On Monday’s Wall Street crash:

“I expected it somewhat earlier, and not for economic reasons--but for aesthetic and moral reasons. The last two years were just too disgusting a spectacle. Pigs gorging themselves at the trough are always a disgusting spectacle, and you know it won’t last long.”

--Peter F. Drucker,

a professor at Claremont Graduate School and a pioneer in the study of modern management

“It was a financial meltdown as good as any that has come along.”

--John Phelan,

chairman of the New York Stock Exchange

“There’s too much money chasing too few stocks managed by 28-year-old boys paid $500,000 a year who don’t know what they’re doing.”

--H. Ross Perot,

chairman of Electronic Data Systems

“What we have is an economic crisis of international proportions.”

--John D. Connolly,

chairman of the investment policy committee of Dean Witter Reynolds

“I think everyone is a little puzzled. I don’t know what meaning it might have because all the business indices are up. There is nothing wrong with the economy.”

--President Reagan

“I’m very nervous about tomorrow. This may be the end of the yuppie era.”

--Michael Meer,

a broker and trader for Haas Securities in New York

“1929 looks like small potatoes compared to what happened this week.”

--I.W. (Tubby) Burnham II,

honorary chairman of the Drexel Burnham Lambert brokerage firm

“I slept like a baby (Monday night). I woke up every hour and cried.”

--George Lefferts,

Equitable Financial Services manager, San Diego.

“This is going to frighten off a lot of small investors and quite a few big ones, too. I suspect there will be a substantially more cautious approach to investing after this.”

--John Kenneth Galbraith,

Harvard economist

“It’s paper anyway. It was paper when we started and it’s paper afterward.”

--Sam Walton,

chairman of Wal-Mart Stores, whose personal stock holdings declined by about half a billion dollars Monday.