The Anxiety Optimization

The Big Bang Theory 8×13

& Leonard: Hello, can you hear me?.. Sheldon, I haven’t changed the filter in the water pitcher in two years.
    Penny: Uh, Bernadette’s nickname for you is the virgin piña colada. ...

& Leonard: Yeah, have fun.
    Sheldon: Oh, I will— nothing more fun than a paradigm-shifting evening of science.
    Penny: And you thought it was soaping me up in the shower.

& Penny: I love him, but if he’s broken, let’s not get a new one.

& Penny: Ugh, what?!
    Sheldon: You sounded in distress. I was worried something unpleasant was happening to you. Like a murder. Or spontaneous coitus with Leonard.

& Penny: I’m just doing this awful workout. I hate it.
    Sheldon: Well, if you hate it, then why are you doing it? Although I could ask the same question about coitus with Leonard.
    Penny: I don’t know— I guess I like that I hate it. It makes me work harder.
    Sheldon: And to clarify...
    Penny: The exercise, Sheldon.

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& Sheldon: The reason I may not be progressing in my research is I’ve created too pleasant of an environment for myself. ... According to a classic psychological experiment by Yerkes and Dodson, in order to maximize performance, one must create a state of productive anxiety. So I’d like to ask you all to do something for me. Keep me on my toes. Just throw me off my game. E-Essentially, go out of your way to make my life miserable.
    Howard: Hold on. What’s in it for us?
    Sheldon: Well, I suppose...
    Howard: Okay, we’ll do it!

& Amy: Look, I know you don’t like it’ but that’s the point of the experiment. I need to irritate you to find your optimal anxiety zone. And you said no to tickling, polka music or watching me eat a banana.
    Sheldon: Who eats them horizontally?!
    Amy: ... My mother said that’s how good girls do it.

& Penny: Sheldon, we are just people. We talk about the same things you guys talk about.
    Sheldon: You talk about if werewolves can swim? See, Leonard says yes, but I say it depends on if the human could swim before he was bitten. What do you think?
    Penny: Let’s just talk about our periods.

& Sheldon: Hey, this is fun. We should do it sometime when you aren’t all PMS’ing.

& Amy: Sheldon. Maybe you want to put the notebook away and talk to me.
    Sheldon: I can do both. My brain is working at optimal capacity. I can have a conversation with you and solve the dark matter proton decay problem at the same time.

& Leonard: You know, he can be a lot of trouble, but when I see him lying here asleep like this, I just think... how easy it would be to hold a pillow over his face.

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On the IMDb