# Quote — Michael Lewis, Flash Boys

> The U.S. stock market was now a class system, rooted in speed, of haves and have-nots. The haves paid for nanoseconds; the have-nots had no idea that a nanosecond had value. The haves enjoyed a perfect view of the market; the have-nots never saw the market at all. What had once been the world’s most public, most democratic, financial market had become, in spirit, something like a private viewing of a stolen work of art.

- Author: [Michael Lewis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-lewis.md)
- Book: [Flash Boys](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-lewis/flash-boys.md)
- Page: 69
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Lewis_(author)#Flash_Boys_(2014)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-lewis/flash-boys/the-u-s-stock

## More from this book

> He now suspected that every human being who knew how high-frequency traders made money was making too much money doing it to stop and explain what was going on.

p. 55 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-lewis/flash-boys/he-now-suspected.md)

> Thus the only Goldman Sachs employee arrested by the FBI in the aftermath of a financial crisis Goldman had done so much to fuel was the employee Goldman asked the FBI to arrest.

p. 148 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-lewis/flash-boys/thus-the-only.md)

> "Liquidity" was one of those words Wall Street people threw around when they wanted the conversation to end, and for brains to go dead, and for all questioning to cease.

p. 108 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-lewis/flash-boys/liquidity-was-one.md)