"Take one Wall Street tycoon, his Fifth Avenue mistress, a reporter hungry for fame, and make the wrong turn in the Bronx... then sit back and watch the sparks fly."

"Maria Ruskin: [when she and Sherman end up in Bronx] Sherman... where are all the white people?"

"Sir Gerald Moore: I was at dinner last evening, and halfway through the pudding, this four-year-old child came alone, dragging a little toy cart. And on the cart was a fresh turd. Her own, I suppose. The parents just shook their heads and smiled. I've made a big investment in you, Peter. Time and money, and it's not working. Now, I could just shake my head and smile. But in my house, when a turd appears, we throw it out. We dispose of it. We flush it away. We don't put it on the table and call it caviar."

"Judy McCoy: I'm leaving you! [pause] After the party... and now, if you will excuse me, we have guests."

"Reverend Bacon: [about the incident with Henry Lamb] This is a tragedy! A fine young man has been struck down. God- fearing, church-going, never in trouble, graduating from high school, ready for college - and somebody comes along - some rich white people in a rich white man's car and wham! They run him down and never even stop. Now what are we going to do about these parking tickets?"

"[to court room] Racist? You dare call me racist? Well I say unto you, what does it matter the color of a man's skin if witnesses perjure themselves. If a prosecutor enlists the perjurers. When a district attorney throws a man to the mob for political gain, and men of the cloth, men of God, take the prime cuts? Is that justice? I don't hear you...Let me tell you what justice is. Justice is the law. And the law is man's feeble attempt to lay down the principles of decency. Decency! And decency isn't a deal, it's not a contract or a hustle or an angle! Decency... decency is what your grandmother taught you. It's in your bones! Now you go home. Go home and be decent people. Be decent."

"Remember guys, a frantic salesman is a dead salesman!"

"[narrating] Yes see, Sherman, who started with so much, lost everything. But he gained his soul. Whereas I, you see, who started with so little, gained everything. "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses..." Ah well. There are compensations."

"[narrating] It was all over. There was no hope now. The darkness closed in around them. And then I noticed the most peculiar thing. Sherman was smiling."

"[narrating] Our hero, Sherman McCoy, was about to make a simple phone call. But despite the existence of 11 telephones, and 7 different lines, in 14 rooms of his 16-million-plus dollar apartment, this was a phone call he could not make at home."

"[Narrating] A $600 million bond, to which he stood to get $1.8 million on commission, which would retire the mortgage on his Park Avenue co-op. For Sherman McCoy, that was all in a day's work."

"If you're going to live in a whorehouse, there's only one thing you can do: be the best damn whore around."

"Aimee Garcia - Nurse"

"Deborah Rush - Gwen Jackson"

"Mike White - Corny"

"Zooey Deschanel - Cheryl"

"Tim Blake Nelson - Bubba"

"John Carroll Lynch - Jack Field"

"John C. Reilly - Phil Last"

"Jake Gyllenhaal - Thomas "Holden" Worther"

"Jennifer Aniston - Justine Last"

"Jack Field: Holden was a thief and a disturbed young man and what happened was a sad thing. Perhaps we can learn a lesson from this tragedy like don't steal and don't be disturbed."

"Corny: It's a church. You can't make water without bumping your nut on a bible."

"Attention, shoppers. There's a Retail Rodeo special on aisle 3. Liquid Drain Cleaner, 2 12-ounce cans for $5.00. Liquid Drain Cleaner has churning power and it will churn right through your pipes. Ladies, you need female plumbing. Shove something clean and new up your filthy pipes. That's Liquid Drain Cleaner on aisle 3. Have a good day and thank you for shopping at Retail Rodeo."

"[in a letter] Dear Justine, because of you I'll be quitting the Retail Rodeo. The last two days have been the most godawful of my life. I have not been able to get rid of you in my head. I'll never want anything so bad, and I've wanted many things. I'd given up long ago on being 'gotten' by someone else, and then you came along. The idea that I could be gotten because of circumstance, or never get got, is the worst feeling I've ever felt, and I have felt many bad feelings. I'm sorry I can never see you again Justine, forgive me for being so weak, but that's who I am. Goodbye, Holden. If for some reason, you could change your mind and wanna be with me, body and soul, meet me after work. I will be waiting for you at 5pm outside Chuckie Cheese. If you are not there at five, you will never see me again in your lifetime."

"I thought if I died today what would happen to me? A hateful girl... A selfish girl... An adulteress... A liar."

"How it all came down to this, only the Devil knows. Retail Rodeo is at the corner on my left. The motel is down the road to my right. I close my eyes and try to peer into the future. On my left, I saw days upon days of lipstick and ticking clocks, dirty looks and quiet whisperings. And burning secrets that just won't ever die away. And on my right, what could I picture? The blue sky, the desert earth, stretching out into the eerie infinity. A beautiful never-ending nothing."

"As a girl you see the world as a giant candy store filled with sweet candy and such. But one day you look around and you see a prison and you're on death row. You wanna run or scream or cry but something's locking you up. Are the other folks cows chewing cud until the hour comes when their heads roll? Or are they just keeping quiet like you, planning their escape."

"You're a writer so you have yourself a goal, I guess. I used to, you know, lay in bed and imagine other cities, other jobs I could have; other husbands. Now I don't even know what to imagine anymore."

"After living in the dark for so long, a glimpse of the light can make you giddy. Strange thoughts come into your head and you'd better think 'em. Has a special fate been calling you and you're not listening? Is there a secret message right in front of you and you're not reading it? Is this your last best chance? Are you going to take it? Or are you going to the grave with unlived lives in your veins?"

"[to Holden] I was looking at you in the store and I liked how you kept to yourself. I saw in your eyes that you hate the world. I hate it too."

"Are you serious?! This is 30,000 Marks! [The bank teller says his time is up] Your time is up, too! We used this money for 40 years and now you Wessies think you can tell us it's worthless!? [Bank security men arrive] Let go of me! [Alex shouts at the customers] What are you looking at? It was your money, too!"

"Florian Lukas - Denis"

"Maria Simon - Ariane Kerner"

"Chulpan Khamatova - Lara"

"Katrin Saß - Christiane Kerner"

"Daniel Brühl - Alexander Kerner"

"[In a fictional address as the new head-of-state of the DDR] Dear citizens of the German Democratic Republic... If you've lived to see the wonder of watching our blue planet from the depths of the cosmos, you see things differently. Up there, in the depths of space, the people's lives seem small and insignificant. Our German Democratic Republic seems tiny. You ask yourself what humanity has accomplished. Which objectives did we set, which objectives did we realize? Today is our country's anniversary. It's a very little country, seen from the cosmos. But still thousands of people came to us last year. People who we looked to as enemies and who want to live with us today. We know our country is not perfect. But what we believe in, inspired a lot of people in the whole world. Maybe we have drifted off course from time to time. But we collected ourselves. Socialism doesn't mean walling yourself in. Socialism means reaching out to others, and living with others. Not just to dream about a better world, but to make a better world. I have therefore decided to open the GDR borders."

"My mother outlived the GDR by three days. I believe it was a good thing she never learned the truth. She died happy. She wanted us to scatter her ashes to the winds. That's prohibited in Germany, both East and West. But we didn't care. She's up there somewhere now. Maybe looking down at us. Maybe she sees us as tiny specks on the Earth's surface, just like w:Sigmund Jähn did back then. The country my mother left behind was a country she believed in; a country we kept alive till her last breath; a country that never existed in that form; a country that, in my memory, I will always associate with my mother."

"After over a year, it was time to end the scheme. But unlike in real life, the GDR would get the sendoff it deserved."

"Somehow my scheme had taken on a life of its own. The GDR I created for her increasingly became the one I might have wished for."

"Frank Vincent as Charlie"

"Nicholas Turturro (extra) (uncredited)"

"Ginny Yang - Kim"

"Richard Parnell Habersham - Eddie"

"Roger Guenveur Smith - Smiley"

"Richard Edson - Vito"

"John Turturro - Pino"

"Bill Nunn - Radio Raheem"

"Giancarlo Esposito - Buggin' Out"