Michael Douglas credited as playing...
Gordon Gekko
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?"