Quotes from work

The Godfather

“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.”

“A friend should always underestimate your virtues and an enemy overestimate your faults”

“There are things that have to be done and you do them and you never talk about them. You don't try to justify them. They can't be justified. You just do them. Then you forget it.”

“The lawyer with the briefcase can steal more money than the man with the gun.”

“I'll make him an offer he can't refuse.”

“Great men are not born great, they grow great…”

“Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than the government. It is almost the equal of family.- Don Corleone”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“And in that fraction of a second before anything actually happened, Santino Corleone knew he was a dead man.”

“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.”

“Time erodes gratitude more quickly than it does beauty!”

“Behind every great fortune there is a crime.”

“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.”

“When they come… they come at what you love.”

“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”

“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.”