Movie quotes

Classical quotes from Wall Street blockbusters and movies taking place in the world of finance. Whether you are looking for naive sayings by the new kid ón the block, Bud Fox, or you want a piece of harsh cynical relity delivered by Gordon Gekko, it´s all here! Peruse the sharp one-liners and infinite wisdom from movies such as Wall Street, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps, Rogue Trader, Trading Places, Floored, Boiler Room, American Psycho, and To big to fail.

Think big, think positive. Never show any sign of weakness. Always go for the throat. Buy low, sell high. Fear – that’s the other guys problem. Nothing you have ever experienced can prepare you for the unbridled carnage you’re about to witness. The Super Bowl, the World Series, they don’t know what pressure is. In this building its either kill or be killed. You make no friends in the pits and you take no prisoners. One minute you’re up half a million in soybeans and the next, boom, your kids don’t go to college and they’ve repossessed your Bentley.

Dan Akroyd in “Trading Places”

Stop going for the easy buck and start producing something with your life. Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others.

Carl Fox adresses Bud Fox in Wall Street – the movie

I don’t like losses, sport. Nothing ruins my day more than losses. Now you do good, you get perks, lots and lots of perks

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

This is the kid, calls me 59 days in a row, wants to be a player. There ought to be a picture of you in the dictionary under persistence kid.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

Lunch is for wimps.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

I’m tapped out Marv. American Express’ got a hit man lookin’ for me.

Bud Fox, Wall Street

Blue Horseshoe loves Anacott Steel.

Bud Fox, Wall Street

The richest one percent of this country owns half our country’s wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It’s bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you’re not naive enough to think we’re living in a democracy, are you buddy? It’s the free market. And you’re a part of it. You’ve got that killer instinct. Stick around pal, I’ve still got a lot to teach you.

Bud Fox, Wall Street

You’re walking around blind without a cane, pal. A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place.

Bud Fox, Wall Street

Bud Fox: How much is enough?
Gordon Gekko: It’s not a question of enough, pal. It’s a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred from one perception to another.

Wall Street- the movie

Mixed emotions, buddy. Like Larry Wildman going off a cliff in my new Maserati.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

Sun-tzu: If your enemy is superior, evade him. If angry, irritate him. If equally matched, fight, and if not split and reevaluate.

Bud Fox, Wall Street

Man looks in the abyss, there’s nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss.

Lou Mannheim, Wall Street

The main thing about money, Bud, is that it makes you do things you don’t want to do.

Lou Mannheim, Wall Street

When you’ve had money and lost it, it can be much worse than never having had it at all!

Darien Taylor, Wall Street

Life all comes down to a few moments. This is one of them.

Bud Fox, Wall Street

Gordon Gekko: Well, I appreciate the opportunity you’re giving me Mr. Cromwell as the single largest shareholder in Teldar Paper, to speak. Well, ladies and gentlemen we’re not here to indulge in fantasy but in political and economic reality. America, America has become a second-rate power. Its trade deficit and its fiscal deficit are at nightmare proportions. Now, in the days of the free market when our country was a top industrial power, there was accountability to the stockholder. The Carnegies, the Mellons, the men that built this great industrial empire, made sure of it because it was their money at stake. Today, management has no stake in the company! All together, these men sitting up here own less than three percent of the company. And where does Mr. Cromwell put his million-dollar salary? Not in Teldar stock; he owns less than one percent. You own the company. That’s right, you, the stockholder. And you are all being royally screwed over by these, these bureaucrats, with their luncheons, their hunting and fishing trips, their corporate jets and golden parachutes.
Cromwell: This is an outrage Gekko! You are out of line Gekko!
Gordon Gekko: Teldar Paper, Mr. Cromwell, Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can’t figure it out. One thing I do know is that our paper company lost 110 million dollars last year, and I’ll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents. The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get eliminated. In the last seven deals that I’ve been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars. Thank you. I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.

Gekko adresses Teldar Paper´s shareholder meeting in Wall Street – the movie

The point is ladies and gentlemen that greed, for lack of a better word, is good.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

What’s worth doing is worth doing for money.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

I’m talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

I don’t throw darts at a board. I bet on sure things. Read Sun-tzu, The Art of War. Every battle is won before it is ever fought.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

If you need a friend, get a dog.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

The most valuable commodity I know of is information.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

Greed captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

Most of these Harvard MBA types – they don’t add up to dogshit. Give me guys that are poor, smart, hungry – and no feelings. when you feel, you lose a few, but you keep on fighting.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

I look at a hundred deals a day. I pick one.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

You see that building? I bought that building ten years ago. My first real estate deal. Sold it two years later, made an $800,000 profit. It was better than sex. At the time I thought that was all the money in the world. Now it’s a day’s pay.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

Ever wonder why fund managers can’t beat the S&P 500? ‘Cause they’re sheep, and sheep get slaughtered.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

Yeah, not bad for a City College boy. I bought my way in, now all these Ivy league schmucks are sucking my kneecaps

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

I loved it at 40, it’s an insult at 50. They’re analysts, they don’t know preferred stock from livestock, alright? When it hits south, we raise the sperm count on the deal.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

As much as I wanted to be Gordon Gekko, I’ll *always* be Bud Fox.

Bud Fox, Wall Street

I don’t go to bed with no whore, and I don’t wake up with no whore. That’s how I live with myself. I don’t know how you do it.

Carl Fox, Wall Street

You stop sending me information, and you start getting me some.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

Money’s only something you need in case you don’t die tomorrow…

Carl Fox, Wall Street

It’s all about bucks, kid. The rest is conversation.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

He’s using you, kid. He’s got your prick in his back pocket, but you’re too blind to see it.

Carl Fox, Wall Street

There’s no nobility in poverty.

Bud Fox, Wall Street

Kid, you’re on a roll. Enjoy it while it lasts, ’cause it never does.

Lou Mannheim, Wall Street

If you’re not inside, you’re *outside*!

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

Jesus, if this guy owned a funeral parlor nobody would die!

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

I guess your Dad isn’t on the Board of Directors of *that* company, is he?

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

Having sex with her was like reading the Wall St Journal.

Bud Fox, Wall Street

We’re all just one trade away from humility.

Marv, Wall Street

The minute I laid eyes on you, I knew you had what it took.

Lynch to Bud Fox when he is being promoted, Wall Street

The minute I laid eyes on you, I knew you were no good.

Lynch to Bud Fox when he is being arrested, Wall Street

You gonna tell me the difference between this guy and that guy is luck?

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

You know what my dream is? It’s to one day be on the other end of that phone.

Bud Fox, Wall Street

Money never sleeps, pal.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

Sir Larry Wildman. Like all Brits, he thinks he was born with a better pot to piss in.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

You and I are the same, Darien. We are smart enough not to buy in to the oldest myth running; love. Diction created by people to keep them from jumping out of windows.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

I don’t know where you get your information, but I don’t like it.

Lou Mannheim, Wall Street

Yeah! I just bagged the elephant!

Bud Fox, Wall Street

That’s the one thing you have to remember about WASPs: they love animals and hate people.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

Well now considering you brought my mother into it, 71.50.

Gordon Gekko negotiates with Sir Larry Wildman, Wall Street.

You had what it took to get into my office; The real question is whether you got what it takes to stay

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

Your boy really did his homework, Fox. And you’ll have the shortest executive career since that Pope that got poisoned.

Investment banker to Bud Fox, Wall Street

Somebody reminded me the other night that I once said “greed is good.” I swear I don’t remember it but it sounds like something I would say in the eighties.

Gordon Gekko´, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

JACOB: I want to see the “fuck you” room.
SALESMAN: The “fuck you” room?
JACOB: Yes. The room where you sell me a fuck you ring for fuck you money.
SALESMAN: The private client foyer.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

GORDON GEKKO: Stock’s in a free fall. My guess is that it just lost its Bar Mitzvah… By the end of the day it might not even be potty trained.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

Jacob: The stock goes down, you wear the crown… them’s the rules.

Jacob, Wall Street 2 Money Never Sleeps

POOR MAN: I’d like a mortgage… I don’t really have any money though… is that cool?
BANKER MAN: Totally cool. Since housing prices are always going up it won’t be a problem.
POOR MAN: You guys are awesome!

Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

You wanna know what the mother of all bubbles was? Us. The human race. Scientists call it the Cambrian Explosion, from the Cambrian fauna.
 
Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

The one thing I learned in jail is that money is not the prime asset in life. Time is. 

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

If it weren’t for people who took risks, where would we be in this world?

Jacob Moore, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

They took my life – and when I got out – who’s waiting for me? Nobody!

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

It’s not about the money – It’s about the game.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

It’s easy to get in – it’s hard to get out.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

The mother of all evil is speculation.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

Idealism kills every deal.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

Stop telling lies about me and I’ll stop telling the truth about you.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

So, does Blue Horseshoe still love Anacott Steel?

Bud Fox to Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs? They get slaughtered.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

Money is a bitch that never sleeps,  and if you don’t keep an eye on her, then you wake up in the morning and she’s gone.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

You know what they say, “Parents are the bone on which children sharpen their teeth.”

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

Every thief has an excuse.

Jacob Moore, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

Jacob Moore: What is your exact number to walk away? Bretton James: Moore!

Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

Insurance is like getting kids to buy crack in the playground.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

Moral hazard is when they take your money and then are not responsible for what they do with it.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

You are the Ninja Generation.  No income.  No job.  No assets.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

Greed makes the bartender buy three houses.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

Spend as much time with your kids as you can.

Lewis Zabel, Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

Other man: What about the rating agencies?
Rich Guy: They fucked up too.
Other man: What about the investment bank that put these CDO´s together?
Rich Guy: Fucked up.
Other man: What about the bank that made the original loans?
Rich Guy: Totally fucked up.
Other man: What am I supposed to tell my villagers?
Rich Guy: That you fucked up.

Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

They say money can’t buy happiness? Look at the fucking smile on my face. Ear to ear, baby.

Jim Young, Boiler Room

Don’t pitch the bitch.

Greg Weinstein, Boiler Room

Anybody who tells you money is the root of all evil doesn’t fucking have any.

Jim Young, Boiler Room

Fine, fine. I’m gonna take you off my list of successful people today.

Seth Davis, Boiler Room

What do you mean, you’re gonna pass. Alan, the only people making money passing are NFL quarterbacks and I don’t see a number on your back.

Seth Davis, Boiler Room

And there is no such thing as a no sale call. A sale is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock or he sells you a reason he can’t. Either way a sale is made, the only question is who is gonna close? You or him? Now be relentless, that’s it, I’m done.

Jim Young, Boiler Room

I know you’re not standing on your front porch with a bag of money waiting for me to call you. But I’m not some 18-year-old selling a cure for AIDS. I’m 46 years old, I have 22 years market experience, I know this business. So pick up your skirt, grab your balls, and lets go make some money

Sales call from the movie Boiler Room

There’s an important phrase that we use here, and think it’s time that you all learned it. Act as if. You understand what that means? Act as if you are the fucking President of this firm. Act as if you got a 9″ cock. Okay? Act as if.

Jim Young , Boiler Room

I had a very strong work ethic. The problem was my ethics in work.

Seth Davis, Boiler Room

You become an employee of this firm, you will make your first million within three years. I’m gonna repeat that – you will make a million dollars.

Jim Young, Boiler Room

When was the last time you closed something huh? You couldn’t close a fuckin’ window you moron!

Richie, Boiler Room

I didn’t want to be an innovator any more, i just wanted to make the quick and easy buck, i just wanted in. The Notorious BIG said it best: “Either you’re slingin’ crack-rock, or you’ve got a wicked jump-shot.” Nobody wants to work for it anymore. There’s no honor in taking that after school job at Mickey Dee’s, honor’s in the dollar, kid. So I went the white boy way of slinging crack-rock: I became a stock broker.

Seth Davis, Boiler Room

I don’t believe in fate, i believe in odds

Seth Davis, Boiler Room

You Want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet, What’s up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all kids, I am liquid.

Jim Young, Boiler Room

We don’t sell stock to women. I don’t care who it is, we don’t do it. Nancy Sinatra calls, you tell her you’re sorry. They’re a constant pain in the ass and you’re never going to hear the end of it alright? They’re going to call you every fucking day wanting to know why the stock is dropping and God forbid the stock should go up, you’re going to hear from them every fucking 15 minutes. It’s just not worth it, don’t pitch the bitch.

Greg Weinstein, Boiler Room

Hey, I don’t have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my wife. I love my life. And I wish you my kind of success.

Dickie Fox in Jerry McGuire