Selected money quotes

1. How the sting of poverty, or small means, is gone when one keeps house for one's own comfort and not for the comfort of one's neighbors.

2. There is an inverse relationship between imagination and money.

3. I'd asked around 10 or 15 people for suggestions. Finally one lady friend asked the right question, 'Well, what do you love most?' That's how I started painting money.

4. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.

5. It would seem that the full meaning of the word marriage can never be known by those who, at their first outspring into life, are surrounded by all that money can give. It requires the single sitting-room, the single fire, the necessary little efforts of self-devotion, the inward declaration that some struggle shall be made for that other one.

6. Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.

7. Every man worships the dollar, and is down before his shrine from morning to night... Other men, the world over, worship regularly at the shrine with matins and vespers, nones and complines, and whatever other daily services may be known to the religious houses; but the New Yorker is always on his knees.

8. Only a fool thinks price and value are the same.

9. Money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.

10. The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else.

11. Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.

12. No graven images may be Worshipped, except the currency.

13. Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money.

14. It costs money to stay healthy, but it's even more expensive to get sick.

15. Money is a strange business. People who haven't got it aim it strongly. People who have are full of troubles.

16. I've lived on royalties all my life. It is the readers who have supported me.

17. I'll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They're too much fun.

18. If all you boast of your great art be true; Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.

19. I went back to work because someone had to pay for the groceries.

20. I'd marry again if I found a man who had fifteen million dollars, would sign over half to me, and guarantee that he'd be dead within a year.

21. The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.

22. Buy an annuity cheap, and make your life interesting to yourself and everybody else that watches the speculation.

23. My guiding star always is, Get hold of portable property.

24. I used to work in jobs I hated because I needed the money to buy a guitar. I know what it feels like to be depressed. On the other hand, I also know what it feels like to have money, to be successful, to be independent, but I can tell you that money and success never solve your problems.

25. God felt sorry for actors, so he gave them a place in the sun and a lot of money. All they had to sacrifice was their talent.

26. There is nothing so habit-forming as money.

27. We pay for the mistakes of our ancestors, and it seems only fair that they should leave us the money to pay with.

28. Nonsense, it was all nonsense: this whole damned outfit, with its committees, its conferences, its eternal talk, talk, talk, was a great con trick; it was a mechanism to earn a few hundred men and women incredible sums of money.

29. I hate banks. They do nothing positive for anybody except take care of themselves. They're first in with their fees and first out when there's trouble.

30. Your pictures would have been finished a long time ago if I were not forced every day to do something to earn money.

31. Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but selection. Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, no comparison, no judgment.

32. When you come to analyze the love of money which was the general impulse to effort in your day, you find that the dread of want and desire of luxury was but one of several motives which the pursuit of money represented; the others, and with many the more influential, being desire of power, of social position, and reputation for ability and success.

33. An American credit card...is just as good in Europe as American gold used to be.

34. Every era has a currency that buys souls. In some the currency is pride, in others it is hope, in still others it is a holy cause. There are of course times when hard cash will buy souls, and the remarkable thing is that such times are marked by civility, tolerance, and the smooth working of everyday life.

35. Whoever originated the cliche that money is the root of all evil knew hardly anything about the nature of evil and very little about human beings.

36. The riches of the game are in the thrills, not the money.

37. The idea that to make a man work you've got to hold gold in front of his eyes is a growth, not an axiom. We've done that for so long that we've forgotten there's any other way.

38. Children do not really need money. After all, they don't have to pay rent or send mailgrams.

39. Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying.

40. Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.

41. Loans: 'Never expect a loan to a friend to be paid back if you want to keep that friend.'

42. Don't like it interleague play. They [Major League Baseball] only have it because of two teams [the New York Mets and the New York Yankees]. It's all about the money.

43. We didn't exactly starve, but we were pretty poor when I was growing up. I remember thinking, Oh gosh, if I could just make thirty dollars a month to help with the rent, that would be fabulous. So perhaps I envied performers when I heard that Bing Crosby made twenty dollars a minute.

44. I am the only child of parents who weighed, measured, and priced everything; for whom what could not be weighed, measured, and priced, had no existence.

45. Music driven by money deserves to fail.

46. Oh the abortion issue, it's a woman's issue. When a woman get pregnant, she don't want to hear shit from the man. Fuck you, motherfuck you, I don't need you. Unless she decides to have the baby and she's like, 'Where my check?'

47. Pensions are the favors of the powerful, and dangerous to any great intellect. It is only here and there down throughout the ages that a Voltaire is born who does not fall a victim to their blandishments.

48. (talking about how he became richest man in the world) 'Hot hand in a dice game baby girl...I'm talking 'bout 6 hours straight, clackity clackity clackity clack!'

49. 'Will I still be able to traffic rocks to the community?'

50. P. Diddy: All right, I got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that I'm gonna have to shut down the studio. The good news is that I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance.

51. Cribs Episode* Hey MTV! Come on in ya broke muthafuckas!

52. Geoff: Yeah, I run Key Lime Pie Records. So, unless people give me money, I pay for everything myself and I get nothing in return!! Davey: You get a kiss every once in a while. Geoff: Not from you!!! Davey: I try.

53. It's tax time once again, and the hookers in Times Square - god bless 'em - they're getting into the act. For an extra $50, they'll handle your extension.

54. Ad Graecas literas totum animum applicui; statimque, ut pecuniam accpero, Graecus primum autores, deinde vestes emam.

55. I believe in good cheer and in good health, and I recognize the fact that the first requisite in success is not to achieve the dollar, but to confer a benefit, and that the reward will come automatically, and usually as a matter of course.

56. There is a persistent myth that a wife has control over her husband's money because she gets to spend it. Actually, she does not have much more financial authority than the employee of a corporation who is delegated to buy office furniture or supplies. The husband, especially if he is rich, may allow his wife wide latitude in spending - he may reason that since she has to work in the home she is entitled to furnish it to her taste, or he may simply not want to bother with domestic details - but he retains the ultimate veto power. If he doesn't like the way his wife handles his money, she will hear about it.

57. Fuck those people! There's no way I'll ever get involved with that son-of-a-bitchin' group. All they want is my money.

58. As long as there are innocent nickels to be made from the gullible, Python-starved public, I shall be out there dressed in silly frocks and singing filthy lyrics. I'm coming your way in search of ancient dollars.

59. Look at you; you're on The New Democracy, considered the most brilliant weekly in the country, read by the men who do things and all that. What's your business? Why, to be as clever, as interesting, and as brilliantly cynical as possible about every man, doctrine, book, or policy that is assigned you to deal with. The more strong lights, the more spiritual scandal you can throw on the matter, the more money they pay you, the more the people buy the issue.

60. At the heart of every great fortune lies a great crime.

61. The other day a man phoned and wanted me to endorse a certain brand of cigarettes. I had nothing against them and in fact will smoke them or anything else that comes along, but I didn't know why he was bothering me. I thought maybe if I was nice they'd give me a carton as a thank offering, so I rather tentatively broached the matter of remuneration. What was the endorsement worth, I asked, and he said three thousand dollars. What are you going to do in an atmosphere like that?

62. Et guerre faicte sans bonne provision d'argent, n'a qu'un souspirail de vigueur. Les nerfz des batailles sont les pecunes.

63. 'I've got a few good friends, a big house and I can go wherever I want whenever I want... but the more money you make the more miserable you get. It just so happens that I have a lot of money.'

64. The gospel of St. Matthew told of the angry Jesus driving the merchants and money-changers out of the temple, knocking over the tables of the money-changers and spilling their coins on the floor. Jesus was not opposed to capitalism and the profit motive, so long as economic activities were carried on outside the temple. In the parable of the talents, he praises the servant who used his master's money to make a profitable investment, and condemns the servant who was too timid to invest. But he draws a clear line at the temple door. Inside the temple, the ground belongs to God and profit-making must stop.

65. People say, 'I want to get laid a lot and make lots of money.' That's not the right order.

66. 'You can't buy love with money.' Only a poor person says that.

67. Don't you find it funny that all these tough-guy boxers are fighting over a purse?

68. Poverty is what I'm writing about.

69. I am merely trying to illustrate one of the fundamental facts about American journalism today, the fact that the servants of the press lords are slaves very much as they have always been, and that any attempt at revolt is immediately punished with the economic weapon.

70. We've tripled the amount of money- I believe it's from $50 million up to $195 million available.

71. But as they all say if we sell our home what will we have for it, money, and what is the use of that money, money goes and after it is gone then where are we, beside we have all we want, what can we do with money except lose it, money to spend is not very welcome, if you have it and you try to spend it, well spending money is an anxiety, saving money is a comfort and a pleasure, economy is not a duty it is a comfort, avarice is an excitement, but spending money is nothing, money spent is money non-existent, money saved is money realised... (New York: Liveright, 1970, p. 103)

72. Being a mom is my number one job. My son [Nayib, 27] lives in Los Angeles and he has his own company where he works on music and film projects, but he calls me every day. Emily [who is 12] is very athletic; she plays tennis and basketball. I love going to her games. If she needs help with her home work, I'll sit with her. She also is very musical -- she writes poetry and plays the guitar. I always tell both my kids, 'Find what makes you happy. The money will come regardless of what you do, and more or less of it is not going to be what makes you happy. Spending hours at something you enjoy will.'

73. What do you expect for your $12,000?

74. We [Emilio and I] have diversified: We run four restaurants, a hotel, a recording studio, a publishing company, and we have our corporate offices and a lot of other real estate.

75. There was not much more for us to talk about, Whatever we had once was gone. So I turned my cab into the driveway, Past the gate and the fine trimmed lawns. And she said we must get together, But I knew it'd never be arranged. And she handed me twenty dollars, For a two fifty fare, she said 'Harry, keep the change.' Well another man might have been angry, And another man might have been hurt, But another man never would have let her go... I stashed the bill in my shirt.

76. Qui depense trop n'est jamais riche.

77. La vie d'un homme occupe a manger sa fortune devient souvent une speculation; il place ses capitaux en amis, en plaisirs, en protecteurs, en connaissances.

78. The music industry is a cruel and shallow money-trench. A long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There is also a negative side.

79. I consider On The Road sort of holy because it helped change my life as it did to so many others and as it continues to do so. Jack wanted his papers enshrined in a library but they are now in the hands of highly non-literary people more interested in their monetary value than in their literary or cultural value.

80. Question: 'Now that you guys probably have some nice cash, would you ever buy a mansion? Or stick with the midsized houses, like 20-30 thousand? Just asking. And cars, do you stick with the cool old cheapy's or go with the hummers?'

81. 'Can I get 5,000 dollars?' 'Yeah, when Jesse Jackson gets a job.'

82. I didn't need this job. I ran for governor to find out if the American dream still exists in anyone's heart other than mine. I'm living proof that the myths aren't true. The candidate with the most money isn't always the one who wins. You don't have to be a career politician to serve in public office. You don't have to be well-connected. You don't even have to be a Democrat or a Republican. You can stand on your own two feet and speak your mind, because if people like where you're coming from, they will vote you in. The will of the people is still the most powerful force in our government.

83. It's panhandling. . . That's the system we have, though. It's based on bribery.

84. Ladies and Gentlemen, money beats soul every time, C'mon! (11/4/69 Takes 13-15)

85. McLeavy: Has no one considered my feelings in all this? Truscott: What percentage do you want? McLeavy: I don't want money. I'm an honest man. Truscott: You'll have to mend your ways then.

86. Business - the world's work - is the sale of lies: Not goods, but trade-marks; and still more and more In every branch becomes the sale of money.

87. Litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees.

88. Can't believe they gave that greatest Briton shit to Churchill when there's a man among us who still plays Half Man Half Biscuit on the taxpayer's buck.

89. This time Milo had gone too far. Bombing his own men and planes was more than even the most phlegmatic observer could stomach, and it looked like the end for him...Milo was all washed up until he opened his books to the public and disclosed the tremendous profit he had made.

90. Do I look for those millionaires Like a Machiavellian girl would When I could wear the sunset?

91. 'If you always need money like I do, then you can't be selective about movies. They're all just one big heap of nonsense.'

92. Ten minutes later I was in an enormous taxi-cab, an air-conditioned one, hired for the day for fifty dollars; it seems an awful lot, I know, but money's worth awfully little over there, you'd be surprised. It's because there's so much of it, you see.

93. Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal - that there is no human relationship between master and slave.

94. They did things very simply in those days: if you had a lot of money, you just dug a hole under the hedge, and popped it in: then you said you had 'put it in the bank'

95. But what would become of mass production and its system of financial expansion if technical perfection, durability, social efficiency, and human satisfaction. The very condition for current financial success - constantly expanding production and replacement - works against these ends. To ensure the rapid absorption of its immense productivity, megatechnics resorts to a score of different devices: consumer credit, installment buying, multiple packaging, non-functional designs, meretricious novelties, shoddy materials, defective workmanship, built-in fragility, or forced obsolescence through frequent arbitrary changes of fashion. Without constant enticement and inveiglement by advertising, production would slow down and level off to normal replacement demand. Otherwise many products could reach a plateau of efficient design which would call for only minimal changes from year to year.

96. One could rely on people's promises in most matters except in respect of money.

97. In restaurants we argue over which of us will pay for your funeral though the real question is whether or not I will make you immortal.

98. There is a Polish countess here, who likes me much. She has been very handsome, still is, in the style of the full-blown rose. She is a widow, very rich, one of the emancipated women, naturally vivacious, and with talent. This woman envies me; she says, 'How happy you are; so free, so serene, so attractive, so self-possessed!' I say not a word, but I do not look on myself as particularly enviable. A little money would have made me much more so; a little money would have enabled me to come here long ago, and find those that belong to me, or at least try my experiments; then my health would never have sunk, nor the best years of my life been wasted in useless friction. Had I money now, - could I only remain, take a faithful servant, and live alone, and still see those I love when it is best, that would suit me. It seems to me, very soon I shall be calmed, and begin to enjoy.

99. Agents made me a geek who gets $100,000 per chicken head.

100. Igor (Marty Feldman): 'My grandfather used to work for your grandfather. Of course the rates have gone up.'