Money is therefore not only the object but also the fountainhead of greed.
Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work.
People asked, 'So what are you - a multimillionaire?' I like to say, 'A billionaire wanna-be.'
I've had an ambition to be somebody since I was 13 years old because I wanted to help my family. I wanted to hurry and grow up so I could make enough money to buy my father a big car and my mother a beautiful home with an electric washing machine and all those things she used to see in the newspapers.
I had no ambition to make a fortune. Mere money-making has never been my goal, I had an ambition to build.
Every morning I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work.
Everybody in life is pursuing money: left, right, charity, nonprofits, everybody's pursuing money. Everybody wants a raise. Everybody wants to improve their standard of living. Everybody wants to be rich, and especially those that go to Washington.
Big money isn't hard to come by. All it costs is a lifetime of single-minded devotion to acquiring it and making it grow into more money.
Every man of ambition has to fight his century with its own weapons. What this century worships is wealth. The God of this century is wealth. To succeed one must have wealth. At all costs one must have wealth.
Picture all the money that I've gotten off tours. Now picture me plotting for more.
At the end of the day, yes, I'm looking to create a lot of wealth.
You will observe that the stories told are all about money-seekers, not about money-finders.
We're trying to make money, trying to add a zero onto our net worth.
The money-getter who pleads his love of work has a lame defense, for love of work at money-getting is a lower taste than love of money.
I don't fight for legacy. I don't fight for none of that, I fight for that check. I'm in the check cashing business.
The first thing I did was commit to my success and playing to win. I swore I would focus and not even consider leaving this business until I was a millionaire or more. This was radically different from my previous efforts, where, because I always thought short-term, I would constantly get side-tracked by either good opportunities or when things got tough.
To be serious, if we were only interested in earning big money then a politician would have to go and work in industry.
When I started, all I wanted to do was make $3,000 per month. And because it wasn't about the money for me, I know that's why things worked out.
In great cities men are brought together by the desire of gain. They are not in a state of co-operation, but of isolation, as to the making of fortunes; and for all the rest they are careless of neighbors.
One of my motivations in life is to be a billionaire.
If the question is, 'Do I wish I made thirty million dollars a year,' the answer is, 'You bet.' If the question is, 'Do I wish I could write like Tom Clancy,' the answer must remain, 'No.'
Do you want to know the cause of war? It is capitalism, greed, the dirty hunger for dollars. Take away the capitalist and you will sweep war from the earth.
Well, you know, in America everybody is interested in making the dollar fast. In Yugoslavia no matter how much you hustle you're not going to get rich, so you might as well play chess.
Sure, it's nice to win. But there's only one thing that's important to me and that's the money we're going to get, win or lose. . . . I don't love baseball, I like it. And to me, baseball means money, and that's all I care about.
I doubt there is any true courage in squabbling for money.
