Mad Men Quotes

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Source: Mad Men

Speaker: Roger Sterling

"Your whole generation, you drink for the wrong reasons."

You don't know how to drink. Your whole generation, you drink for the wrong reasons. My generation, we drink because it's good, because it feels better than unbuttoning your collar, because we deserve it. We drink because it's what men do.

Context

This line is spoken by Roger Sterling, played by John Slattery, in the TV show Mad Men (2007).

The men of Mad Men are mad. They're mad because…reasons. Whether this is the decline of the working class, feminism, watered down scotch, we're not exactly sure.

But in the first episode of Mad Men, Roger Sterling—boss and mentor to our main mad man Don Draper—lectures Don on the reasons to drink. Basically, because "it's what men do." This doesn't clear up a thing and widens the generational gap between the leadership of Sterling Cooper and the younger ad execs.

Thanks for the help, man.

Where you've heard it

You've heard this if an older person is lecturing you for doing something incorrectly. Just replace "drink" with the activity of your choice. ("You don't know how to tweet. You tweet for all the wrong reasons.")

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

One drunk person lecturing another drunk person is pretty pretentious. But they're probably too drunk to spell pretentious, so we knocked it down a few.