- Louis Salinger: Based on everything I've read about you, you seem like the kind of man who aspired to die for something more than this.
- Wilhelm Wexler: Well, this is the difference between truth and fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
- Umberto Calvini: [In explaining the "true" nature of banking in the world] The IBBC is a bank. Their objective isn't to control the conflict, it's to control the debt that the conflict produces. You see, the real value of a conflict, the true value, is in the debt that it creates. You control the debt, you control everything. You find this upsetting, yes? But this is the very essence of the banking industry, to make us all, whether we be nations or individuals, slaves to debt.
- Louis Salinger: Sometimes the hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn... I'm the one you burn.
- Eleanor Whitman: We are just trying to get to the truth!
- New York D.A.: I get it! But what you need to remember is that there's what people want to hear, there's what people want to believe, there's everything else, THEN there's the truth!
- Eleanor Whitman: And since when it's that OK? I can't even believe you are saying this to me! The truth means responsibility, Arnie!
- New York D.A.: Exactly! Which is why everyone dreads it!
- Wilhelm Wexler: We cannot control the things life does to us. They are done before you know it, and once they are done, they make you do other things. Until at last everything comes between you and the man you wanted to be.
- Jonas Skarssen: [to his son regarding a board game] This is a game that rewards patience and balance. You must think like a man of action and act like a man of thought.
- [last lines]
- Jonas Skarssen: [to Salinger, who is on the verge of shooting him] Wait, wait, wait. Executing me won't change anything. There will be another 100 bankers to take my place. Everything will continue. The only thing you'll succeed in doing is to satisfy your bloodlust. And you know it.
- Calvini's hitman: [after shooting down Skarssen, taking Salinger's gun, and finishing Skarssen off with it] Grazie.
- [first closing credits are shown over news articles that demonstrate the truth of Skarssen 's words: business of banking and arms deals continuing as usual]
- [first lines]
- Thomas Schumer: Listen, I'm from the Bronx, so you need to keep it simple. Why is the bank buying all this missile-guidance stuff from Calvini? - I don't get it.