Fortune's Children Quotes

“GENTLEMEN You have undertaken to cheat me. I won’t sue you, for the law is too slow. I’ll ruin you. C. Vanderbilt”
― Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt

“A dinner invitation once accepted is a sacred obligation. If you die before the dinner takes place, your executor must attend.”
― Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt

“For the Vanderbilts lived in a day when flaunting one’s money was not only accepted but celebrated. What may have started as playacting, as dressing up as dukes and princesses for fancy dress balls in fairytale palaces, soon developed into a firm conviction that they were indeed the new American nobility.”
― Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt

“When Willie learned that the old Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum across from his father’s twin mansions at 640 Fifth Avenue was to be bought by a developer to construct an eighteen-story hotel, he purchased the property for $1 million and later leased it to Cartier.”
― Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt

“Look how the Harlem’s stock has risen! If that franchise were, perchance, to be rescinded, think how fast the stock would drop! If the aldermen were to sell the Harlem short—if they were to speculate on an anticipated drop in the stock’s price by borrowing shares they did not own, selling them, and then buying them back at a much lower price to replace the borrowed shares—think how much money there was to be made as the stock plummeted! What he said made eminent sense to the honorable aldermen. Led by Drew, they each borrowed as much money as possible and began shorting the Harlem’s stock, selling, selling, always selling. Learning of the scheme, the Commodore began buying. When the council repealed the ordinance on June 25 and the court of common pleas issued an injunction to prohibit construction of the new Harlem line along Broadway to the Battery, the aldermen gleefully sat back and waited for the stock to dive. As it fell from 110 to 72, they cheered. Their glee, however, turned to terror the next day when, inexorably, inexplicably, horribly, the stock began rising. The Commodore had cornered the market—had bought every outstanding share of the Harlem. By June 26, the stock was at 97lA. The next day it rose again, up to 106. In a panic, the august aldermen repealed their repeal of the franchise to placate the Commodore. That didn’t help. The stock continued to rise. All the while, they begged the Commodore to stop, to allow them to buy the stock back from him to cover their short positions. No, the Commodore said. It was important for them to learn their lesson. The stock continued to rise: to 150, to 170, to 179. There was no limit to their losses. The higher the stock rose, the more money they were losing. The only way to stop these terrible losses was to buy back stock to replace their borrowed shares, but there was not a single share available.”
― Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt

“piles.”
― Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt

“If ever Scott Fitzgerald needed evidence to substantiate his aphorism that “the very rich…are different from you and me,” it was here in spades in this portrait gallery of extravagant crazies that is the unique saga of the Vanderbilt family.”
― Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt

“The secret of my success is this: I never tell what I am going to do till I have done it.”62”
― Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt

“In the hidden reaches where memory probes lie sorrows too deep to fathom.”
― Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt