Die Jagd auf den Wolf der Wall Street

the most common profession was unemployment

It was as if my life was a stage, and the Wolf of Wall Street was performing for the benefit of some imaginary audience, who judged my every move and hung on my every word.

How else was a man to measure his success if not by playing out every one of his adolescent fantasies, regardless of how bizarre it might be?

at the very mercy

Listen to me, everyone: There’s no nobility in poverty. I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor, and I choose rich every time. At least as a rich man, when I have to face my problems, I can show up in the back of a stretch limousine, wearing a two-thousand-dollar suit and a twenty-thousand-dollar gold watch! And, believe me, arriving in style makes your problems a helluva lot easi

And one of those hidden cameras is right over Daddy’s shoulder”—I pointed to a tiny pinhole high up on the wall—“and as luck would have it, Mommy, it happens to be focused right on the very best part of your glorious anatomy”

She must’ve said “I love you” a hundred times a day. And as the day progressed she would add on these wonderful little intensifiers: I love you desperately! I love you unconditionally!…and, of course, my favorite: I love you to the point of madness!…which I considered the most appropriate of all.

engage a transaction, either underpaying or overpaying for a particular product, depending on which way you wanted your money to flow.

buried the hatchet

sweep things under the rug