Margin Call (film)

"You know, the feeling that people experience when they stand on the edge like this isn't the fear of falling—it's the fear that they might jump."

"Hey, Eric? Don't beat yourself too much about this stuff, all right? Some people like taking the long way home. Who the fuck knows?"

"[Telling Seth he's likely going to be laid off] Listen, nothing I'm gonna say is going to make you feel any better. It's just going to suck for a while, and then you'll be fine."

"Please, speak as you might to a young child or a Golden Retriever. It wasn't brains that got me here, I can assure you that."

"There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter, or cheat. Now, I don't cheat. And although I like to think we have some pretty smart people in this building, it sure is a hell of a lot easier to just be first."

"So you think we might have put a few people out of business today. That it's all for naught. You've been doing that every day for almost forty years, Sam. And if this is all for naught, then so is everything out there. [points to the skyline of New York City] It's just money; it's made up. Pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don't have to kill each other just to get something to eat. It's not wrong. And it's certainly no different today than it's ever been. 1637, 1797, 1819, 37, 57, 84, 1901, 07, 29, 1937, 1974, 1987—Jesus, didn't that fucker fuck me up good—92, 97, 2000 and whatever we want to call this. It's all just the same thing over and over; we can't help ourselves. And you and I can't control it or stop it, or even slow it, or even ever-so-slightly alter it. We just react. And we make a lot of money if we get it right. And we get left by the side of the road if we get it wrong. And there have always been and there always will be the same percentage of winners and losers, happy fuckers and sad suckers, fat cats and starving dogs in this world. Yeah, there may be more of us today than there's ever been, but the percentages—they stay exactly the same."

"Thank you all for coming in a little early this morning. I know yesterday was pretty bad, and I wish I could say that today is going to be less so, but that isn't going to be the case. Now, I'm supposed to read this statement to you all here, but why don't you just read it on your own time, and I'll just tell you what the fuck is going on here. I've been here all night, meeting with the Executive Committee, and the decision has been made to unwind a considerable position of the firm's holdings in several key asset classes. The crux of it is, in the firm's thinking, the party's over as of this morning. There's going to be considerable turmoil in markets for the foreseeable future, and they believe it is better that this turmoil begins with us. As a result, the firm has decided to liquidate its majority position of fixed-income MBS … today. These are your packets; you will see what accounts you're responsible for today. I'm sure it hasn't taken you long to understand the implications of this sale on your relationships with your counterparties and, as a result, on your careers. I have expressed this reality to the Executive Committee, and they understand. As a result, if you achieve a 93% sale of your assets, you will receive a $1.4 million one-off bonus. If the floor, as a whole, achieves a 93% sale, you will get an additional $1.3 million apiece. For those of you who have never been through this before, this is what the beginning of a fire sale looks like. I cannot begin to tell you how important the first hour and a half is going to be. I want you to hit every bite you can find: dealers, brokers, clients, your mother if she's buying. And no swaps; it's outgoing only, today. Obviously, this is not going down the way that any of us would have hoped, but … the ground is shifting below our feet. And, apparently, there's no other way out."

"I'll do it, John, but not because of your little speech. But because I need the money. Hard to believe after all these years, but I... I need the money."

"Look at these people. Wandering around with absolutely no idea what's about to happen."

"I run Risk Management. I don't really see how that's a natural place to start cutting jobs."

"Do you know I built a bridge once? ... I was an engineer by trade... It went from Dilles Bottom, Ohio to Moundsville, West Virginia. It spanned nine hundred and twelve feet above the Ohio River. Twelve thousand people used this thing a day. And it cut out thirty-five miles of driving each way between Wheeling and New Martinsville. That's a combined 847,000 miles of driving a day. Or 25,410,000 miles a month. And 304,920,000 miles a year. Saved. Now I completed that project in 1986, that's twenty-two years ago. So over the life of that one bridge, that's 6,708,240,000 miles that haven't had to be driven. At, what, let's say fifty miles an hour. So that's, what, 134,165,800 hours, or 559,020 days. So that one little bridge has saved the people of those communities a combined 1,531 years of their lives not wasted in a fucking car. One thousand five hundred and thirty-one years."

"Kevin Spacey – Sam Rogers"

"Paul Bettany – Will Emerson"

"Jeremy Irons – John Tuld"

"Zachary Quinto – Peter Sullivan"

"Penn Badgley – Seth Bregman"

"Simon Baker – Jared Cohen"

"Aasif Mandvi – Ramesh Shah"

"Mary McDonnell – Mary Rogers"

"Stanley Tucci – Eric Dale"

"Demi Moore – Sarah Robertson"

"Ashley Williams – Heather Burke"

"Al Sapienza – Louis Carmelo"

"Susan Blackwell – Lauren Bratberg"