First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"I just want you to know that those pikers down as NASD are finally off our ass. Bear Stearns can make all the calls they want to the SEC, but they still can't find any dirt on us! J.T. Marlin, once again, has unlimited trading authorization. I told you guys, you can't keep a good man down! We're superstars now. J.P. Morgan just faxed over their congratulations...it said, 'Welcome to the club!'...And just to show you how appreciative I am, there's a little something extra. I want you guys to go up to suite 418...I hand-picked them myself."
"Goddammit, you fuckin' guys. I'm gonna keep this short, okay? You passed your sevens over a month ago. Seth's the only one that's opened the necessary forty accounts for his team leader. When I was a junior broker I did it in 26 days. Okay? You're not sendin' out press packets anymore. None of this Debbie the Time Life operator bullshit. So get on the phones, it's time to get to work. Get off your ass! Move around. Motion creates emotion. I remember one time I had this guy call me up, wanted to pitch me, right? Wanted to sell me stock. So I let him. I got every fuckin' rebuttal outta this guy, kept him on the phone for an hour and a half. Towards the end I started askin' him buying questions, like what's the firm minimum? That's a buying question, right there. That guy's gotta take me down. It's not like I asked him, what's your 800 number? That's a fuckoff question. I was givin' him a run and he blew it. Okay? To a question like what is the firm minimum, the answer is zero. You don't like the idea, don't pick up a single share. But this putz is tellin' me you know, uhh, 100 shares? Wrong answer! No! You have to be closing all the time. And be aggressive, learn how to push! Talk to 'em. Ask 'em questions... ask 'em rhetorical questions, it doesn't matter, anything, just get a yes out of 'em. If you're drowning and I throw you a life jacket would you grab it? Yes! Good. Pick up 200 shares I won't let you down. Ask them how they'd like to see thirty, forty percent returns. What are they gonna say, no? Fuck you? I don't wanna see those returns. Stop laughing, it's not funny. If you can't learn how to close, you better start thinkin' about another career. And I am deadly serious about that. Dead fuckin' serious. And have your rebuttals ready, guy says call me tomorrow? Bullshit! Somebody tells you th-they got money problems about buyin' 200 shares is lying to you. You know what I say to that? I say, hey look, man, tell me you don't like my firm, tell me you don't like my idea, tell me you don't like my fuckin' neck tie, but don't tell me you can't put together 2,500 bucks. And there is no such thing as a no-sell call. A sell is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock, or he sells you on a reason he can't. Either way, a sell is made. The only question is: who's gonna close? You or him?! Now be relentless. That's it, I'm done."
"There's an important phrase that we use here, and think it's time that you all learned it. Act as if. You understand what that means? Act as if you are the fucking President of this firm. Act as if you got a 9" cock. Okay? Act as if."
"Okay, here's the deal. I'm not here to waste your time. Okay? And I certainly hope you're not here to waste mine. So I'm gonna keep this short. If you become an employee of this firm, you will make your first million within three years. Okay? I'm gonna repeat that. You will make a million dollars within three years of your first day of employment at J.T. Marlin. There is no question as to whether or not you'll become a millionaire working here. The only question is how many times over. You think I'm joking? I am not joking. I am a millionaire. It's a weird thing to hear, right? I'll tell ya. It's a weird thing to say. I am a fucking millionaire. And guess how old I am. Twenty-seven. You know what that makes me here? A fuckin' senior citizen. This firm is entirely comprised of people your age, not mine. Lucky for me, I happen to be very fucking good at my job, or I'd be out of one. You guys are the new blood. You're gonna go home with the kessef. You are the future big swinging dicks of this firm. Now, you all look money hungry, and that's good. Anybody tells you money is the root of all evil doesn't fuckin' have any. They say money can't buy happiness? Look at the fuckin' smile on my face. Ear to ear, baby. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now that you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. You are required to work your fucking ass off at this firm. We want winners here, not pikers. A piker walks at the bell. A piker asks how much vacation time you get in the first year. Vacation time? People come and work at this firm for one reason: to become filthy rich. That's it. We're not here to make friends. We're not savin' the fuckin' manatees here, guys. You want vacation time? Go teach third grade, public school. The first three months at the firm are as a trainee. You make $150 a week. After you're done training, you take the Series Seven. You pass that, you become a junior broker and you're opening accounts for your team leader. You open 40 accounts, you start workin' for yourself. Sky's the limit. Word or two about being a trainee. Friends, parents, other brokers, whoever, they're gonna give you shit about it. It's true. $150 a week? Not a lot of money. Pay them no mind. You need to learn this business, and this is the time to do it. Once you pass the test, none of that's gonna matter. Your friends are shit. You tell them you made 25 grand last month, they're not gonna fuckin' believe you. Fuck them! Fuck 'em! Parents don't like the life you lead? 'Fuck you, Mom and Dad.' See how it feels when you're makin' their fuckin' Lexus payments. Now, go home and think about it. Think about whether or not this is really for you. If you decide it isn't, listen, it's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's not for everyone. Thanks. But if you really want this, you call me on Monday and we'll talk. Just don't waste my fuckin' time. Okay, that's it."
"I originally I got in for the cash but getting my dad's respect is what kept me there, I had to adapt to this new world, I didn't know any of these guys but what I did know is that they had all the money in the world and not a clue what to do with it."
"I ran casino. I've got to figure what I'm going to do next because I'm not a lottery winner. I tried "slinging crack rock" and I never had a jump shot, I've got to find a job."
"I'm plagued by "what ifs?" these days. What if Greg hadn't come over that night, what if I hadn't forgot my bag? Or seen Michael walk into the other building that day? What if I had skipped over Harry's card? What are the chances? What are the odds?"
"Looking back the casino was the most legitimate business I had running, I looked my customers in the eye and I provided a service they wanted, now I don't even look my customers in the eye and I push them something they never asked for."
"I was making good money with the casino but these guys were "macking" it hard. That's the level I wanted to be operating on, so I drove out to Long Island. The office was a good hour from Wall Street. Somebody forgot to tell the guys who worked there, though. They looked and acted like they took the sixth train to Fulton Street every morning, but it wasn't Wall Street, it was exit fifty-three on the Long Island Expressway, a good hour from the New York Stock Exchange. "Group interview my ass", it was like a Hitler youth rally in retrospect. The guy who pitched us, Jim Young, was the head recruiter there. Between him and Michael, honestly, they can sell bubblegum at the lockjaw ward at Bellevue."
"I had a very strong work ethic. The problem was my ethics in work."
"I read this article a while back that said that Microsoft employs more millionaire secretaries than any other company in the world. They took stock options over Christmas bonuses. It was a good move. I remember there was this photograph of one of the groundskeepers next to his Ferrrari. Blew my mind. You see shit like that, and it just plants seeds, makes you think it's possible, even easy. And then you turn on the TV, and there's just more of it. The 87 million dollar lottery winner. That kid actor that just made $20 million on his last movie. That internet stock that shot through the roof. You could have made millions on it if you'd just got in early. And that's exactly what I wanted to do: get in. I didn't want to be an innovator. I just wanted to make the quick and easy buck. I just wanted in. Notorious B.I.G. said it best: Either you're slinging crack rock, or you got a wicked jump shot. Nobody wants to work for it anymore. There's no honor in taking the after school job at Mickey D's. Honor's in the dollar, kid. So I went the white boy way of slinging crack rock: I became a stock broker."
"Ben Affleck - Jim Young"
"Tom Everett Scott - Michael Brantley"
"Bill Sage - Agent Drew"
"Taylor Nichols - Harry Reynard"
"Jamie Kennedy - Adam"
"Ron Rifkin - Judge Marty Davis"
"Scott Caan - Richie O'Flaherty"
"Nicky Katt - Greg Weinstein"
"Nia Long - Abbie Halpert"
"Vin Diesel - Chris Varick"
"Giovanni Ribisi - Seth Davis"
"Welcome to the New American Dream."
"Kid, you're on a roll. Enjoy it while it lasts, because it never does."
"The problem with money, Bud—it makes you do things you don't want to do."
"I wanted to explore the new Wall Street. When I was writing Scarface in Miami, there was so much coke around and so many lunatics, and I met so many kids from Wall Street who were millionaires. I thought older men were rich, but here were these kids, 25 or 28 or 35 years old, with millions of dollars playing the markets all over the world around the clock. My father would have been shocked by the new electronics that allowed it…. Dad was a stockbroker on Wall Street when there was more integrity and class."
"Wall Street was an extension of Scarface."
"This is about getting into a corporation, screwing it up, putting in poison pills so your competitor can’t swallow it…. Very intricate game played in the 1980’s…. Mike Milken did it with junks bonds, Drexel Burnham."
"I’m ambivalent. I like Gekko, which is partly why Michael Douglas did so well…. Gekko is despicable but kinda fun too."
"I leave Bud Fox in the canyons of Wall Street, just another ant, one of millions of ants…. We’re all absorbed in this system of capitalism…. You join the collective unconscious."
"Money never sleeps."
"Balzac was right…. There is tremendous jealousy about money."
"Zero sum game implies winners and losers. If somebody wins, somebody gotta lose…. I don’t agree with that. Because all boats can rise on a rising sea. Good films help other good films. Different psychology. If you’re overly competitive, you say it is exclusionary, a zero sum game: I must win so he must lose. That’s not true. We can all win without forcing the other guy to lose."
"Lunch? Aw, you gotta be kidding. Lunch is for wimps."
"Greed is good. Taken from Ivan Boesky’s speech saying ‘Greed is right.’… Gekko says he wrecks it ‘because it is wreckable.’ There is an impulse in Gekko to take, to rape…. Kirk Kerkorian destroyed MGM and UA…. Buy both companies and destroy both. And that was the end of the movie business. UA and MGM were two great film companies. Suddenly they were one lousy company. Kerkorian did it for the money, like Gekko. He didn’t care about film. Never. He sold it off in pieces. He cannibalized it. Just like Gekko. These guys do what suits their short-term."
"All these Wall Street lawyers are running the system according to Buckminster Fuller. After World War II they took most of the money out of the United States, they drained the blood out of the United States and put it abroad, overseas capital…. Fuller calls it Lawyer Capitalism, the lawyers run the show. Tax laws are the key. In the postwar years, tax law allowed US capital to go abroad…. It all fled the country and stayed abroad and America changed tremendously…. We became a world power, yet a rapacious one, with capitalists really doing a major theft of our money…. Nixon took us off the Gold standard in 1972 because America went bankrupt…. All these recessions in the 70’s, 80’s…. My father got wiped out on Wall Street."
"It’s funny to read articles about Gordon Gekko as if he exists…. If you really listen to Gekko’s speech, half of it makes sense…. But it’s the excess, losing moderation, that destroys all…. There is nothing inherently wrong with greed as a human motivator, greed motivating evolution…. But there’s a huge disconnect between the classes. It is very demoralizing to work for someone who makes a billion dollars a year while you make just barely enough to make it."
"Paul Guilfoyle – Stone Livingstone"
"Josh Mostel – Ollie"
"Millie Perkins – Mrs. Fox"
"Sylvia Miles – Dolores the Realtor"
"Franklin Cover – Dan"
"Saul Rubinek – Harold Salt"
"James Spader – Roger Barnes"
"Sean Young – Kate Gekko"
"Terence Stamp – Sir Larry Wildman"
"Hal Holbrook – Lou Mannheim"
"James Karen – Harry Lynch"
"John C. McGinley – Marvin"
"Martin Sheen – Carl Fox"