"Look, you're probably going to be a very successful computer person. And you are going to go through life thinking girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole."
The argument Erica and Mark have in the film's first scene foreshadows Mark's rise to power. After breaking up with him, Erica predicts that Mark will be successful and that he will also be loathed as a consequence of his arrogance. By the end of the movie, Mark is a billionaire but has lost his closest friendship and has to settle lawsuits related to the unethical business tactics he employed while starting Facebook. In this way, Erica's claims about Mark have proven correct.
"You know, you really don't need a forensics team to get to the bottom of this. If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook."
During a deposition, Mark tells Divya and the Winklevoss Twins that they didn't invent Facebook, because if they had, they would own the company, not him. This line conveys the arrogance Mark displays throughout the film. Rather than admit that Facebook grew out of their idea for an exclusive dating website, Mark stubbornly acts as if it was merely a coincidence that they hired him to create their website just as he got the idea for Facebook.
“Girls wanna go with guys who go to Harvard.”
When inviting Mark to build TheHarvardConnection.com, the Winklevoss Twins and Divya explain that their social networking site is different from MySpace or Friendster because users must have a Harvard email address to sign up. They summarize the exclusivity of it with the line, "Girls wanna go with guys who go to Harvard." The notion appeals to Mark, who instantly shifts from doubting the idea to accepting the role of website programmer.
“It’s like a final club but we’re the president.”
After meeting with Divya and the Winklevoss Twins, Mark goes straight to Eduardo to pitch his idea for The Facebook, a social networking site for Harvard students. Brimming with excitement, Mark suggests that it could be like a final club that they are in charge of. The line is significant because it conveys how Mark's ambition to build Facebook was not initially based on hopes of getting money but a desire for social prestige.
“You stole our whole goddamn idea.”
During his deposition with Divya and the Winklevoss Twins, Mark insists that he didn't use any of their website's code while he was creating Facebook. Divya erupts in anger, shouting that Mark stole their whole idea. The exchange is significant because it shows how Mark feigns innocence as he refuses to concede that Facebook was in any way related to the very similar website Divya hired him to build.
“Facebook me when you get home and maybe we can all go for a drink later.”
In the audience at Bill Gates' speaking event, Eduardo chats with Christy Ling, a young woman who recognizes Mark as the founder of Facebook. She tells Eduardo to Facebook her when he gets home, a line that is significant because it marks the first time anyone in the film has used Facebook as a verb—usage with which viewers of the film are likely quite familiar.
“They came to me with an idea; I had a better one.”
When Eduardo sees the cease-and-desist letter the Winklevoss Twins sent Mark, he panics over the possibility that Mark stole the idea for Facebook from them. Mark insists there is nothing he should tell Eduardo, claiming that his idea for Facebook is different from the twins' idea for a dating website.
“Screw it, let’s gut him.”
After exhausting various on-campus means of stopping Mark from developing Facebook further, Divya and the Winklevoss twins discuss their options. Although they had hoped to pursue the matter without involving their father's law firm, the twins finally give up on taking the high road as "Harvard gentlemen" and decide it is time to sue Mark. In this line, they proclaim their intention to "gut" Mark—a metaphor for suing him for everything he is worth.
"Did you realize at the time that you were signing your own death certificate?"
During Mark and Eduardo's deposition, one of Eduardo's lawyers asks if he understood at the time that he was signing contracts that would lead to him having his stake in Facebook diluted to almost nothing. Using a metaphor that emphasizes the penalty Eduardo received for not reviewing the contracts more closely, the lawyer asks if he was aware he was signing his own death certificate. With this language, the lawyer implies that Eduardo was fooled into agreeing to something completely against his own interests because he didn't suspect that Mark would cheat him out of the company.
"You're not an asshole. You're just trying so hard to be."
In the final scene in the film, Marilyn, one of Mark's lawyers, speaks with him in the boardroom after everyone else has gone home. She informs him that he will have to settle the lawsuits rather than go to court. Before leaving, she delivers this line, which echoes what Erica told Mark at the beginning of the film. The line suggests that she doesn't believe Mark is a cruel person at heart, but rather that he puts on an arrogant show for others because he's trying to appear foreboding and confident.
