"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Money never sleeps."

"I’m ambivalent. I like Gekko, which is partly why Michael Douglas did so well…. Gekko is despicable but kinda fun too."

"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."

"Wall Street was an extension of Scarface."

"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."

"The problem with money, Bud—it makes you do things you don't want to do."

"Kid, you're on a roll. Enjoy it while it lasts, because it never does."

"[Walks in to SEC agents waiting in his office] I guess you're not here to open an IRA..."

"There's no nobility in poverty."

"[After Gekko buys stock from him] WOO! I JUST BAGGED THE ELEPHANT, BABY!!"

"You know what's my dream? To someday be on the other end of that phone."

"[As the market opens] We're off and running!"

"Wake up, will ya, pal? If you're not inside, you're outside, okay? 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."

"Ever wonder why fund managers can't beat the S&P 500? 'Cause they're sheep, and sheep get slaughtered. I been in the business since '69. Most of these Harvard MBA types, they don't add up to dog shit. Gimme guys who are poor, smart and hungry. And no feelings. You win a few, you lose a few, but you keep on fighting . . . and if you need a friend, get a dog."

"When I get a hold of the son of a bitch who leaked this, I'm gonna tear his eyeballs out and I'm gonna suck his fucking skull."

"[Pointing to a homeless man and a businessman standing on a street corner] You gonna tell me the difference between that guy and this guy is luck?"

"What's worth doing is worth doing for money."

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

"The most valuable commodity I know of . . . is information."

"Lunch? Aw, you gotta be kidding. Lunch is for wimps."

"He moves without sound. Kills without emotion. Disappears without trace."

"I was 11 years old when I first read the script; and I remember reading it, I was sitting in my dad's study sitting in his chair; and I read it and I was crying at the end. I was a very sort of emotional little kid. My parents said, there is no way you're doing this movie; this is absolutely inappropriate for a child your age to do this film. And I was like; this is the greatest thing I've ever read; you will ruin my life, and I was fighting with them so much."

"I hope you're not lying Leon. I really hope that deep down there's no love in you. And if there is, I think in a few minutes you'll regret you never said anything. I love you Leon."

"I don't give a shit about sleeping, Leon. I want love, or death. That's it."

"The rifle is the first weapon you learn how to use, because it lets you keep your distance from the client. The closer you get to being a pro, the closer you can get to the client. The knife, for example, is the last thing you learn."