One Million Dollars Quotes & Sayings

If that woman looks like a million dollars and puts it right in your face, that one you get away from," R.D. told him. "That one in the corner who is quiet? That's the one you go after. — Ian O'Connor

The man who invented Eskimo Pie made a million dollars, so one is told, but E.E. Cummings, whose verse has been appearing off andon for three years now, and whose experiments should not be more appalling to those interested in poetry than the experiment of surrounding ice-cream with a layer of chocolate was to those interested in soda fountains, has hardly made a dent in the doughy minds of our so-called poetry lovers. — John Dos Passos

Everything about the movie 'Dope' is real artistry, and everybody put their full hearts and souls into it. It's a passion project; it's not one of those things everybody got paid a million dollars to do. Everybody on there wanted to do it. Everybody there believed in the project, and we just went for it. We all love each other. — Shameik Moore

No one wants to risk a million dollars on a few laughs. The big, flashy commercials are out. The soft sell is out. — Jerry Della Femina

But I could see how hard it would be for him to imagine the rest of his life, and where it would lead him ... It would be like having a job in a fortune cookie factory, standing all day on an assembly line while optimism passed through your hands on flimsy strips of paper-"You will inherit a million dollars," "You will go on an exotic vacation"-but never moving, standing in one place while the damp batter of the fortune cookies slid by, all your possible futures settling into that clamminess as it passed. — Laura Kasischke

Often, what makes my job so exciting is designing for the mother whose dream has been to wear one of my hats at her child's wedding. I feel as responsible for making her feel like a million dollars as I do for somebody in the public eye. — Philip Treacy

Mae West: If I can't a man with a million dollars, I'll a million men with one dollar. — Mae West

It's over 800 billion dollars that we have expended [in Iraq]. I believe that Iraq should pay us back for the money that we spent, and I believe that Iraq should pay the families that lost a loved one several million dollars per life, I think at minimum. — Michele Bachmann

My taxes alone keep eight lawyers busy, and when I finally get my money, it's only one-third of what I earn. With the kids in school and my other responsibilities, I get no change back from the first million dollars. The money flows out like water. — Robert Shaw

Property is no longer about power, personality and
command. It's not about vulgar display or tasteful display. Because it no longer has weight or shape.
The only thing that matters is the price you pay. Yourself, Eric, think. What did you buy for your one
hundred and four million dollars? Not dozens of rooms, incomparable views, private elevators. Not the
rotating bedroom and computerized bed. Not the swimming pool or the shark. Was it air rights? The
regulating sensors and software? Not the mirrors that tell you how you feel when you look at yourself
in the morning. You paid the money for the number itself. One hundred and four million. This is what
you bought. And it's worth it. The number justifies itself. — Don DeLillo

Suddenly I was tired of Lotterman; he was a phony and he didn't even know it. He was forever yapping about freedom of the press and keeping the paper going, but if he'd had a million dollars and all the freedom in the world he'd still put out a worthless newspaper because he wasn't smart enough to put out a good one. He was just another noisy little punk in the great legion of punks who marched between the banners of bigger and better men. Freedom, Truth, Honour - you could rattle off a hundred such words and behind every one of them would gather a thousand punks, pompous little farts, waving the banner with one hand and reaching under the table with the other.
I stood up. "Ed," I said using his name for the first time, "I believe I'll quit. — Hunter S. Thompson

A man may daydream of how he would spend a million dollars, but playing the same game with a billion dollars sours the fantasy. There are too many possibilities. The house he once wished for with all his heart is suddenly too small. The travel, too cheap. He wanted to visit an island. Now he contemplates buying one. — Holly Black

I'd pay a million dollars to be Alice and Elisabeth's age again for just one day. I'd dance like Olivia's butterfly and bite into crisp green apples and run across hot sand into the surf, and I'd walk, as far as I wanted, wherever I wanted, in big loping, leaping strides, with my head held high and my lungs filling with air. And I'd probably have sex! — Liane Moriarty

984; 85; 3; 63;, 1,000,000
The Eiffel Tower is nine hundred eighty-four feet high. On a clear day, you can see eighty-five miles from the top. It has three elevators. Each elevator can carry sixty-three people. It cost about one million dollars to build Eiffel Tower. — Suzy Kline

Malaria is a disease that kills one to three million people a year. 300 to 500 million cases are reported. It's estimated that Africa loses about 13 billion dollars a year to the disease. Five dollars can save a life. We can send people to the moon; we can see if there's life on Mars - why can't we get five-dollar nets to 500 million people? — Jacqueline Novogratz

Yes!Sir!I would sell my virginity to you or anyone else for one million dollars.Then my sister will not have to be a prostitute any longer.[MMT] — Nicholas Chong

I can't stand going out to one more dinner with some Mrs. So-and-So who might leave a million dollars to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra when she dies. — Daniel Barenboim

Another federal law makes it a felony for any person "knowingly to deliver or cause to be delivered for transmission through the mails or interstate commerce by telegraph, telephone, wireless, or other means of communication false or misleading or knowingly inaccurate reports concerning crop or market information or conditions that affect or tend to affect the price of any commodity in interstate commerce."21 For this "crime," you can be fined up to one million dollars and imprisoned for up to ten years. If you are ever prosecuted for a violation of this law, the way it is written, all the government needs to do to put you behind bars is to prove that you sent anybody a single — James Duane

Suppose that we believe that in 200 years, people would be prepared to pay a million dollars (that's in today's dollars, not inflated ones) to be able to have an unspoilt valley. Now imagine that today we can profit by cutting down the forest in the valley, which will never regrow. If we apply an annual discount rate of 5 percent, compounded exponentially, how big would that profit have to be to justify the loss of a million dollars in 2210? The answer, surprisingly, is just sixty dollars! That's all that a million dollars in 200 years is worth, at that rate of discount. Obviously, then, if we use a 5 percent discount rate, values gained one thousand years in the future scarcely count at all. This is not because of any uncertainty about whether there will be human beings or other sentient creatures inhabiting this planet at that time, but merely because of the compounding effect of the rate of return on money invested now. — Peter Singer

I see a role for specialized knowledge, but I think that it's important for there to be an arena where it is shared, where it is communicated. It's not that somebody shouldn't have specialized knowledge. The ability to dig a trench and lay a cable is a kind of specialized knowledge. Farmers have specialized knowledge, too. The question is: what sort of knowledge is privileged in our societies? I don't think that a CEO is more valuable to society and ought to be paid ten million dollars a year, while farmers and laborers starve.
The range of what is valued has become so extreme that one lot of people have captured it and left three-quarters of the world to live in unthinkable poverty, because their work is not valued. What would happen if the sweepers of the city went on strike or the sewage system didn't work? A CEO wouldn't be able to deal with his own shit. — Arundhati Roy

I think I could make you fifty percent a year on one million dollars. No, I know I could. I guarantee that. — Warren Buffett

I'd much rather be in a movie that people have really strong feelings about than one that makes a hundred million dollars but you can't remember because it's just like all the others. — Jennifer Jason Leigh

What Gutfreund said has become a legend at Salomon Brothers and a visceral part of its corporate identity. He said: One hand, one million dollars, no tears. — Michael Lewis

I'd rather make one righteous dollar on my level
Than make a million dollars spittin' rhymes for the devil. — KRS-One

Almost three billion people live on less than two dollars a day, adjusted for purchasing power.5 Eight hundred and forty million people in the world don't have enough to eat.6 Ten million children die every year from easily preventable diseases.7 AIDS is killing three million people a year and is still spreading.8 One billion people in the world lack access to clean water; two billion lack access to sanitation.9 One billion adults are illiterate.10 About a quarter of the children in the poor countries do not finish primary school.11 — William Easterly

None of the pictures I take a risk in cost a lot, so it doesn't take much for them to turn a profit. We don't deal in big budgets. We know what we want and we shoot it and we don't waste anything. I never understand these films that cost twenty, thirty million dollars when they could be made for half that. Maybe it's because no one cares. We care. — Clint Eastwood

I spent money, and I kept thinking, 'I get one more movie and I'll wipe these bills out,' but that movie never came. That black pride, I said, 'Man, I'm going to hang in there, I'm going to pay these bills.' So you owe a million dollars. 'I can pay that.' OK, fines, fees, now you owe two and a half million. 'But I didn't do nothin'!' — Sinbad

One thing about open source is that even the failures contribute to the next thing that comes up. Unlike a company that could spend a million dollars in two years and fail and there's nothing really to show for it, if you spend a million dollars on open source, you probably have something amazing that other people can build on. — Matt Mullenweg

I'm particularly proud of my work with the Starkey Hearing Foundation for whom I raised a million dollars in one day on 'Celebrity Apprentice.' They do great work around the world helping deaf children in developing countries get proper attention and free hearing aids. — Marlee Matlin

When one may pay out over two million dollars to presidential and Congressional campaigns, the U.S. government is virtually up for sale. — John W. Gardner

Law Number XXXVI: The thickness of the proposal required to win a multimillion dollar contract is about one millimeter per million dollars. If all the proposals conforming to this standard were piled on top of each other at the bottom of the Grand Canyon it would probably be a good idea. — Norman Ralph Augustine

In May 2010, a Florida programmer by the name of Laszlo Hanyecz wanted to test the technology. He offered to buy a pizza for 10,000 coins. The pizza arrived. For several days after that, Hanyecz bought 10,000-bitcoin pizzas. I bet he regrets it now. Ten thousand bitcoins would at one stage be worth over 12 million dollars. Twelve million bucks for a pizza! — Dominic Frisby

nearly half of all members of Congress have a net worth north of a million dollars, compared to just one in twenty-two households nationwide.26 Between 1984 and 2009, while the median net worth of American households remained essentially unchanged, the median net worth of members of the House of Representatives rose by 260 percent. Not only did the rich get richer, so did Congress. While — Christopher L. Hayes

It dawns on me that most people would probably be happy with my weekend. I just won five million dollars. But one of the strange things about being rich as shit is five million's just not that exciting. — Ella James

Michael [Marcus] taught me one thing that was incredibly important ... He taught me that you could make a million dollars. He showed me that if you applied yourself, great things could happen. It is very easy to miss the point that you really can do it. — Bruce Kovner

What the Republicans have said is rather than touch one hair on the heads of the wealthiest people in our country, people who make over $1 million a year, they're saying, 'Seniors should pay $6,000 more dollars a year. But please don't let us ask the wealthiest to do their fair share.' — Nancy Pelosi

One of the differences between real documentaries and reality television, besides the artificial construct of reality television, is that the people who are recruited to be on those shows, and the people who are interested in going on those shows, basically want to be famous. Or maybe they can win a million dollars or something. — Steve James

There's no way that Michael Jackson or whoever Jackson should have a million thousand droople billion dollars and then there's people starving. There's no way! There's no way that these people should own planes and there people don't have houses. Apartments. Shacks. Drawers. Pants! I know you're rich. I know you got 40 billion dollars, but can you just keep it to one house? You only need ONE house. And if you only got two kids, can you just keep it to two rooms? I mean why have 52 rooms and you know there's somebody with no room?! It just don't make sense to me. It don't. — Tupac Shakur

Most people think life sucks, and then you die. Not me. I beg to differ. I think life sucks, then you get cancer, then your dog dies, your wife leaves you, the cancer goes into remission, you get a new dog, you get remarried, you owe ten million dollars in medical bills but you work hard for thirty five years and you pay it back and then one day you have a massive stroke, your whole right side is paralyzed, you have to limp along the streets and speak out of the left side of your mouth and drool but you go into rehabilitation and regain the power to walk and the power to talk and then one day you step off a curb at Sixty-seventh Street, and BANG you get hit by a city bus and then you die. Maybe — Denis Leary

At one point Trudeau mentioned to me that the National Gallery wanted to buy a masterpiece by the great Italian painter Lotto, and it needed a million dollars from the Treasury Board. "Is that Lotto-Quebec or Lotto-Canada?" I joked, but I got the message, and the National Gallery got the painting. — Jean Chretien

No one can earn a million dollars honestly. — William Jennings Bryan

It was in '35 - we had this campaign to raise a million tax dollars. In the town of Phillips, one evening, during a blizzard, I was met by a crowd of miners. They were given the day off and a stake to attend this meeting. They surrounded me and said this tax would cost six hundred of them their jobs. They were busted farmers and fortunately found a job in these Home Stake mines. I went back home feeling worried. But the tax was passed, and not a single miner lost his job. — Studs Terkel

But life is not like that. You are not an airline. You can't remove a single olive from every salad served in first class and save one point two million dollars. — Lynn Messina

The romance of Silicon Valley was about money - excuse me, about changing the world, one million dollars at a time. — Jean-Louis Gassee

In the U.S. you have a system of lobbying and influence on our policy and law makers which is incredibly pronounced. The gas industry spent $250 million getting an exemption from our Safe Water Act. Every one of those dollars is toxic; a contaminant in our political system. It disrupts the normal flow of justice, science, fact and reporting. — Josh Fox

It doesn't matter if you look a million dollars but everybody has their flaws. So that's why it had to be that way. He was living the life, he would stay out for three days probably, get drunk and do whatever he was doing and then hit the gym for two days. But that's the craziness of that lifestyle - you're damaging yourselves in more ways than one. — Daniel Craig

My mom was a manic depressive schizophrenic who, after a year in prison, went home and shot herself. My sister, Kirsten, an amazing poet, who was raised by this woman, and was dating a guy who broke up with her for the fourth time in three weeks. And one day, she came to his house, got a gun, and blew her brains out all over his headboard. I just went through a divorce, five years in court and cost me $2 million dollars. If anyone, by law, should be forced to take antidepressants it's me ... But instead, I choose to be an antidepressant. And you can take me with alcohol. — Christopher Titus

During the fiscal year ending in 1861, expenses of the federal government had been $67 million. After the first year of armed conflict they were $475 million and, by 1865, had risen to one billion, three-hundred million dollars. On the income side of the ledger, taxes covered only about eleven per cent of that figure. By the end of the war, the deficit had risen to $2.61 billion. That money had to come from somewhere. — G. Edward Griffin

One million dollars, Ms. Fairchild. You get the cash, and I get you. — J. Kenner

One summer afternoon Mrs Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary. — Thomas Pynchon

The eighties turned the whole system upside down. They would sign three groups and give them five or ten million dollars each to make three records. Out of those three records maybe one would be a hit. The economy changed, and that's why the music changed. — Tony Visconti

One of the things I like about being a celebrity is that you can get away with murder. Not just metaphorically, literally. Remember that annoying blond dog reporter at E News used to talk smack about me? I paid two mobsters five million dollars each to throw her off the Stratosphere tower in Las Vegas. — Zach Braff

In 1980, Atari was bringing in around two billion dollars in revenue and Chuck E. Cheese's some five hundred million. I still didn't feel too bad that I had turned down a one-third ownership of Apple - although I was beginning to think it might turn out to be a mistake. — Nolan Bushnell

Here's what I can tell the American people: 95 percent of you will get a tax cut. And if you make less than $250,000, less than a quarter-million dollars a year, then you will not see one dime's worth of tax increase. — Barack Obama

One teacher recently retired with a half-million dollars after 30 years of working hard, caring, dedicating herself and totally immensing herself in the problems of the students. That gave her $50. The rest of the money came from the death of a rich uncle. — Milton Berle

One of the towering people in this industry said, why don't you go and make a five-year contract with somebody, make yourself several million dollars and put it away, then go and do whatever you want, work for public TV if you want. — Roone Arledge

The outside conditions of your life do not make you feel either secure or insecure. One person may feel secure with practically no money at all, while another may feel insecure with a million dollars in the bank. Your feelings of security or insecurity are due to your emotional programming. — Ken Keyes Jr.

When you have one million dollars, you're a lucky person. When you have 10 million dollars, you've got trouble, a lot of headaches. — Jack Ma

Well, I've thought about donating, but they get so many damn donations already. I read about one foundation that raised over 100 million dollars. Well where the hell did that go? For all I know every starving child has a 2 story house by now. Or maybe they're all raging alcoholics, like homeless people. Homeless people who are more effective when it comes to raising money. Who wants to support alcoholic children? Not me. — Zach Braff

As soon as Mr. Roosevelt took office, the Federal Reserve began to buy government securities at the rate of ten million dollars a week for 10 weeks, and created one hundred million dollars in new [checkbook] currency, which alleviated the critical famine of money and credit, and the factories started hiring people again. — Eustace Mullins

If you write a hit song for Britney Spears, it's worth several million dollars. Just one song! And it might have taken you two hours to do it. It's like mining for gold. It takes a lot of skill and a lot of technique. — Jewel

The U.S. has become the most egregious war-monger and terrorist nation in the world, as well as the long-time leading purveyor of weapons of war throughout the world, and because here at home, we have 50 million of our citizens living in poverty, one in four children surviving on Food Stamps, a collapsing education system, poor health care, and many other disasters, none of which can be addressed as long as the country keeps pouring trillions of dollars into war and militarism. This madness and criminality must end! — Dave Lindorff

'One Week' changed my life because I used to be the Million Dollars Guy, and now I'm the Chickity China Guy. — Ed Robertson

I would like to know who thinks this heart is worth one million dollars. Or maybe, I already do. A low murmur builds, rolling from the back of the room, gaining momentum as the crowd parts. I hold my breath, and — Sarah Castille

I don't write anything off without reading a script, and if it's a good one, I'll consider it, whether it's for $20 or a million dollars. — Martin Freeman

How do you 'invest in the future'? By borrowing $188 million every hour. That's what the Government of the United States is doing. It's spending one-fifth of a billion dollars it doesn't have every hour of every day of every week - all for your future! — Mark Steyn

One of the simplest ways to get an idea of one trillion dollars is to consider the amount in terms of the passage of time. One million seconds is equal to roughly eleven days and twelve hours, and one billion seconds is thirty-two years. One trillion seconds equals thirty-two thousand years. — Geoff Davis

The name Atlantis came from an old book Victoria had never read. A lifetime residency in the ASM paradise was rumored to cost anywhere from 15 to 20 million dollars. The rich and powerful lived under the dome because they considered themselves separate and superior. Few of them left the comfort and security of Atlantis. To them the outside world was weak. Second Sector citizens where miscreant dregs of a defunct society. In order to enter the Atlantian dome one first had to be cleared by a resident. Gate security personnel strictly enforced this rule, even when outsiders carried a badge and gun. — Benjamin R. Smith

Just because there are celebrities in a movie, it doesn't mean anything. I don't think The Ant Bully did all that well the first week at the box office. Compare the movies that have a lot of celebrities with the Jimmy Neutron movie, which had no celebrity voices and grossed almost one hundred million dollars. — Rob Paulsen

He found himself one night in a bar standing beside a gorgeous woman. "Would you be willing to sleep with me for $1 million?" he asked her. She looked him over. There wasn't much to see - but still, $1 million! She agreed to go back to his room. "All right then, " he said. "Would you be willing to sleep with me for $100?" "A hundred dollars!" she shot back. "What do you think I am, a prostitute?" "We've already established that. Now we're just negotiating the price. — Steven D. Levitt

When you make a film for a million and a half dollars and it opens at 20 million, the next question out of everyone's mouth is, 'When's the next one, when's the next one, when's the next one?' — Eli Roth

It is as easy to manifest one dollar as it is to manifest one million dollars. — Rhonda Byrne

It's gone, boxing's gone. What is there in boxing? Who is there to talk about, who is there that people go, "Yeah I want to fight him?", and fans go "I wanna see that fight"? There's Floyd Mayweather, and he is 38, 39, he's maybe got one fight left. What else is there? He'll have a last fight or two and a couple of guys will get a few million dollars, but way less than I'm gonna be getting in future. This sport is getting bigger all the time, and I am making it bigger. — Conor McGregor

5.5 Never sacrifice the safety and comfort of your group just to meet your budget. Do your homework and research your chosen carrier thoroughly. Obtain a certificate of insurance listing your organization as additional insured and displaying a minimum of five million dollars in liability. Understand and factor in that one driver can drive ten hours or six hundred miles, whichever comes first. That driver must then have eight hours of sleep before being available again to drive! Don't push the limit too hard! — Craig Speck

I have before me a newspaper slip on which a writer expresses the opinion that no one should be allowed to possess more than one million dollars' worth of property. — William Graham Sumner

However, at the end of the night I saw Nick stomping out to the car park, obviously in a terrible mood. They take their lives so seriously, these young people. "Just appreciate the fact that you can stomp so energetically," I wanted to say to him. I'd pay a million dollars to be Alice and Elisabeth's age again for just one day. I'd dance like Olivia's butterfly and bite into crisp green apples and run across hot sand into the surf, and I'd walk, as far as I wanted, wherever I wanted, in big loping, leaping strides, with my head held high and my lungs filling with air. — Liane Moriarty

I'm not living for when I have a Number One record or when I make a million trillion dollars. I'm not doing this to get somewhere else. I'm doing it because I'm doing it.' — Dannii Minogue

Spoiler: I didn't win the Main Event. You had suspicions, you say? For one thing, the subtitle of this book would be "The Amazing Life-Affirming Story of an Unremarkable Jerk Who Won the World Series of Poker!" instead of having the word "Death" in it. For another, do these sound like the words of a motherfucker who won a million goddamn dollars? — Colson Whitehead

And, in keeping with the original Milesian Tales which had happy endings, I would conclude the episode of the lovely Atalanta Chan, who, having sold her virginity for one million dollars, ended up still a virgin.
This fact did not escape the astute mind of the financial wizard, Butes, who pointed out to the lovely girl that since her flower had already been fully paid for & since it was he who had arranged the deal, he should be the one to enjoy any benefit that remained.[MMT] — Nicholas Chong

Here's the plan: we get the warhead and we hold the world ransom for ... one million dollars! — Mike Myers

In the same way there is much, much in all of us, but we do not know it. No one ever calls it out in us, unless we are lucky enough to know intelligent, imaginative, sympathetic people who love us and have the magnanimity to encourage us, to believe in us, by listening, by praise, by appreciation, by laughing. If you are going to write, you must become aware of this richness in you and come to believe in it and know it is there so that you can write opulently with with self-trust. Once you become aware of it, have faith in it, you will be all right. But it is like this: if you have a million dollars in the bank and don't know, it doesn't so you any good. — Brenda Ueland

With my book in one hand
And my drink in the other
What more could I want

But fame,
Better health,
And ten million dollars? — Kenneth Burke

I trust you, and I know you trust your contact. For one million dollars and three months of my time, I'll screw pretty much anyone. — Winter Renshaw

I get so tired listening to one million dollars here, one million dollars there, it's so petty. — Imelda Marcos

Well, let's see . . ." She put a finger on her chin and looked up and to one side, pretending to think. "I'm the best there is at what I do. I have some things I need to take care of, and it'll be a lot easier to do that with two million dollars. And I enjoy violence and riding around in stretch limos with nerds. The end!" She smiled. "Now you." If Stoppard had not already had a raging crush on Betsy, he had one by the end of that speech. Either way some of the attitude went out of him. — Lev Grossman

Andrew Carnegie, the poverty-stricken Scotch lad who started to work at two cents an hour and finally gave away $365 million, learned early in life that the only way to influence people is to talk in terms of what the other person wants. He attended school only four years; yet he learned how to handle people. To illustrate: His sister-in-law was worried sick over her two boys. They were at Yale, and they were so busy with their own affairs that they neglected to write home and paid no attention whatever to their mother's frantic letters. Then Carnegie offered to wager a hundred dollars that he could get an answer by return mail, without even asking for it. Someone called his bet; so he wrote his nephews a chatty letter, mentioning casually in a postscript that he was sending each one a five-dollar bill. He neglected, however, to enclose the money. Back came replies by return mail thanking "Dear Uncle Andrew" for his kind note and - you can finish the sentence yourself. — Dale Carnegie

Peter suggests that we never forget one fact: 'That with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day.' Translation: God sets His watch to a time zone not accessible to us. Once again we need to remember that He is the one who created time, like everything else, and He uses it for His own purposes.
I like the little story about the foolishness of quantifying God's timing. A little boy asked God, 'How long is a second in heaven?' God said, 'One million years.' The boy asked, 'How much is a penny in heaven?' God answered, 'One million dollars.' The boy said, 'Could I have a penny?' To which God answered, 'In just a second. — David Jeremiah

Of the 2,000,000 Armenians in Turkey in 1914, one million have been slaughtered, and the survivors only 130,000 remain in Turkey and the rest are refugees and exiles. Armenian property losses are valued at over 5,000,000,000 dollars are more than three fourths of the estimated wealth of the Armenian race. — Herbert Adams Gibbons

What was that sound? That rustling noise? It could be heard in the icy North, where there was not one leaf left upon one tree, it could be heard in the South, where the crinoline skirts lay deep in the mothballs, as still and quiet as wool. It could be heard from sea to shining sea, o'er purple mountains' majesty and upon the fruited plain. What was it? Why, it was the rustle of thousands of bags of potato chips being pulled from supermarket racks; it was the rustle of plastic bags being filled with beer and soda pop and quarts of hard liquor; it was the rustle of newspaper pages fanning as readers turned eagerly to the sports section; it was the rustle of currency changing hands as tickets were scalped for forty times their face value and two hundred and seventy million dollars were waged upon one or the other of two professional football teams. It was the rustle of Super Bowl week ... — Tom Robbins

Four years later, in 2013, Facebook bought Instagram for one billion dollars in cash and stock. A billion dollars! Driving to Palo Alto in Evan's Porsche, I couldn't even conceive of a number that high. I like to think that Mark Zuckerberg learned something from his encounter with us. He wasn't going to hedge his bets this time with some paltry offer like five hundred million in a mix of stock and cash. He probably said to Kevin Systrom, the creator of Instagram, "You've been working on this for eighteen months. I will give you one billion dollars." I mean, startup, schmart-up. Who could say no to that? — Biz Stone

No one makes a million dollars with minimal effort unless they win the lottery. — Gary Vaynerchuk

The Catholic church, once all her assets have been put together, is the most formidable stockbroker in the world. The Vatican, independently of each successive pope, has been increasingly orientated towards the U.S. The Wall Street Journal said that the Vatican's financial deals in the U.S. alone were so big that very often it sold or bought gold in lots of a million or more dollars at one time. — Avro Manhattan

A real tank now costs about a million dollars, while a hallucinated one amounts to less than one-hundredth of a cent per person, or centispecter per spectator. A destroyer costs a dime. Today you could fit the whole arsenal of the United States inside a single truck. — Stanislaw Lem

I don't think 'Call Of Duty: Black Ops' sells 25 million plus copies and makes of a billion dollars because of their great storytelling. It's the multiplayer aspect of that type of game, where people get together to shoot each other and have fun. And it's very much gameplay; it's like 'Gran Turismo' or one of these racing games. — Nolan North

Children, even if we lose a million dollars, we can recover it. If we lose one second, we cannot get it back. Every moment that we are not remembering God is lost to us. — Mata Amritanandamayi

Man, if I made one million dollars I would come in at six in the morning, sweep the stands, wash the uniforms, clean out the office, manage the team and play the games. — Duke Snider

At first I hoped that such a technically unsound project would collapse but I soon realized it was doomed to success. Almost anything in software can be implemented, sold, and even used given enough determination. There is nothing a mere scientist can say that will stand against the flood of a hundred million dollars. But there is one quality that cannot be purchased in this way - and that is reliability. The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay. — C.A.R. Hoare

Do the math. America allows about one million two hundred thousand abortions per year. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the average cost of an abortion in 2001, the last year for which data was provided by aborters, was $468.00, so by now the average cost exceeds $600. Multiply the number of abortions times the costs of an abortion. That exercise will yield a total of 'blood money' every year in America of close to a billion dollars ($1,000,000,000.00). — John Price

From World War II until 1981 the top marginal income tax rate never fell below 70 percent. Under President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican whom no one ever accused of being a socialist, the top rate was 91 percent. Even after all deductions and credits, Americans with incomes of over $1 million (in today's dollars) paid a top marginal rate, on average, of 52 percent. As recently as the late 1980s, the top tax rate on capital gains was 35 percent. But as income and wealth have accumulated at the top, so has the political power to reduce taxes. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which were extended for two years in December 2010, capped top rates at 35 percent, their lowest level in more than half a century, and reduced capital gains taxes to 15 percent. — Robert B. Reich

In sum, the fruition of 50 years of research, and several hundred million dollars in government funds, has given us the following picture of sub-atomic matter. All matter consists of quarks and leptons, which interact by exchanging different types of quanta, described by the Maxwell and Yang-Mills fields. In one sentence, we have captured the essence of the past century of frustrating investigation into the subatomic realm, From this simple picture one can derive, from pure mathematics alone, all the myriad and baffling properties of matter. (Although it all seems so easy now, Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, one of the creators of the Standard Model, once reflected on how tortuous the 50-year journey to discover the model had been. He wrote, "There's a long tradition of theoretical physics, which by no means affected everyone but certainly affected me, that said the strong interactions [were] too complicated for the human mind.") — Michio Kaku