QUOTEBOX: Madoff gets 150 years in prison for fraud

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Confessed swindler Bernard Madoff, 71, was sentenced to 150 years in prison on Monday for perpetrating Wall Street's biggest and most brazen investment fraud.

Following are selected quotes from main players in the case, including comments made inside and outside Manhattan federal court:

U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE DENNY CHIN:

"The breach of trust was massive."

"I simply do not get the sense that Mr. Madoff has done all that he could or told all that he knows."

"By any of these monetary measures, the fraud here is unprecedented."

"Here, the message must be sent that Mr. Madoff's crimes were extraordinarily evil. It was not merely a bloodless crime but instead one that takes a staggering human toll."

BERNARD MADOFF:

"I will live with this pain, with this torment, for the rest of my life."

"I live in a tormented state knowing the pain and suffering I have created."

"I cannot offer you an excuse for my behavior. How do you excuse betraying thousands of investors who entrusted me with their life savings?"

"Although I may not have intended any harm, I did cause harm. I believed when I started this problem, this crime, that it would be something I would be able to work myself out of. The harder I tried, the deeper a hole I dug myself."

"I have left a legacy of shame -- as some of my victims have pointed out -- to my children and grandchildren."

"She (wife Ruth Madoff) cries herself to sleep every night knowing of the pain I have caused. I am tormented by that as well."

RUTH MADOFF:

"From the moment I learned from my husband that he had committed an enormous fraud, I have had two thoughts -- first, that so many people who trusted him would be ruined financially and emotionally, and second, that my life with the man I have known for over 50 years was over."

"Many of my husband's investors were my close friends and family. And in the days since December, I have read with immense pain the wrenching stories of people whose life savings have evaporated because of his crime."

ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY LISA BARONI:

"He destroyed lifetimes of hard work of thousands of victims, and he used that hard work to enrich himself and his family."

"It was a calculated, well orchestrated, long-term fraud."

"He created literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of fake documents every year."

INVESTOR TOM FITZMAURICE:

"Madoff has shown no remorse ... His crime was premeditated and calculated."

"He has taken our entire life savings. We have nothing left, just like many other of his victims."

"My life will never be the same. I am financially ruined and will worry every day how I will take care of my wife."

"I have a marriage made in heaven. You (Madoff) have a marriage made in hell. That is where you are going to return. May god spare you no mercy."

INVESTOR BURT ROSS:

"He has truly earned his reputation for being the most despised person living in America today."

INVESTOR MICHAEL SCHWARTZ:

"I only hope that he lives long enough that his jail cell becomes his coffin."

INVESTOR MIRIAM SIEGMAN:

"He discarded me like road kill. Victims became the byproduct of his greed."

INVESTOR MAUREEN EBEL:

"I feel greatly relieved that justice has been done for Mr. Madoff. He was sentenced for life but we victims are also enduring a life sentence.

INVESTOR RENEE ROSEN:

"My anger is not with Bernard Madoff, but with our government. It's giving big money to Big Money, and not helping its people."

INVESTOR MARC LABIANCA:

"I lost a tremendous amount of money, but my mother-in-law lost generations of wealth. My children's children are going to feel this."

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta, Martha Graybow, Grant McCool, Christine Kearney, Michael Erman, Chavon Sutton and Vikram Subhedar; editing by John Wallace)