“WALL STREET” Movie QUOTES
Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) is an ambitious rookie stockbroker from a blue-collar
background who is magnetized by Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), a superbroker who
specializes in corporate takeovers. Gekko takes on the eager beaver as his protégé,
schooling him in the kind of slash-and-burn maneuvers that have taken him to the top.
Here are some great lines from the 1987 movie, "Wall Street." Which we debate in class
when we discuss Business Ethics, etc.
Please identify when and where the quote was made in the movie – and explain if you
agree with the quote, telling why.
1. Carl Fox: Stop going for the easy buck and start producing something with your life.
Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others.
2. Gekko: The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five
trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from
inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do,
stock and real estate speculation. It's (edited*). You got ninety percent of the American
public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own.
3. Gekko: You're walking around blind without a cane pal. A fool and his money are
lucky enough to get together in the first place.
4. Bud: How much is enough? Gekko: It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero sum
game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or gained its simple
transferred from one perception to another.
5. Gordon Gekko: Mixed emotions, pal. Like seeing Larry Wildmon going off a cliff in
my new Maserati.
6. Bud Fox: If your enemy is superior, evade him. If angry, iritate. If equally matched,
fight, and if not split and reevaluate.
7. Gekko: Every battle is won before it is ever fought. Sun-tzu, The Art of War.
8. Lou: A man looks in the abyss, there is nothing staring back at him. At that moment he
discovers his character. That keeps the man out of the abyss.
9. Lou: The main thing about money, Bud, is that it makes you do things you don't want
to do.
10. Bud: If you step out that door, I'm changing the locks.
11. Bud Fox: Life all comes down to a few moments. This is one of them.
12. Gordon Gekko: If somthing's worth doing it's worth doing for money.
13. Gekko: I'm gonna make you rich, Bud Fox.
14. Gekko: I'm talking liquid. Enough money to have your own jet. Enough money not to
waste time. Fifty, one hundred million dollars. A player -- or nothing at all.
15. Gekko: I don't throw darts. I bet on sure things.
16. Gekko: If you need a friend, get a dog.
17. Gekko: Greed - you mark my words - will save Teldar, and that other malfunctioning
corporation, the U.S.A.
18. Gekko: I know of no more valuable commodity than information.
19. Gekko: Greed captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
20. Gekko: I look at a hundred deals a day. I pick one.
21. Gordon Gekko: You see that building over there? I bought it three years ago. My
first real estate transaction. I sold it ten months later and made $800,000 profit… At the
time it was all the money in the world. Now it's a day's pay.
22. Bud Fox: Why do you need to wreck this company? Gordon Gecco: Because it's
wreckable, all right?
23. Gordon Gekko: The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better
word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works.
24. Gekko: Buddy...where the hell have you been? You got me into this dog (edited*)
stock and you better get me out of it! Bud: Gordon, the bid is 16 1/2 and falling. As your
broker, I advise you to sell.
25. Bud: One day you are going to be proud of me dad. Carl Fox: Its yourself that you
have to be proud of huckleberry.
26. Bud Fox: Blue Horse Shoe Loves Anacot Steel.
27. Gordon Gekko: You stop sending me information, and you start getting me some.
28. Carl Fox: Boy, if that's the way you feel, I must have done a really lousy job as a
father.
29. Gordon Gekko: It's not always the most popular person who gets the job done.
30. Gordon Gekko: You could've been one of the great ones buddy. I look at you and
see myself... WHY? Bud Fox: I don't know. I guest I realized that I'm just Bud Fox... and
as much as I wanted to be Gordon Gekko, I'll always be Bud Fox.
31. Gordon Gekko: Ever wonder why fund managers can't beat the S&P 500? 'Cause
they're sheep, and sheep get slaughtered.
32. Gordon Gekko: Lunch is for wimps.
33. Bud Fox: Life all comes down to a few moments. This is one of them.
* Mr. Spence uses an edited version of the movie for the High School class…