Madoff Quotes

Madoff Securities is the world's largest Ponzi scheme.

Madoff's scam was small compared to Ponzi schemes the government itself runs: Social Security and Medicare.

I'm the Bernie Madoff of this spider.

My family survived losing money to Bernie Madoff incredibly well compared to others.

If the American public were accurately polled, I suspect the results would find Bonnie & Clyde, Bill Clinton, Ponzi Scheme scamster Bernie Madoff, and the infamous Wily Coyoteto be believed to be more honest and trustworthy than Hillary Clinton.

For those who unfairly lump Social Security in with Bernie Madoff, in all fairness, you should point out the difference. No one was ever legally required to pay money to Madoff.

I look at the newspapers, and I cannot believe most of the stories I read. Bernie Madoff, who actually screwed millions of people for billions of dollars, it's just unbelievable what he got away with and how long it took for him to be exposed. A guy like that should be hanged.

The federal government has made explicit and implicit promises to millions of people, but has put no money aside in order to keep those promises. Some of you may wonder where Bernie Madoff got the idea for his Ponzi scheme. Clearly he was studying federal entitlement policy.

It has now become a status symbol among the rich to say that you got ripped off by Bernie Madoff, because everybody is losing money in the market, everybody is, but it makes you special and unique if you lost money because of Madoff. These people don't think it makes 'em look stupid. It continues to elevate their status, they think.

I have ... spoken to the heads of various Wall Street equity derivatives trading desks and every single one of the senior managers I spoke with told me that Bernie Madoff was a fraud. Of course no one wants to take an undue career risk by sticking their head up ... The fewer people who know who wrote this report the better. I am worried about the personal safety of myself and my family.

Surely I'm not the only person to ask the obvious question: How different, really, is Mr. Madoff's tale from the story of the investment industry as a whole?

I'm still trying to write. I wrote a play a few years ago, so I'm trying to start writing again. The play was called The Commons Of Pensacola. It was at MTC [Manhattan Theatre Club] with Sarah Jessica Parker and Blythe Danner. It was kind of like a riff on Ruth Madoff.

Beginning, perhaps, from the reasonable perspective that absolute objectivity is unattainable, Fox News and MSNBC no longer even attempt it. They show us the world not as it is, but as partisans (and loyal viewers) at either end of the political spectrum would like it to be. This is to journalism what Bernie Madoff was to investment: He told his customers what they wanted to hear, and by the time they learned the truth, their money was gone.