Margin Call

& Will Emerson (by Paul Bettany): Have you guys ever been through this before?
    Peter Sullivan (by Zachary Quinto): No.
    Will: It’s best to ignore it. Keep your head down. Go back to work. Don’t watch!

& Sam Rogers (by Kevin Spacey): It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.

& Sam: You are all still here for a reason. Eighty percent of this floor was just sent home... forever. they were good people and they were good at their jobs... but you all were better. Now they are gone. They are not to be thought of again. This is your opportunity. On every floor of this building and in every office from Hong Kong to London the same thing is happening. By the time we are done... 3 of every seven guys, who were standing between you and your boss’s job... are gone. That is your opportunity. I’ve been at this place for thirty-four years. And I can tell you that this will not be the last time you’re gonna go through this. But you all are survivors... And that is how this firm over 107 years has continued to grow stronger. So, keep your heads high... and get back to work.

& Jared Cohen: What is your background?
    Peter: My background?
    Jared: Your CV.
    Peter: I’ve been with the firm for 2 and half years working with Eric that whole time... But I hold a doctorate in engineering, speciality in propulsion, from MIT, with a Bachelors from Penn.
    Jared: What’s a specialty in propulsion, exactly?
    Peter: My thesis was a study in the way that friction ratios effect steering outcomes in aeronautical use under reduced gravity loads.
    Jared: So, you are a rocket scientist?
    Peter: I was.
    Jared: Interesting... How did you end up here?
    Peter: Well it’s all just numbers really, you’re just changing what you’re adding up. And if I may speak freely... the money here is, considerably more attractive.

& Will: Did you know the fear most people feel when they stand on the edge like this isn’t the fear of falling? It’s the fear that they might jump.

& Seth Bregman: Did you really make two and half million bucks last year?
    Will: Yeah... I did.
    Peter: What do you do with all that money?
    Will: I don’t know really. It goes pretty quick... Well, the tax man takes half of it up front. So now you got what... million and a quarter. Mortgage grabs another 300K, I gave 150 to my parents to live off, so now you got what?
    Peter: Eight hundred.
    Will: I bought two cars last year for 150 total. Probably another 100 eating... 25 on clothes, put 400 away for a rainy day...
    Seth: Smart.
    Will: And what’s that?
    Peter: 125 left.
    Will: I spent 76,520 dollars on booze, dancers, and whores.
    Peter: 76,520?
    Will: Yeah, kinda shocked me, although I was able to ride most of them.

& Sam: How old are you?
    Jared: 43. This is bizzare. It’s like a... dream.
    Sam: Well, I don’t know, seems like we actually may have just woken up.

---

& Jared: Just one piece of advice for everyone before we go in there. This could get a little ugly. But whatever you do... just... tell the truth. No sugar coating. Do not change a word of it. No one here is smart enough... Including the rocket scientist.

& John Tuld (by Jeremy Irons): Oh, Mr. Sullivan. You are here! Good morning. And maybe, you could tell me... what you think is going on here. And 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 of that.

& Tuld: So what you’re telling me... is that... music is about to stop. And we are going to be left holding... ’the biggest bag of odorous excrement’ ever assembled in the history of capitalism?
    Peter: Well sir, I’m not sure I’d... put it that way, but let me clarify... Using your analogy, what this model shows... is the music, so to speak, just slowing. If the music were to stop, as you put it, then this model would not be even close to that scenario. It would be considerably worse.

& Tuld: Let me tell you something Mr. Sullivan. Do you care to know, why I’m in this chair with you all? Why I earn the big bucks?
    Peter: Yes.
    Tuld: I’m here for one reason and one reason alone. I’m here to guess, what the music might do, a week, a month, a year from now. That’s it! Nothing more.

& Tuld: 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’ve some pretty smart people in this building... it sure is a hell of a lot easier to just be first. Sell it all... today!

& Sam: John, if you do this you would’ve killed that market for years. It’s over. And you are selling something that you know has no value.
    Tuld: We are selling to willing buyers at a current fair market price, so that WE may survive!
    Sam: You’ll never sell anything to any of those people ever again.
    Tuld: I understand.
    Sam: Do you? Do You???

& Sam: You are panicking.
    Jared: If you are first out the door that is not panicking.

& Tuld: Sarah, I need a head to feed to the traders... on the floor and the board.
    Sarah (by Demi Moore): Is it me or Cohen?
    Tuld: It’s you.

& Eric Dale (by Stanley Tucci): Did you know I built a bridge once?
    Will: Sorry?
    Eric: A bridge... I was an engineer before trade. It went from Dilles Bottom, Ohio to Moundsville, West Virgina. It spans 912 feet above the Ohio river. 12,100 people a day use this thing a day. And it cut out 35 miles of extra driving each way, between Wheeling and New Martinsville. That’s a combined... 847,000 miles of driving a day... Worth 25,410,000 miles... a month; and 304 millions 920,000 miles a year. Saved. Now, I completed that project in 1986... that’s 22 years ago. So, over the life of that one bridge... that’s 6 billion... 708 million... 240 thousand miles... that haven’t had to be driven! At what? Let’s say... 50 miles per hour. So, that’s a 134 million, 164 thousand 800 hours... or 559 thousand 20 days... So that one little bridge has saved the people of those two communities... a combined 1531 years of their lives not wasted in a fucking car... One thousand five hundred and 31 years!

& Seth: Am I getting fired?
    Will: I don’t know... Yeah, almost definitely.
    Seth: Are you?
    Will: No. Seth, its nothing you did. You’re just in a wrong firm, in a wrong time. Young guys are always the one to get called. Listen, nothing I can say’ll make you better It’s gonna suck for a while... and then you’ll be fine.

& Seth: This is really gonna affect people.
    Will: Yeah, it’s gonna affect people like me.
    Seth: No, real people.
    Will: Jesus, Seth. If you really wanna do this in your life you have to believe you’re necessary. And you are. People wanna live like this. In their cars and their big fucking houses, that they can’t even pay for. Then, you’re necessary. The only reason, that they all get continue living like a kings is ’cos we got our fingers on the scales in their favour. I take my hand off. Well... then the whole world gets really fucking fair, really fucking quickly and nobody asks you this. They want... but they take what we’ve to give them. But they also wanna, you know, play innocent and pretend they’ve no idea where it came from. That’s more hypocracy than I’m willing to swallow. So, fuck them. Fuck normal people! You know, the funny thing is... If tomorrow, if all of these goes tits up... they’re gonna crucify us for being too reckless. But if we are wrong? And everything gets back on track... Well then the same people are gonna laugh until they piss their pants. Because, we are gonna look like the biggest pussies that God ever let through the door.

& Peter: Have you ever done anything like this?
    Sam: No... never.... not even close.
    Peter: Are you sure..it’s the only... or the... right thing to do?
    Sam: For who?
    Peter: I’m not sure.
    Sam: Neither am I.

& Sarah: I didn’t think they were going to be able to get you back here.
    Eric: They told me they were going to drag me through hell on everything the next two years... my options, my healthcare or I could come back here and make... $176,471.00 an hour to sit quietly... in this room. I couldn’t see much of choice.
    Sarah: It never is.

& Tuld: You’re one of the luckiest guy in the world, Sam. You could’ve been digging ditches all this years.
    Sam: That’s true. And if I had... then at least holes in the ground would have been the symbol of my achievements.

& Tuld: 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 everyday for almost forty years, Sam. And if this is all for naught... then so is everything out there. 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 its ever been. 1637, 1797, 1819, 37... 57, 84, 1901, 07, 29, 1937... 1974, 1987, Jesus! Didn’t that fuck up me up good. 92, 97, 2000 and whatever we wanna call this. 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 money if we get it right. And we get left by the side of 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 foxes and sad sacks. 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.

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+ quotes on the Imdb.

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