- Gordon Gekko: I think, the man that you loved like a father who threw himself under a subway? I think you're angrier than you think you are. And I think you wanna be in the family business.
- Jacob Moore: Which is what?
- Gordon Gekko: Payback. Except I'm not in that business anymore. Because the one thing I learned in jail is that money is not the prime asset in life. Time is.
- Gordon Gekko: So what about money, Jake? You like her?
- Jacob Moore: Do I like - I've never thought about money as a "she."
- Gordon Gekko: Oh, she lies there in bed at night with you, looking at you, one eye open. Money's a *bitch* that never sleeps. And she's jealous. And if you don't pay close, close attention, you wake up in the morning, and she might be gone forever.
- Gordon Gekko: I'll make a deal with you, Bretton. You stop telling lies about me, I'll stop telling the truth about you.
- Jacob Moore: You okay, Lew?
- Lewis Zabel: Good day, I'm okay. Bad day, I'm okay. What's the difference? Do me a favor. Don't ask me dumb questions.
- Gordon Gekko: Someone reminded me the other evening that I once said, "Greed is good". Now it seems it's legal. But, folks, you know, it's greed that makes my bartender buy three houses he can't afford with no money down. And it's greed that makes your parents refinance their $200,000 house for 250. And then they take that extra 50 and they go down to the mall. And they buy a plasma TV, cell phones, computers, an SUV. And hey, why not a second home while we're at it? Because, gee whiz, we all know that prices of houses in America always go up, right? And it's greed that makes the government in this country cut the interest rates to one-percent, after 9/11. So we could all go shopping again. They got all these fancy names for trillions of dollars of credit. CMOs, CDOs, SlVs, ABSs. You know, l honestly think there's may be only 75 people in the world who know what they are. But I'll tell you what they are. They're WMDs. Weapons of Mass Destruction. That's what they are. When l was away, it seemed like greed got greedier with a little bit of envy mixed in. Hedge funders were walking home with 50, 100 million bucks a year. So Mr. Banker, he's looks around, and he says, "My life looks pretty boring." So he starts leveraging his interests up to 40, 50 to one with your money. Not his, yours. Because he could. You're supposed to be borrowing, not them. And the beauty of the deal, no one is responsible. Because everybody's drinking the same Kool-Aid.
- Gordon Gekko: Hey, hey, stay positive, pal. Most people, they lose, they whine and quit. But you got to be there for the turns. Everybody's got good luck, everybody's got bad luck. Don't run when you lose. Don't whine when it hurts. It's like the first grade, Jerry. Nobody likes a crybaby.
- Gordon Gekko: It's clear as a bell to those that pay attention: The mother of all evil is speculation.
- Gordon Gekko: Hey, don't you act so superior, kid. They took 122 thousand hours of my life for a victimless crime. I ate my bitterness every goddamn day. And when I got out, who was waiting for me? Nobody! Not even my own daughter.
- Gordon Gekko: That's what you never got, kid. It's not about the money. It's about the game. The game between people. And that's all it is.
- Gordon Gekko: Jesus Christ. I tell you, the government's worse than a wife. They got all the power, they got half the money. Now they're working on getting the other half.
- Prison Guard: [First line; Gekko is being released from prison and his belongings are being returned to him] A silk handkerchief. A tie. A watch. A ring. A gold money clip, without money... and a mobile phone.
- [the phone is a 1980s brick-size phone]
- Jacob Moore: This company could change not just the energy market, Gordon, but the world.
- Gordon Gekko: Idealism. Idealism, pal, it kills every deal
- Gordon Gekko: I'm looking for deals, only good deals. Ride the trends, just don't try too hard for the turns.
- Bretton James: "Saturno Devorando A Su Hijo". Goya painted 15 Black Paintings late in his life. Fourteen of them are on view in the Prado. That's the missing 15th. An early sketch for "Saturn Devouring His Son".
- Jacob Moore: Do you collect?
- Bretton James: No. Only the obsessive-compulsive and the insecurely egotistical feel the need to collect things.
- Gordon Gekko: don't wanna sound like a rooster taking credit for the dawn, but turning $100 million into $1.1 billion in this market, takes some brains, right? My guys are good. And it's no wonder our new fund is over-subscribed. But for you, I'm gonna initiate a third fund. Because, frankly, Julie, I couldn't be more excited about this. To finally be in business with you and your firm.
- Julie Steinhardt: And us with you, Gekko.
- Gordon Gekko: You may not have traded, but you try telling the Feds you didn't commit a felony.
- Jacob Moore: What do you mean?
- Gordon Gekko: You know exactly what I mean. You induced others to trade on information that you knew to be false.
- Jacob Moore: Hard to prove that.
- Gordon Gekko: A fisherman always sees another fisherman from afar. I think you ought to start calling me Gordon.
- Julie Steinhardt: 1929. It'll get worse now, 'cause it'll go faster. Money markets will dry up, round the world by the end of the week. ATMs will stop spitting bills. Federal deposit insurance will collapse. Banks'll close. Mobs panic. It's gonna be the end of the world, Bill.
- [He whistles]
- Julie Steinhardt: See?
- Jacob Moore: It's the oldest scheme since the Pharaohs built the pyramids - privatize the gains, socialize the losses - a wise man
- Winnie Gekko: You're just as liberal as they are, Mr. Green Energy.
- Jacob Moore: No, no, no. The only green is money, honey.
- Winnie Gekko: Oh, you're so Wall Street, it makes me sick.
- Jacob Moore: Profits aren't quarterly. The runs could be huge.
- Zabel Trader: We'll all be dead by the time your nutty professor makes us any money.
- Jacob Moore: Right, this coming from the guy who said Google was a bubble.
- Zabel Trader: Hydra Offshore. It's priced right for us to make three to five times on our money. And better yet, what we all love the most: big year-end bonuses.
- Jacob Moore: I just don't think it's a risk our desk should be taking right now, that's all. I'd wait.
- Zabel Trader: Wait? Wait for what? -Yeah. Your "Beam me up, Scottie" hydrogen fusion deal?
- Lewis Zabel: I take a look at their sheets. They tell me they got a $125 million profit, right? I look at the same lousy spread, to me it looks like a buck and a quarter loss. Then they tell me, "Don't worry about it. We're making money on the losses." How do you make money on losses? You tell me. I'm just an old dinosaur.
- Lewis Zabel: I'm talking to some guy in Mumbai. Dumbai? I don't know what he's talking about. I don't know what he's selling, I don't know who he is, I don't know how much I'm putting up. And my partners, they're in their graves. They're laughing at me. It's just a bunch of machines now, telling us what to do.
- Jacob Moore: Look, you don't want to make any money on this, fine. I'm sure Harry Shapiro would love to.
- Robby: Okay, okay. I'm a hooker, too. Send it to me. You're still young enough to recover. I'll ream you on the commission.
- Jacob Moore: What about the bonus thing? Why now?
- Lewis Zabel: Because I know you. You're holding out for something better. Well, don't. Spend it. Use the money. Because one day, you're gonna wake up and you're gonna be dead.
- Lewis Zabel: Our world is all bullshit. Some TV bubblehead, he gets up there like he knows something. He sells fear, panic. And morons, they love it. They want it to end because it sells. There's just no limits anymore.
- Robby: Listen, as your only friend left from a place in Long Island no one can remember, let alone pronounce, I'm telling you, you're acting like your Mama.
- Lewis Zabel: Marry Gekko's daughter. Make some kids with her. And you spend as much time as you can with those kids when they're young because everything changes. Everything.
- Jacob Moore: Lewis, are we going under?
- Lewis Zabel: You're asking the wrong question, Jacob.
- Jacob Moore: What's the right question?
- Lewis Zabel: Who isn't?
- Treasury Secretary: The government, if we guarantee this deal, could never justify a high price for your company. And if you don't sell, Lew, you're in bankruptcy. This is a public spectacle now.
- Lewis Zabel: No, it's a public execution, and you'll be leading it.
- Gordon Gekko: Maybe l was in prison too long. But sometimes it's the only place to stay sane and look out through those bars and say, "Hey! ls everybody out there nuts?"