Obstructive Bureaucrat/Quotes

Bob Parr: Are you saying we shouldn't help our customers?

Mr. Huph: The law requires that I answer 'No'.

—The Incredibles

Guards! Bring me the forms I need to fill out to have her taken away!

—Bureaucrat 1.0, Futurama

There's a fine line between evil and underpaid.

—Dilbert

This boy's born to be a bureaucrat,
born to be all obsessive and snotty
I made my friends and relations file long applications

to get into my tenth birthday party

—Hermes Conrad, Futurama

Don't quote me regulations! I co-chaired the committee to review the recommendation to change the color of the booklet that regulation's in. We kept it gray!

—Bureaucrat 1.0, Futurama

Sam Lowry: Excuse me, Dawson, can you put me through to Mr. Helpmann's office?
Dawson: I'm afraid I can't, sir. You have to go through the proper channels.
Sam Lowry: And.. you can't tell me what the proper channels are, because that's classified information?
Dawson: I'm glad to see the Ministry's continuing its tradition of recruiting the brightest and best, sir.

Sam Lowry: Thank you, Dawson.

—Brazil

I can't harbor a fugitive, I'm an un-elected official!

—Nessarose, Wicked

They are one of the most unpleasant races in the Galaxy - not actually evil, but bad tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. They wouldn't even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public enquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.

—Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy's entry on Vogons

They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords,
Lords without anger or honour, who dare not carry their swords.
They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes;
They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies.
And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs,

Their doors are shut in the evening; and they know no songs.

—The Secret People by G. K. Chesterton

Dr. McCoy: The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe.

—Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

I like bats much better than bureaucrats.

—CS Lewis

The junior Mr Popplewick is not permitted to expect anyone.

—Doctor Who, "Trial of a Time Lord"

The Doctor: Is there no way to expedite the procedure?
Mr. Popplewick: [Outraged] Expedite?! I am a senior clerk, sir. To me the procedure is sacrosanct! My work is a celebration of all that is perfect! Why speed perfection?!
The Doctor: Because your employer wants me dead.

Mr. Popplewick: ... You seem to have found the one little weakness in our procedure, sir.

—Doctor Who, "Trial of a Time Lord"

I really don't like that dude. He's an ass-hole.'

—Robert Epps, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, sums up Galloway in short order

All the documents must be signed.
Seas go dry and suns grow cold,
But all the documents must be signed,
And don't forget that questionnaires must be answered.
Love may die and truth grow old, but
Ev'ry questionnaire must be answered.

One must have one's papers.

—The Secretary harmonizing in sixths with Vera Boronel, The Consul

Coop: Road test? Me? But I've got to go save the world!
DMV Desk Clerk: If I started making exceptions, this whole place would fall apart.

Coop: * grumbles* I'll give ya "fall apart".

—Megas XLR

Bureaucracy...now that is inherently evil. Worse still, it's hard to pin it on any particular bureaucrat.

—Reverend Theo, Schlock Mercenary