Yes, a spinoff of The Office is coming with a new take on the beloved workplace sitcom, but if it’s classic Dunder Mifflin you want, you can’t do much better than an absurd quip or confused quote from the one, the only Michael Scott.
Played by Steve Carell for seven seasons before the actor departed from the series, the paper-company regional manager inspired many hysterical memes over the years thanks to his lack of professionalism, unproductive nature, and penchant for the ridiculous (though he was often sweeter than his U.K. counterpart).
And though the character had many famous quotes throughout the show’s tenure, including his signature “That’s what she said!” punchline, there are many Michael Scott sayings that deserve just as much spotlight. (And you can relive all of the Scranton fun by streaming The Office with a Peacock subscription.)
Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.
Despite sometimes being surprisingly good at his job, Michael Scott was often a total buffoon as a boss. Case in point: his take on being a leader, a hilarious Machiavelli misquoting that the Dunder Mifflin manager proclaimed during the sixth episode of season two, “The Fight.”
I feel like all my kids grew up and then they married each other. It’s every parent’s dream.
It wasn’t initially clear whether or not Steve Carell’s Michael Scott would be returning to The Office cast for the series finale after the actor departed the show in 2011. But the character did movingly pop up in the show’s final episode to celebrate Dwight and Angela’s wedding and serve as the best man to the former Assistant to the Regional Manager.
I am Beyoncé, always.
In the 2010 episode “The Chump,” Michael learns that his girlfriend Donna (Amy Pietz) is married, which reminds Andy (Ed Helms) of when Angela was cheating on him with Dwight. During a conversation with Michael about Donna’s affair, Andy references the 2009 film Obsessed, saying that he is Beyoncé and Michael is Ali Larter, a comparison that clearly didn’t sit well with his boss.
You cheated on me? When I specifically asked you not to?
Speaking of “infidelity,” Michael utters this sadly funny quote in the season four episode “Goodbye Toby” when he finds out that his girlfriend Jan Levinson (Melora Hardin) is pregnant after she artificially inseminated herself from a sperm bank.
Well, just tell him to call me as ASAP as possible.
Season five saw the arrival of Charles Miner (Idris Elba), who shakes up the Scranton branch as the new Dunder Mifflin regional supervisor, i.e. Michael’s boss. And it clearly rankles Michael, who immediately wants to get on the phone with his old boss, David Wallace (Andy Buckley).
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. – Wayne Gretzky – Michael Scott
This one isn’t a spoken quote but more of a sight gag written on a wipe-off board behind Michael, attributing the famous advice from the world-famous hockey legend to, who else, Michael himself.
I’m an early bird and I’m a night owl so I’m wise and I have worms.
Michael Scott frequently gets idioms and adages just a little mixed up throughout the course of the show, as he does in the season two episode “Office Olympics.” He might want to get those worms checked out!
I declare bankruptcy!
We learned many things from The Office over the years, one being that to declare bankruptcy, you cannot simply yell out “I declare bankruptcy” very loudly in front of all of your coworkers as Michael did in the season four episode “Money.”
And I knew exactly what to do. But in a much more real sense, I had no idea what to do.
One of the most infamous episodes of The Office, season five’s “Stress Relief” very much escalates when Dwight’s too-realistic fire alarm gives Stanley a heart attack. It also gifted viewers with this all-too-relatable reveal from Michael.
I love inside jokes. I hope to be a part of one someday.
Many of Michael Scott’s funniest quotes are also sadly sweet, such as this choice one from the season 3 episode “The Convention,” in which Michael and Dwight head from Scranton to Philadelphia for the annual office supply convention.
Society teaches us that having feelings and crying is bad and wrong. Well, that’s baloney, because grief isn’t wrong. There’s such a thing as good grief. Just ask Charlie Brown.
A surprisingly moving and emotional quote from the season 3 episode “Grief Counseling”—in which Michael is mourning the death of his former Dunder Mifflin boss Ed Truck—is punctuated by the character’s signature goofiness.
You know what they say. Fool me once, strike one, but fool me twice…strike three.
Again, proverbs are not Michael Scott’s strong suit, as evidenced by this seriously mixed-up metaphor about Dwight’s betrayals in the episode “Traveling Salesmen” from the show’s third season.
I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious.
Another classic episode of The Office, season 4’s “Fun Run” sees the much-anticipated reveal of Jim and Pam’s romantic relationship, the death of Angela’s beloved cat (R.I.P. Sprinkles) and Michael accidentally hitting Meredith with his car, sending her to the hospital for a fractured pelvis. It also features this gem of a quote from the ever-“stitious” Mr. Scott.
Sometimes I’ll start a sentence and I don’t even know where it’s going. I just hope I find it along the way.
Any public speaker can likely relate to this confession from Michael, uttered during the season five episode “The Duel” after the Dunder Mifflin manager leaves a confusing meeting with his boss David Wallace. He funnily adds that the sit-down was “like an improv conversation. An improv-ersation.”
Don’t ever, for any reason, do anything to anyone, for any reason, no matter what, no matter where, or who you are with, or where you are going, or where you’ve been, ever, for any reason, whatsoever.
So what exactly did Michael say during the meeting with David Wallace in “The Duel”? This absurdly meandering diatribe, where the regional manager managed to say so much without actually saying a darned thing.
I have cause. It is beCAUSE I hate him.
Michael’s animosity towards Dunder Mifflin’s soft-spoken human resources representative Toby Flenderson (played by The Office‘s showrunner slash executive producer Paul Lieberstein) is one of the most hilarious long-running jokes in the sitcom’s nine seasons. In the season 5 episode “Frame Toby,” Michael tries to plant drugs on Flenderson when he discovers he’s back at work after returning from Costa Rica.
It was a crime of passion, Jan, not a disgruntled employee. Everyone here is extremely disgruntled.
In the third season episode “The Negotiation,” Dunder Mifflin warehouse worker Roy Anderson (David Denman) tries to attack Jim for kissing Pam on Casino Night, only to be pepper-sprayed by Dwight. It’s quite a dramatic incident for the workplace, but Michael jokingly assures Jan that it’s not out of any out-of-the-norm disgruntlement.
It’s like the end of ‘Spartacus.’ I have seen that movie half a dozen times and I still don’t know who the real Spartacus is. And that is what makes that movie a classic whodunnit.
Sure, Michael Scott might have seen the 1960 Stanley Kubrick-directed epic Spartacus. That doesn’t mean he necessarily understood the 1960 Stanley Kubrick-directed epic Spartacus, as evidenced by this quote from the 2009 episode “Gossip.”
White collar, blue collar. But I don’t see it that way. And you know why not? Because I’m collar-blind.
In the season 2 episode “Boys and Girls,” Michael becomes frustrated when Jan won’t allow him to listen in on a “women in the workplace” seminar. So, in ridiculous retaliation, he conducts his own “men in the workplace” seminar with the more “blue collar” warehouse workers, where talk of a union emerges.
To be fair, Jim, James, Jimothy. Jimothy. To be fair, Jimothy…that sounds weird. Are you okay with being called Jim?
The season 6 episode “The Promotion” sees the Dunder Mifflin team trying to adjust to having both Michael and Jim as bosses, with their respective management styles totally at odds with the other’s. While trying to convince Jim that conference-room meetings are essential, Michael goes through pretty much every iteration of Jim’s name (real and imagined) there could be.
You wanna hear a lie?…I…think you’re great. You’re my best friend.
Again, Michael notoriously dislikes Toby for, well, no specific reason, really. And he proves as much throughout the season 5 episode “Frame Toby” (that’s the one that gave TV viewers that instantly iconic “No! No, no, no!” scream from Michael), but especially in this talking head alongside the HR rep.
In the third season, the office attends the nuptials of co-worker Phyllis Lapin (Phyllis Smith) wedding to Bob Vance (Bobby Ray Shafer). Along with trying to walk Phyllis down the aisle, Michael makes a characteristically ridiculous speech, in which he dimwittedly confuses wedding with the art of welding.
It is St. Patrick’s Day. And here in Scranton, that is a huge deal. It is the closest that the Irish will ever get to Christmas.
Funnily enough, Michael did not partake in any boozy St. Paddy’s Day imbibing before rattling off this misguided factoid about the Irish. In fact, in this season 6 episode, Michael and the Dunder Mifflin-ers can barely get any March 17th celebrations in as Jo Bennett (Kathy Bates) is forcing them to work late at the Scranton office.
I am running away from my responsibilities. And it feels good.
Remember how adorably ridiculous you looked “running away” as a frustrated child? Well, Michael did a pretty good impersonation of exactly that in season 4, episode 4, “Money,” in which the regional manager “hops a train” to run away from the financial problems he’s incurred since his girlfriend Jan moved in with him.
Saw ‘Inception.’ Or at least I dreamt I did.
If you’ve seen the Christopher Nolan-directed sci-fi thriller Inception, you would understand how a guy like Michael Scott could be slightly confused by the movie’s dream-within-a-dream premise. However, he manages to make a semi-decent pun about the heist movie in the seventh season premiere.
Well, well, well, how the turntables…
In the season 5 episode “Broke,” Michael, Pam and Ryan are struggling to make ends meet with the Michael Scott Paper Company, even resorting to making paper deliveries themselves in a used van. Imagine their surprise when Dunder Mifflin CFO David Wallace wants to buy out their operation for a pretty penny. Oh, how the tables turn, or whatever Michael thinks the saying is.
It’s a pimple, Phyllis. Avril Lavigne gets them all the time and she rocks harder than anyone alive.
Like many tween-aged girls, Michael Scott isn’t immune to getting acne and is also apparently a huge fan of Canadian pop star Avril Lavigne, as he hilariously revealed in a Season 7 episode.
Do you think that doing alcohol is cool?
After Dwight finds pieces of a joint in the Dunder Mifflin parking lot in the season 2 episode “Drug Testing,” he sets up a urine test to find the culprit, making Michael worried that the “clove cigarette” he smoked at an Alicia Keys concert will show up. That leads him to conduct his own anti-drug investigation in an attempt to cast suspicion off of himself, leading to a very hilarious line of questioning.
This is a dream I’ve had since lunch, and I’m not giving up on it now
Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) regularly has to deal a lot not only as the reception of Dunder Mifflin but also as the pseudo-personal assistant of Michael Scott. However, ridiculous quotes like the above didn’t stop her from leaving her job to join Michael in his newly-formed Michael Scott Paper Company in the season 5 episode “Two Weeks.”
Holly and I are like Romeo and Juliet. And this office is like the dragon that kept them apart.
Clearly someone dozed off during that Shakespeare 101 course, as Michael hilariously displays during the season 7 episode “PDA.” Luckily for him and Holly (Amy Ryan), they’re not like Romeo and Juliet at all and they end up living happily ever after, sans any threat of, uh, dragons.
I’m an adult. I don’t have to think or do anything.
Sure, he may declare himself an adult, but Michael’s behavior in the “Launch Party” episode of season 4 is anything but mature, as he holds a teenage delivery driver hostage at the Dunder Mifflin office after the kid refused his pizzeria coupon.
I am not to be truffled with.
Again, Michael, you’re so close to getting it right.
