- [Hacker has just hung up after calling Sir Humphrey at 2 a.m. about a paper about the national database]
- James Hacker: Oh, damn. I meant to tell him to come and see me about it before cabinet.
- Annie Hacker: Don't ring him now!
- James Hacker: No. Perhaps you're right. It is a bit late.
- Annie Hacker: Give him another ten minutes...
- Sir Humphrey Appleby: It must be hard for a political adviser to understand this, but I'm merely a civil servant. I simply do as I am instructed by my master.
- James Hacker: What happens when a Minister is a woman, what'll you call her?
- Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes, that is rather interesting. We sought an answer to that point when I was Principal Private Secretary and Dr. Edith Summerskill - as she then was - was appointed Minister in 1947. I didn't quite like to refer to her as my mistress.
- James Hacker: What was the answer?
- Sir Humphrey Appleby: Oh, we're still waiting for it.
- [Hacker is about to ask for advice from his predecessor, a member of the Opposition party]
- James Hacker: The Opposition aren't the opposition.
- Annie Hacker: No of course not, silly of me. They're just called the opposition.
- James Hacker: They're only the opposition in exile. The Civil Service is the opposition in residence.
- James Hacker: Look Tom. You were in office for years. You know all the civil service tricks.
- Tom Sargent - Opposition MP: Oh no, not all old boy. Just a few hundred.
- James Hacker: How do you defeat them? How do you make them do something they don't want to do?
- Tom Sargent - Opposition MP: My dear fellow. If I knew that I wouldn't be in opposition.