Doctor Faustus and Enron Quotations

Comparative Quotations with where they appear in the texts

‘We’re trying to change the world.’

-Skilling, Prologue

‘Till, swoll’n with cunning of a self-conceit.’

-Chorus, Prologue

[Fastow enters, all self-importance.]

-Stage direction, 1:4

‘Both law and physics are for petty wits […] Tis magic, magic that hath ravished me.’

-Faustus, 1:1

‘If your company accounts need filling/He’s available and willing/To see to it you make a killing!/Skilling, Skilling […]’

-Analyst Quartet, 1:5

‘Now, Faustus, thou art conjurer laureate’

-Faustus, 1:3

‘All these ideas are mine!’

-Skilling, 1:9

‘I see there’s virtue in my heavenly words’

-Faustus, 1:3

‘Because they weren’t smart enough to work in the private sector. And that’s the truth. I got head-hunted.’

-Skilling, 2:7

‘To God? He loves thee not. The god thou servest is thine own appetite’

-Faustus, 1:2

‘Our stock is so strong.’

-Skilling, 2:5

‘All things that move between quiet poles shall be at my command.’

-Faustus, 1:1

‘Goddamn.’

-Skilling, 2:7

‘This word ‘damnation’ terrifies not him’

-Faustus, 1:3

‘I created you.’

-Skilling to Fastow, 2:8

‘By him i’ll be great emperor of the world’

-Faustus about Mephistopheles, 1:4

‘It’s a way for us to realise the profits we’re gonna make now.’

-Skilling, 1:1

‘Letting him live in all voluptuousness, Having thee attend on me’

-Faustus’ commands for Lucifer, 1:4

[The gold glints somewhere in the audience.]

-Stage directions, 1:4

‘Heap up gold, and be eternised’

-Faustus, 1:1

‘Money and sex motivate people.’

-Skilling, 1:5

‘I may conjure in some lusty grove and have these joys in full possession’

-Faustus, 1:2

[The Lehman Brothers give Fastow the money.]

-Stage directions, 2:1

‘Come, master doctor, follow us and receive your reward’

-The Duke, 4:2

‘ ‘I have to check the stock price.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because that’s how Daddy knows how much he is worth.’ ’

-Skilling and Daughter, 2:4

‘So far forth as by art and power of my spirit I am able to perform’

-Faustus, 4:1

‘Who do you think is going to win in the end?! The greedy or the inept?!’

-Skilling, 2:7

‘Christ cannot save thy soul, for he is just. There’s none but I have int’rest in the same’

-Lucifer, 2:3

‘We should be coming up with new ideas […] I got plenty of ideas.’

-Skilling, 1:3

‘I’ll have them fly to India for gold, ransack the ocean for orient pearl’

-Faustus, 1:1

‘I’m offering Jeff the job.’ [As Roe’s dreams are shattered, Skilling’s dreams are made real]

-Stage directions and Lay, 1:3

‘and glutted more with learning's golden gifts, he surfeits upon cursed necromancy; nothing so sweet as magic is to him’

-Chorus, Prologue

‘Ken’s gotta accept it’s my show.’

-Skilling, 2:1

‘Marriage is but a ceremonial toy. If thou lovest me, think no more of it’

-Mephistopheles, 2:1

‘Doesn’t matter how you win, as long as you win.’

-Skilling to Roe, 2:3

‘[Aside] O, what will not I do to obtain his soul?’

-Mephistopheles, 2:1

[Skilling presses the stop button on Fastow’s running machine, hurtling the younger man from his treadmill.]

-Stage Directions, 1:5

[Faustus and Mephistopheles beat the friars, and fling fireworks among them, and so exeunt]

-Stage Directions, 3:2

‘TRIMMING THE FAT’

-Scene Title, 1:5

‘revolt, or i'll piecemeal tear thy flesh’

-Mephistopheles, 5:1

‘I didn’t have to lie. You’re an amateur.’

-Skilling to Roe after she gets fired, 2:3

‘You bring Alexander and his paramour before the Emperor?’

-Knight to Faustus, 4:1

‘Burn, baby, burn!’

-All Traders, 2:6

‘Choke thyself, Glutton!’

-Faustus, 2:3

‘Well that’s your fucking job, ain’t it?’

-Skilling to Fastow, 2:5

‘Away, you villain! What, dost think I am a horse-doctor?’

-Faustus to Horse-Courser, 4:1

‘mark-to-market, much more appropriate, much more transparent’

-Fastow, 1:1

‘Trust in Beelzebub. Now go not backward. No, Faustus, be resolute’

-Faustus, 2:1

‘It’s just box after box after box. Russian dolls, until you get to…’ [The tiny box glows red and throbs.]

-Fastow about LJM, 1:8

‘Would I have a book wherein I might behold all spells and incarnations [...] Now would I have a book where I might see all characters and planets of the heavens [...]’

-Faustus, 2:1

‘The accountants and lawyers are OK with it if you’re OK with it, Ken.’

-Skilling, 1:8

‘Do so, and we will highly gratify thee.’

-Lucifer to Faustus, 2:3

‘We are the good guys in California. We are on the side of the angels.’

-Skilling, 2:6

‘Wherein thou hast given thy soul to Lucifer’

-Mephistopheles to Faustus, 2:1

‘So how ‘bout paying the prices we’re asking?’

-Lay to California Governor, 2:6

‘I cannot sell him so. If thou lik’st him for fifty, take him’

-Faustus to Horse-courser, 4:1

‘But we didn’t do anything illegal in California.’

-Skilling to Lawyer, 2:7

‘Nay, I know not. We shall be cursed with bell, book, and candle.’

-Mephistopheles, 3:2

‘Well, things become a lot easier with the stock options you’ve given us’

-Security Officer to Skilling, 2:7

‘Faustus vows never to look to heaven, never to name God or pray to him, to burn his scriptures, slay his ministers, and make my spirits pull his churches down’

-Faustus, 2:3

‘One of Skilling’s death weekends, man! […] Someone’s gonna fuckin die.’

-Trader 2, 1:4

‘Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitude, and scorn those joys thou never shalt possess’

-Faustus, 1:4

‘Closest thing there is to hunting. Closest thing there is to sex. For a man that is.’

-Trader 1, 1:4

‘I will wound Achilles in the heel and then return to Helen for a kiss’

-Faustus, 5:1

[The hum of manly pursuits […] Skilling is on a running machine […] He’s pushing himself and relishing the physical challenge.]

-Stage Directions, 1:5

‘For, falling to a devilish exercise, and glutted more with learning's golden gifts, he surfits upon cursèd necromancy; nothing so sweet as magic is to him’

-Chorus, Prologue

‘Loopholes so big you could fuck a fat chick through ‘em.’

-Trader 3, 2:6

‘A plague on her for a hot whore!’

-Faustus, 2:1

‘Be a fucking man!’

-Skilling to Fastow, 2:8

‘By him I’ll be great emperor of the world’

-Faustus about Mephistopheles, 1:4

‘He says, ‘Only people prepared to lose are ever gonna win.’ ’

-Trader 4 about Skilling, 1:4

‘When we hear one rack the name of God, [..] we fly in hope to get his glorious soul’

-Mephistopheles, 1:3

‘Risk is life, basically.’

-Fastow, 1:8

‘As resolute am I in this as thou to live’

-Faustus to Valdes, 1:1

[Skilling falls to his knees with the relief.]

-Stage Directions after Republicans elected, 2:5

‘Nor will I henceforth’

-Faustus to Lucifer, 2:3

‘I’ve been thinking of taking Enron into weather.’

-Skilling to Security Officer, 2:7

‘I know you’d fain see the Pope’

-Mephistopheles to Faustus about mocking the Pope, 3:1

‘The guy I know tried to change the world was the one behind the corporate crime that defined the end of the twentieth century.’

-Lawyer, Prologue

‘Nay, then I fear he is fall’n into that damned art for which they two are infamous through the world’

-First Scholar about Faustus, 1:2

‘The bubble’s gonna burst folks.’

-Roe, 1:7

‘Faustus, repent yet, God will pity thee’

-Good Angel, 2:3

‘You got a perception here, a reality here. You just need something to lean on while we bring this up.’

-Fastow, 1:8

‘Hell hath no limits, nor circumscribed in one self place, for where we are is hell, and where hell is must we ever be’

-Mephistopheles, 2:1

‘Things have started getting divorced from the underlying realities.’

-Roe 2:2

‘Marriage is but a ceremonial toy’

-Mephistopheles, 2:1

[Daughter […] has disappeared, leaving only bubbles in her wake.]

-Stage Directions, 2:3

[Enter Mephistopheles disguised as a friar]

-Stage Directions, 1:3

‘This is how it looks...I can’t make real money just appear.’

-Fastow to Skilling, 2:5

‘Move me not, for I will not tell thee’

-Mephistopheles to Faustus about the world's creation, 2:3

‘What if they look and see that underneath there’s nothing actually there -’

-Fastow to Skilling, 2:8

‘Sure these are no spirits, but the true substantial bodies of those two deceased princes’

-Emperor, 4:1

[Claudia Roe, a very attractive blonde woman of forty in a short skirt.]

-Stage Directions, 1:1

‘What are you, Mistress Minx’

-Faustus to Lechery, 2:3

‘Most powerful women?’

-Skilling 1:1

‘Was this the face that launched a thousand ships’

-Faustus about Helen of Troy, 5:1

[Skilling and Row finish having clothed, quick sex.]

-Stage Directions, 1:2

‘Thou shalt be my paramour’

-Faustus, 5:1

[She tosses the Kleenex away […] and confidently strides from the office.]

-Stage Directions, 1:2

‘I will combat weak Menelaus [...] I will wound Achilles in the heel’

-Faustus, 5:1

[His daughter fades into the dark]

-Stage Directions, 1:6

[Devils [..] dance and then depart]

-Stage Directions, 2:1

‘Tits Industries’ […] Skank of America’

-Roe and Skilling about Trader’s names for Roe’s division, 1:7

[a DEVIL dressed like a woman]

-Stage Directions, 2:1

‘Clever girls.’

-Fastow to Raptors, 1:9

‘Thou art fairer that the evening air’

-Faustus to Helen, 5:1

‘I’m gonna go home to my beautiful children.’

-Roe to Skilling, 2:4

‘And then return to Helen for a Kiss’

-Faustus, 5:1

[the most powerful man in the room, Ken Lay]

-Stage Directions, 1:1

‘be a physician faustus, heap up gold, and be eternalized for some wondrous cure’

-Faustus, 1:1

‘Jeffrey ‘mark-to-market’ Skilling.’

-Lay, 1:1

‘Master Doctor Faustus’

-Emperor, 4:1

‘There’s nothing Skilling don’t know.’

-Trader 4, 1:4

‘None in [...] the whole world, can compare with thee’

-Emperor to Faustus, 4:1

‘I’m fucking smart.’

-Skilling, 1:5

‘By art and power of my spirit I am able’

-Faustus, 4:1

[He’s delighted by his power and its effect.]

-Stage Directions about Skilling, 1:5

‘O, this feeds my soul!’

-Faustus about the parade of the sins, 2:3

[The Photographer is beneath him to make him look impressive, god-like]

-Stage Directions, 1:9

‘By him I’ll be great emperor of the world’

-Faustus about Mephistopheles, 1:4

[Reaction is ecstatic, like a religious cult. Skilling is messiah-like]

-Stage Directions, 1:9

‘Whilst I live rest beholding for this courtesy’

-Duchess of Vanholt to Faustus, 4:2

‘We trust you all up here, sir.’

-Security Officer to Skilling, 2:7

‘Thou let me see some proof of thy skill’

-Emperor to Faustus, 4:1