way, I almost feel responsible. I'm the one who sent him to Thailand in search of low-cost whistles. Filled his head with pseudo-erotic tales of my own opium excursions. Plus, I have him some phone numbers of places he could score near the hotel.

Elaine: Mr. Peterman, you wanted to see me, sir?
J. Peterman: Elaine, up until a moment ago, I was convinced that I was on the receiving end of one of the oldest baker's grift in the books, The Entenmann's shim-sham.
Elaine: Oh.
J. Peterman: Until I remembered the videotape surveillance system that I installed to catch other Walter using my latrine. But it also caught this.
[Mr. Peterman shows Elaine footage of her dancing while eating the cake]
Elaine: Mr. Peterman, I, uh...
J. Peterman: Elaine, I have a question for you. Is the item still "with you"?
Elaine: Um, as far as I know.
J. Peterman: Do you know what happens to a butter-based frosting after six decades in a poorly ventilated English basement?
Elaine: Uh, I guess I hadn't--
J. Peterman: Well, I have a feeling that what you are about to go through is punishment enough. Dismissed.

J. Peterman: [answers phone] Peterman, here.
Kramer: Mr. Peterson, you gotta sell me my stories back.
J. Peterman: You want to know something? I no longer need them.
Elaine: No, no. Mr. Peterman, why don't we keep them as a, as a reference?
J. Peterman: Nonsense. [to Kramer] I have Benes' wonderfully imaginative mind to spin my stories. You take back your tales, you vagabond!
Kramer: Yippie-yi-yay!
J. Peterman: [hangs up] There you are, Elaine. Go forth, and create. And, by the way, when you get to that chapter about my romantic escapades, feel free to toss yourself in the mix.

J. Peterman: Elaine, guess what. I've decided to form a charitable foundation in Susie's honor, and as Susie's best friend, I want you to be involved.
Elaine: Mr. Peterman, I'm Susie. She's me.
J. Peterman: I feel the same way. And that's why this foundation will meet around your schedule. Nights, weekends, every free moment you have. [exits]
Elaine: [screams to the heavens] Suz!

J. Peterman: Elaine! Excellent. I'd like you to meet a friend of mine, Irwin Lubeck.
Elaine: Oh, hello.
Lubeck: Charmed.
J. Peterman: All right, brace yourself, Lubeck. You are about to be launched via pastry back to the wedding of one of the most dashing and romantic Nazi sympathizers of the entire British Royal family.

Elaine: Oh, what didn't you like about the first chapter?
J. Peterman: Well, it started out nicely. "I'm returning some pants." A very identifiable problem... "I set off down a train tunnel.". But that's where the story takes a most unappealing turn.
Elaine: Oh, no, no. That's where it gets interesting! Don't you see? The- The train is bearing down on you... You dive into a side tunnel and you run into a whole band of underground tunnel dwellers!
J. Peterman: It just seems so cliched, and obvious. It's not interesting writing.
Elaine: Yeah, yeah, I know. Um, how about if, instead of diving from the train, you... Uh, you, I don't know, you slip and, and fall in some mud, and ruin your pants?
J. Peterman: The very pants I was returning. That's perfect irony! Elaine, that is interesting writing!

Elaine: This is the Urban Sombrero. I put it in the last catalog cover.
J. Peterman: The horror. The horror.