

Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) quotes

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.

Hope you're Intelligent.

This is the kid. Calls me 59 days in a row, wants to be a player. Oughta be a picture of you in the dictionary under 'Persistence', kid.

Now, listen, Jerry, I'm looking for negative control. Okay? No more than 30, 35 percent. Just enough to block anybody else's merger plans and find out from the inside if the books are cooked. If it looks as good as on paper, we're in the kill zone, pal. Lock and load.

Lunch? Aw, You gotta be kidding. Lunch is for wimps.

What else you got besides connections at the airport?

What the hell is Cromwell doin' givin' a lecture tour when he's losing 60 million a quarter? Guess he's giving lectures on how to lose money. Jesus Christ...if this guy owned a funeral parlor, no one would die! This turkey is totally brain-dead! OK, alright, Christmas is over, and business is business. Keep on buying, dilute the son of a bitch! Ollie, I want every orifice in his ****ing body flowing red.

It's not bad for a quant, but that's a dog with different fleas.

Come on pal, tell me something I don't know, it's my birthday. Surprise me.

Blow 'em away, Ollie. Rip their ****ing throats out. Stuff 'em in your garbage compactor.


Alright Bud Fox, I want you to buy 20,000 shares of Bluestar, at 15 1/8, 3/8 tops. Don't screw it up, sport. Think you can handle that?

Relax pal, no one's gonna blow the whistle on ya. Is that legal? You should put that in my account.

Buy a decent suit. You can't come in here looking like this. Go to Morty Sills, tell 'em I sent ya.

Save the cheap salesman talk, will ya, it's obvious.

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.

Bought my way in, now all these Ivy League schmucks are suckin' my kneecaps.

That's the thing you gotta remember about WASPs - they love animals, they can't stand people.

The most valuable commodity I know of, is information

The public's out there throwin' darts at a board, sport. I don't throw darts at a board - I bet on sure things.

Every battle is won before it's ever fought. Think about it.


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


You want another chance? You stop sending me information, and start getting me some.

You see that building? I bought that building ten years ago. My first real estate deal. Sold it 2 years later, made an 800,000 dollar 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.

I'm afraid pal, unless your father is on the board of directors of another company, you and I are going to have a very tough time doing business together.

You work hard? I'll bet you stayed up all night analyzing that dogshit stock you gave me, huh? where'd it get you? My father, he worked like an elephant pushing electrical supplies and he dropped dead at 49 with a heart attack and tax bills.

Wake up, will ya pal? If you're not inside, you're outside, OK? And I'm not talking a $400,000 a year working Wall Street stiff flying first class and being comfortable, 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. Now you had what it took to get into my office; The real question is whether you got what it takes to stay.

Showdowns bore me, Larry. Nobody wins. You can have the company. In fact, it's gonna be fun watching you and your giant ego try and make a horse race out of it.

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

Money never sleeps, pal. Just made 800,000 Hong Kong Gold, it's been wired to ya. Play with it. You done good, but you gotta keep doing good. I Showed you how the game works, now school's out.

No, no, no, no, you don't understand. I wanna be surprised. Astonish me pal. New Info - I don't care where, or how you get it - just get it.

I'm gonna make you rich, Bud Fox. Yeah, rich enough, you can afford a girl like Darien. This is your wake-up call, pal. Go to work.

We're smart enough not to buy into the oldest myth running - Love. Fiction created by people to keep them from jumping out of windows.

I appreciate the opportunity you're giving me, Mr. Cromwell, as the single largest shareholder of Teldar Paper, to speak.

The Carnegies, the Mellons, the men who built this great industrial empire, made sure of it because it was their money at stake.

Well, in my book, you either do it right, or you get eliminated.



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

You tell those spineless assholes we'll self-insure if they don't write it. I can't believe you can fire half the management, nothing changes!

Look I.. I have no illusions about winning a popularity contest, with any of you. I got roasted the other night - friend of mine asked, "Why are we honoring this man, have we run out of human beings?" I mean it's not always the popular guy who gets the job done.

We got a stockbroker who wants to run an airline.

I'm up to my ass with more nuts than a fruitcake.

So the falcon's heard the falconer, huh?

Sure now what's worth doing, is worth doing for money. If it's a bad bargain, nobody gains, and if we do this deal, everybody gains.


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

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. Like magic.

This painting here? I bought it ten years ago for sixty thousand dollars, I could sell it today for six hundred. The illusion has become real, and the more real it becomes, the more desperately they want it. Capitalism at its finest.

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 ac****ulating 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, price of a paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat when 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 part of it. Yeah, you got that killer instinct. Stick around pal, I still got a lot to teach you.

I want zip-locked mouths on the Bluestar deal, or I'm gonna personally come down there and rip out their ****ing throats.

When I get a hold of the son of a bitch who leaked this, I am going to tear his eyeballs out and suck his ****ing skull.

Sell it all. What the hell, so we only make ten million.

Where the hell are you? I am losing MILLIONS! You got me into this company and sure as hell better get me out or the only job you'll have on the Street is SWEEPING IT! You hear me, Fox?

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