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[Final letter to his investors] I met my wife through Match.com. My profile said, "I am a medical student with only one eye, an awkward social manner, and $145,000 in student loans." She wrote back, "You're just what I've been looking for." She meant "honest", so let me be honest. Making money is not like what I thought it would be. This business kills the part of life that is essential, the part that has nothing to do with business. For the past two years, my insides have felt like they've been eating themselves. All the people that I respected won't talk to me anymore, except through lawyers. People want an authority to tell them how to value things, but they choose this authority not based on facts or results. They choose it because it seems authoritative and familiar. And I am not, nor ever have been, "familiar." So...so I have come to the sullen realization that I must close down the fund. Sincerely, Michael J. Burry, M.D.
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[Last line of the movie] Okay..sell it all.
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[Looking at his bonus check of $47 million] So, I was right. I took a rash of shit for 2 years, but I was right and everyone was wrong. And, yeah, I got a big bonus for it. Sue me, you know? It's a lot of money, I know. I can feel you judging me. That's palpable. But, hey, I never said I was the hero of this story.
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[Opening monologue] In the late '70s, banking wasn't a job you went into to make large sums of money. It was a ****ing snooze, filled with losers. Like selling insurance or accounting. And if banking was boring, then the bond department at the bank was straight up comatose. We all know about bonds. You give 'em to your snot-nosed kid when he turns 15; maybe, when he's 30, he makes a hundred bucks. Boring. That is until Lewis Ranieri came on the scene at Salomon Brothers. You might not know who he is, but he changed your life more than Michael Jordan, the iPod, and YouTube put together. You see, Lewis didn't know it yet, but he had already changed banking forever with one simple idea.
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[Regarding Vennett] I can't hate him. He's so transparent in his self-interest, that I kind of respect him. Would I buy a car from him? No.
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And I'm getting madder and madder and I ask this guy how he sleeps at night knowing he's ripping off working people and he just leaves. He doesn't say a word. He just walks away from the lunch. So am I the ****ed up one, or is he?
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Do you realize what you just did? You just bet against the American economy.
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Holy shit. All this time I've been trying to figure out who it is I'm betting against, and it's Morgan-Stanley. Which is me.
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I am happy when I'm unhappy.[1]
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I guess when someone's wrong, they never...never know how.
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I have a feeling in a few years people are going to be doing what they always do when the economy tanks. They will be blaming immigrants and poor people.
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I may have been early, but I'm not wrong.
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I'm going to try to find moral redemption at the roulette table.
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I'm JACKED! I'M JACKED TO THE TITS!
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I'm trying to sell $200 million worth of securities...in a pub...it smells like sheep.