Mario Puzo - The Godfather (1969)

28 Sourced Quotes

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A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.

Mario Puzo
He's a businessman... I'll make him an offer he can't refuse.

Mario Puzo
A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.

Mario Puzo
There are things that have to be done and you do them and you don't talk about them. You don't try to justify them. They can't be justified. You just do them. Then you forget them.

Mario Puzo
I don't trust society to protect us, I have no intention of placing my fate in the hands of men whose only qualification is that they managed to con a block of people to vote for them.

Mario Puzo
Lawyers can steal more money with a briefcase than a thousand men with guns and masks.

Mario Puzo
Italians have a little joke, that the world is so hard a man must have two fathers to look after him, and that's why they have godfathers.

Mario Puzo
He smelled the garden, the yellow shield of light smote his eyes, and he whispered, "Life is so beautiful."... Yes, he thought, if I can die saying, "Life is so beautiful," then nothing else is important.

Mario Puzo
No, that's not possible," Michael said. "Killed, yes; jail, no.

Mario Puzo
You cannot say 'no' to the people you love, not often. That's the secret. And then when you do, it has to sound like a 'yes'. Or you have to make them say 'no.' You have to take time and trouble.

Mario Puzo
It was a lie but he believed in telling lies to people. Truth telling and medicine just didn't go together except in dire emergencies, if then.

Mario Puzo
It was not perhaps the warmest friendship in the world, they would not send each other Christmas gift greetings, but they would not murder each other.

Mario Puzo
Why should I be afraid now? Strange men have come to kill me ever since I was twelve years old.

Mario Puzo
Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Mario Puzo
You can't hide the thunderbolt. When it hits you, everybody can see it. Christ, man, don't be ashamed of it, some men pray for the thunderbolt. You're a very lucky fellow. - Calo

Mario Puzo
The other Dons in the room applauded and rose to shake hands with everybody in sight and to congratulate Don Corleone and Don Tattaglia on their new friendship. It was not perhaps the warmest friendship in the world, they would not send each other Christmas gift greetings, but they would not murder each other. That was friendship enough in this world, all that was needed.

Mario Puzo
If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it's that you can kill anyone.

Mario Puzo
We are all honorable men here, we do not have to give each other assurances as if we were lawyers.

Mario Puzo
He had long ago learned that society imposes insults that must be borne, comforted by the knowledge that in this world there comes a time when the most humble of men, if he keeps his eyes open, can take his revenge on the most powerful. It was this knowledge that prevented the Don from losing the humility all his friends admired in him.

Mario Puzo
The man with the briefcase can steal more money than the man with the gun.

Mario Puzo
She emptied her mind of all thought of herself, of her children, of all anger, of all rebellion, of all questions. Then with a profound and deeply willed desire to believe, to be heard, as she had done every day since the murder of Carlo Rizzi, she said the necessary prayers for the soul of Michael Corleone.

Mario Puzo
Even as a young man, Vito Corleone became known as a "man of reasonableness." He never uttered a threat. He always used logic that proved to be irresistible. He always made certain that the other fellow got his share of profit. Nobody lost. He did this, of course, by obvious means. Like many businessmen of genius he learned that free competition was wasteful, monopoly efficient. And so he simply set about achieving that efficient monopoly.

Mario Puzo
Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than the government. It is almost the equal of family.

Mario Puzo
Michael could never remember his father ever having uttered a word about death, as if the Don respected death too much to philosophize about it.

Mario Puzo
There was no greater natural advantage in life than having an enemy overestimate your faults, unless it was to have a friend underestimate your virtues.

Mario Puzo
Santino, never let anyone outside the family know what you are thinking. Never let them know what you have under your fingernails. I think your brain is going soft from all that comedy you play with that young girl. Stop it and pay attention to business. Now get out of my sight.

Mario Puzo
Accidents don't happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult.

Mario Puzo
Many young men started down a false path to their true destiny. Time and fortune usually set them aright.

Mario Puzo