The Godfather quotes

View Quote Bonasera: I believe in America. America has made my fortune. And I raised my daughter in the American fashion. I gave her freedom, but I taught her never to dishonor her family. She found a boyfriend; not an Italian. She went to the movies with him; she stayed out late. I didn't protest. Two months ago, he took her for a drive, with another boyfriend. They made her drink whiskey. And then they tried to take advantage of her. She resisted. She kept her honor. So they beat her, like an animal. When I went to the hospital, her nose was a'broken. Her jaw was a'shattered, held together by wire. She couldn't even weep because of the pain. But I wept. Why did I weep? She was the light of my life, a beautiful girl. Now she will never be beautiful again. I went to the police, like a good American. These two boys were brought to trial. The judge sentenced them to three years in prison - suspended sentence. Suspended sentence! They went free that very day! I stood in the courtroom like a fool. And those two bas****, they smiled at me. Then I said to my wife, for justice, we must go to Don Corleone.

View Quote Calo: In Sicily, women are more dangerous than shotguns.

View Quote Carlo: [to Connie] Yeah, yeah, come on now, kill me. Be a murderer like your father. Come on, all you Corleones are murderers anyway.

View Quote Don Zaluchi: I, too, don't believe in drugs. For years I paid my people extra to stay away from that sort of stuff, but someone comes along saying, I've got powders where if you put up a three to four thousand dollar investment, you can make fifty thousand distributing, then there is no way to resist it. I want to keep it respectable. I don't want it near schools. I don't want it sold to children! That's an infamia. In my city, we'd keep the traffic to the Dark People, the Coloreds - they're animals anyway, so let them lose their souls.

View Quote Genco: Godfather... Stay... Stay, so that death will flee from me... In fear of you...

View Quote Kay Adams: Say you love me, Michael.

View Quote Luca Brasi: Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your daughter's wedding... on the day of your daughter's wedding. And I hope that their first child will be a masculine child. I pledge my ever-ending loyalty.

View Quote Virgil "the Turk" Solozzo: Sonny was hot for my deal, wasn't he? And you knew it was the right thing to do...you gotta talk some sense into him. The Tattaglia family is behind me with all their people. The other New York families will go along with anything that will prevent a full-scale war. Let's face it, Tom, and all due respect. The Don, rest in peace, was slippin'. Ten years ago could I have gotten to him? Well, now he's dead. He's dead, Tom, and nothing can bring him back. So you gotta talk to Sonny and the other two kids; you gotta talk to the 'capo' regimes, that Tessio and Fat Clemenza. It's good business, Tom... let me worry about Luca. I don't like violence, Tom. I'm a business man. Blood is a big expense.

View Quote Capt. McCluskey: I thought I got all you Guinea hoods locked up, what the hell are you doing here?
Michael: What happened to the men who were guarding my father?
Capt. McCluskey: Why you little punk! What the hell are you doing telling me my business? I pulled them guys off of here, eh! -- now you get outta here -- and stay away from this hospital!
Michael: I'm not moving until you put some guards around my father's room.
Capt. McCluskey: Phil, take him in!
Cop: The kid's clean Captain, he's a war hero! He's never been busted for the rackets...
Capt. McCluskey: God Damn it, I said take him in!
Michael: What's the Turk paying you to set up my father, Captain?
Capt. McCluskey: [to Cop] Take a hold of him, stand him up, stand him up straight.
[McCluskey punches Michael and breaks his jaw]

View Quote Clemenza: He wants us to send Michael to hear the proposition. And the promise is that the deal is so good that we can't refuse.
Sonny: No more meetin's, no more discussions, no more Sollozzo tricks.
Michael: We can't wait. I don't care what Sollozzo says about a deal, he's gonna kill Pop, that's it. That's the key for him. Gotta get Sollozzo. They wanna have a meeting with me, right? It will be me, McCluskey, and Sollozzo. Let's set the meeting. Get our informers to find out where it's gonna be held. Now, we insist it's a public place, a bar, a restaurant, some place where there's people so I feel safe. They're gonna search me when I first meet them, right? So I can't have a weapon on me then. But if Clemenza can figure a way to have a weapon planted there for me, then I'll kill 'em both.
Sonny: [Smiles] Hey, whatcha gonna do, nice college boy, eh? Didn't want to get mixed up in the Family business, huh? Now you wanna gun down a police captain cuz he slapped ya in the face? Hah? What do you think this is the Army, where you shoot 'em a mile away? You've gotta get up close like this and bada-bing,you blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit! Come here!
[kisses Michael's head]
Michael: Sonny...
Sonny: You're taking this very personal. Tom, this is business and this man is taking it very personal.
Michael: Where does it say that you can't kill a cop?...I'm talking about a cop that's mixed up in drugs. I'm talking about a dishonest cop and a crooked cop who got mixed up in the rackets and got what was coming to him. That'd make a helluva story. Now we got people in the newspapers, right Tom? They might like a story like that.
Tom Hagen: They might; they just might.
Michael: It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business.

View Quote Connie: [about Carlo] It was my fault!...Sonny, please it was my fault, Sonny it was my fault. I hit him. I started a fight with him. Please let me be. I hit him so he hit me...Sonny, please don't do anything. Please don't do anything.
Sonny: OK. What's the matter with you? What am I gonna do? I'm gonna make that baby an orphan before he's born or what? Huh? Hmmm? All right?

View Quote Don Corleone: [to Sollozzo] I must say no to you, and I'll give you my reasons. It's true. I have a lot of friends in politics, but they wouldn't be friendly very long if they knew my business was drugs instead of gambling, which they rule that as a - a harmless vice. But drugs is a dirty business...It makes, it doesn't make any difference to me what a man does for a living, understand. But your business, is uh, a little dangerous.
Sonny: Aw, you're telling me that the Tattaglias guarantee our investment?
Don Corleone: I have a sentimental weakness for my children, and I spoil them, as you can see. They talk when they should listen.
[Sollozzo leaves after the Don wishes him luck]
Don Corleone: [to Sonny] Whatsa matter with you? I think your brain's goin' soft ...Never tell anybody outside the family what you're thinking again.

View Quote Don Corleone: [to the Heads of the Five Families] How did things ever get so far? I don't know. It was so unfortunate, so unnecessary. Tattaglia lost a son and I lost a son. We're quits. And if Tattaglia agrees, then I'm willing to let things go on the way they were before.
Don Barzini: We're all grateful to Don Corleone for calling this meeting. We all know him as a man of his word. A modest man who will always listen to reason.
Tattaglia: Yes, Barzini, he is too modest. He had all the judges and politicians in his pocket and refused to share them.
Don Corleone: When, when did I ever refuse an accommodation? All of you know me here. When did I ever refuse, except one time? And why? Because I believe this drug business is gonna destroy us in the years to come. I mean, it's not like gambling or liquor, even women, which is something that most people want nowadays and it's forbidden to them...by the church. Even the police departments have helped us in the past with gambling and other things. They're gonna refuse to help us when it comes to narcotics. And I believe that then - and I believe that now.
Don Barzini: Times have changed. It's not like the old days when we could do anything we want. A refusal is not the act of a friend. Don Corleone had all the judges and the politicians in New York and he must share them...He must let us draw the water from the well. Certainly, he can present a bill for such services. After all, we are not Communists...
Don Corleone: I hoped that we would come here and reason together. And as a reasonable man, I'm willing to do whatever's necessary to find a peaceful solution to these problems.
Don Barzini: Then we are agreed. The traffic in drugs will be permitted, but controlled, and Don Corleone will give up protection in the East - and there will be the peace.
Tattaglia: But I must have strict assurance from Corleone. As time goes by and his position becomes stronger, will he attempt any individual vendetta?
Don Barzini: Look, we are all reasonable men here. We don't have to give assurances as if we were lawyers.
Don Corleone: You talk about vengeance. Is vengeance gonna bring your son back to you and my boy to me? I forgot all the vengeance in my son. But I have selfish reasons. [after saying that Michael is returning to the U.S.] I'm a superstitious man, and if some unlucky accident should befall him, if he should get shot in the head by a police officer, or if he should hang himself in his jail cell, or if he's struck by a bolt of lightning, then I'm going to blame some of the people in this room. And that, I do not forgive. But that aside, let me say that I swear on the souls of my grandchildren, that I will not be the one to break the peace that we have made here today.

View Quote Don Corleone: [whispers] Where's Michael? [loudly] Where's Michael?
Tom Hagen: It was Michael who killed Sollozzo, but he's safe and we're starting to work to bring him back.

View Quote Don Corleone: Ah, Aspetto, Fredo. Going to buy some fruit.
Fredo: Okay, Pop.