The Godfather Quotes

Don Corleone: You talk about vengeance. Is vengeance going to bring your son back to you, or my boy to me? I forgo the vengeance of my son. But I have selfish reasons. My youngest son was forced to leave this country because of this Sollozzo business. All right, now I have to make arrangements to bring him back here safely cleared of all these false charges. But I'm a

superstitious man, and if some unlucky accident should befall him... if he should be 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 we have made here today.

[Sunday dinner at the Corleone home...]
Sonny: Niggers havin' a real good time up in Harlem...
Carlo Rizzi: I knew that was going to happen as soon as they tasted the big money.
Connie: Papa never talked about business in front of the kids.
Carlo Rizzi: Shut up, Connie.
Sonny:

Hey, don't you EVER tell her to shut up, you got that?
Mama Corleone: Santino, don't interfere.
[Silence reigns around the table for a while]
Carlo Rizzi: Sonny, Tom, I'd like to talk to you after dinner. I think I can do a lot more for this family...
Sonny: We don't discuss business at the table.

Michael: You have to answer for Santino, Carlo. You fingered Sonny for the Barzini people.
Carlo Rizzi: Mike, you got it all wrong.
Michael: Ah, that little farce you played with my sister. You think that would fool a Corleone?
Carlo Rizzi: Mike, I'm innocent. I swear on the kids.

Michael: Sit down.
Carlo Rizzi: Please don't do this to me, Mike. Please don't.
Michael: Barzini is dead. So is Phillip Tattaglia. Moe Greene. Stracci. Cuneo. Today I settled all family business so don't tell me that you're innocent. Admit what you did.
[Carlo starts sobbing]
Michael: Get him a drink.

Don't be afraid, Carlo. Come on, you think I'd make my sister a widow? I'm Godfather to your son.
[Carlo get handed a drink]
Michael: Go ahead. Drink. Drink. No, you're out of the family business, that's your punishment. You're finished. I'm putting you on a plane to Vegas. Tom?
[Tom hands Michael an airplane ticket]
Michael: I want you

to stay there, you understand?
[Carlo nods]
Michael: Only don't tell me that you're innocent. Because it insults my intelligence and it makes me very angry. Now, who approached you first? Barzini or Tattaglia?
Carlo Rizzi: It was Barzini.
Michael: Good. There's a car outside that will take you to the airport. I'll call

your wife and tell her what flight you're on.
Carlo Rizzi: Listen, Mike...
Michael: Go on. Get out of my sight.

[Sonny pays a visit to his sister Connie. He is surprised to find her subdued and evasive]
Sonny: [surprised] What's the matter? Huh? What's the matter?
[He looks at her swollen face and understands what has happened. He pulls away to go after Carlo...]
Connie: [grabbing his shoulders] It was my fault!
Sonny: Where is

he?
Connie: [weeping with terror] Sonny, please. Sonny, it was my fault. It was my fault. I started a fight with him. Please, Sonny...
[Sonny, now under control, hushes her and kisses her forehead]
Sonny: Okay... I'm just going to get a doctor to come down and take a look at you.
Connie: Sonny, please don't do anything.

Please don't do anything.
Sonny: What's the matter with you, huh? What am I going to do? Am I going to make that baby an orphan before he's born?
[Connie gives a chuckle, and Sonny kisses her again and good-humouredly shrugs his soldiers]
Sonny: All right?
[cut to Sonny beating up Carlo]

Don Corleone: Call Bonasera. We need him now.
[Tom Hagen calls Amerigo Bonasera]
Tom Hagen: [on the phone] This is Tom Hagen, calling for Vito Corleone at his request. Now, you owe your Don a service. He has no doubt that you will repay him. In one hour he will be at your funeral parlor to ask for your help. Be there to greet him.
[as ordered,

a nervous Bonasera meets the Don at his parlor]
Don Corleone: Well, my friend, are you ready to do me this service?
Bonasera: Yes. What do you want me to do?
[the two walk into the embalming room, where a corpse lies on a table...]
Don Corleone: [staring at the table] I want you to use all your powers, and all your

skills. I don't want his mother to see him this way.
[he draws back the sheet to reveal, to a horrified Bonasera, the bullet-smashed face of Sonny Corleone]
Don Corleone: [breaking down for a moment] Look how they massacred my boy...

[Clemenza prepares Michael for his meeting with Sollozzo]
Clemenza: [holding up a .22] It's as cold as they come, impossible to trace. So you don't have to worry about prints, Mike. I put a special tape on the trigger and the butt. Here, try it...
[Michael takes the gun, but can't seem to fire it]
Clemenza: What's the matter, trigger too

tight?
[With a loud bang, Michael finally discharges the gun]
Michael: Ow! My ears.
Clemenza: Yeah, I left it noisy. That way it scares any pain-in-the-ass innocent bystanders away. All right, you shot them both, now what do you do?
Michael: Sit down and finish my dinner.
Clemenza: Come on, kid,

don't fool around. Just let your hand drop to your side and the gun slip out. Everyone will still think you've got it. They're gonna be staring at your face, Mike. So walk out of the place real fast, but you don't run. Don't look nobody directly in the eye, hut don't look away either. They're gonna be scared of you, believe me, so don't worry about nothing.
[while talking, Clemenza takes

the gun and begins working on it to fix the trigger]
Clemenza: You know, Mike, you're gonna turn out all right. You take a long vacation, nobody knows where, and we'll catch the hell.
Michael: How bad do you think it's gonna be?
Clemenza: Pretty goddam bad. Probably all the other Families will line up against us. That's all

right. These things gotta happen every five years or so, ten years. Helps to get rid of the bad blood. Been ten years since the last one. You know, you gotta stop them at the beginning. Like they should have stopped Hitler at Munich, they should never let him get away with that, they was just asking for trouble.
[Clemenza now finishes working on the gun]
Clemenza:

You know, Mike, we was all proud of you being a hero and all. Your father too.
[Clemenza hands the gun back to Michael]

Michael Corleone: Where does it say that you can't kill a cop?
Tom Hagen: Come on, Mikey...
Michael Corleone: Tom, wait a minute. I'm talking about a cop that's mixed up in drugs. I'm talking about a - a - a dishonest cop - a crooked cop who got mixed up in the rackets and got what was coming to him. That's a terrific story. And we

have newspaper people on the payroll, don't we, Tom?
[Tom nods]
Michael Corleone: And they might like a story like that.
Tom Hagen: They might, they just might.
Michael Corleone: [to Sonny] It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business.

Tom Hagen: When I meet with Tattaglia's men, should I insist all their drug middlemen have clean records?
Don Corleone: Mention it, don't insist. But Barzini will know that without being told.
Tom Hagen: You mean Tattaglia...
Don Corleone: Tattaglia is a pimp. He never could have outfought Santino. But I

didn't know until this day that it was Barzini all along.

Jack Woltz: All right, start talking!
Tom Hagen: I come from a personal friend of Mr Johnny Fontane. That friend promises his undying friendship if you would do him a small favour.
Jack Woltz: What's that?
Tom Hagen: Give Johnny a part in that war movie you're starting next week.
[Woltz signs a document

with a smile and walks away, Hagen alongside him]
Jack Woltz: And what favours does this friend promise in exchange for giving Johnny the part?
Tom Hagen: You've got some labour trouble coming up. My client promises to make that trouble disappear. You have a top star who makes a lot of money, but he just graduated from marijuana to heroin...

Jack Woltz: [all East Side now] Are you trying to muscle me?
Tom Hagen: Absolutely not. I've come to ask a service for a friend...
Jack Woltz: Now you listen to me, you smooth-talking son-of-a-bitch, let me lay it on the line for you and your boss, whoever he is! Johnny Fontane will never get that movie! I don't care how many dago

guinea wop greaseball goombahs come out of the woodwork!
Tom Hagen: I'm German-Irish.
Jack Woltz: Well, let me tell you something, my kraut-mick friend, I'm gonna make so much trouble for you, you won t know what hit you!
Tom Hagen: Mr. Woltz, I'm a lawyer. I have not threatened you.
Jack Woltz: I know

almost every big lawyer in New York, who the hell are you?
Tom Hagen: I have a special practice. I handle one client. Now you have my number, I'll wait for your call. By the way, I admire your pictures very much.
[Hagen leaves, with Woltz staring after him]
Jack Woltz: [to an underling] Check him out...

[as Tessio and Hagen walk to Michael's house, they are met by a bodyguard, Willi Cicci]
Willi Cicci: Sal... Tom... the boss says he'll come in a separate car. He says for you two to go on ahead.
Tessio: Hell, he can't do that; that screws up all my arrangements.
Willi Cicci: Well, that's what he said.
Tom

Hagen: I can't go with you either, Tessio.
[just then, Michael's bodyguards materialize around them, Tessio understands everything]
Tessio: [to Hagen] Tell Mike it was only business. I always liked him.
Tom Hagen: He understands that.
Willi Cicci: [removing Tessio's gun] Excuse me, Sally.

Tessio: Can you get me off the hook, Tom? For old times' sake?
Tom Hagen: [shakes his head] Can't do it, Sally.
[Hagen watches sadly as Tessio is led by Cicci and the others to a waiting car]

Tessio: Barzini's people chisle my territory and we do nothing about it. Pretty soon there won't be anyplace in Brooklyn that I can hang my hat.
Michael: Try and be patient.
Clemenza: I'm not asking for help, Mike, just take off the handcuffs.
Michael: Be patient.
Clemenza: We gotta

protect ourselves. At least give me the chance to recruit some new men.
Michael: No. I don't want to give Barzini any excuse to start fighting.
Tessio: Mike, you're wrong.
Clemenza: Don Corleone, you once said the day would come when me and Tessio could form our own families. Until today I would never think of such a thing but

now I must ask your permission.
Don Corleone: Well, Michael's head of the family now and if give his permission then you have my blessing.
Michael: After we make the move to Nevada you can break off from the Corleone Family and go off on your own. After we make the move to Nevada.
Clemenza: How long will that take?

Michael: Six months.
Tessio: Forgive me, Godfather, but with you gone me and Pete will come under Barzini's thumb sooner or later.
Clemenza: And I hate that Goddamn Barzini. In six months time there won't be nothin' left to build on.
Don Corleone: Do you have faith in my judgement?

Clemenza: Yes.
Don Corleone: Do I have your loyalty?
Clemenza: Yes, always Godfather.
Don Corleone: Then be a friend to Michael. Do as he says.
Michael: There are negotiations being made that are going to answer all of your questions and solve all of your problems. That's all I can tell

you right now. Carlo, you grew up in Nevada. When we make our move there you're going to be my right hand man. Tom Hagen is no longer Consigliari. He's going to be our lawyer in Vegas. That's no reflection on Tom it's just the way I want it. Besides, if I ever help who's a better Consigliari than my father. That's it.
[Everyone except Hagen leaves]
Tom Hagen: Mike,

why am I out?
Michael: You're not a wartime Consigliari, Tom. Things could get rough with the move we're making.
Don Corleone: Tom, I advised Michael. I never thought you were a bad Consigliari. I thought Santino was a bad Don, rest in peace. Michael has all my confidence as do you. But there are reasons why you must have nothing to do with what's

going to happen.
Tom Hagen: Maybe I could help.
Michael: You're out, Tom.

Tom Hagen: Sollozo is known as the Turk. He's supposed to be very good with a knife. But only in matters of business, or of some sort of reasonable complaint. His business is narcotics. He has the fields in Turkey, where they grow the poppy. In Sicily he has the plant to process it into heroin. He needs cash and he needs protection from the police for which he gives a piece of the

action, I couldn't find out how much. The Tattaglia Family is behind him here in New York so they have to be in it for something.
Don Corleone: What about his prison record?
Tom Hagen: Two terms, one in Italy, and one here. He's known as a top narcotics man.
Don Corleone: Santino, what do you think?

Sonny: There's a lot of money in that white powder.
Don Corleone: Tom?
Tom Hagen: Well, I say yes. There is more money potential in narcotics than anything else we're looking at now. If we don't get into it, somebody else will, maybe one of the Five Families, maybe all of them. And with the money they earn they'll be able to buy more

police and political power. Then they come after us. Right now we have the unions and we have the gambling and those are the best things to have. But narcotics is a thing of the future. If we don't get a piece of that action we risk everything we have. Not now, but ten years from now.
Sonny: Well, what's your answer gonna be, Pop?

Don Zaluchi: I also don't believe in drugs. For years I paid my people extra so they wouldn't do that kind of business. Somebody comes to them and says, "I have powders; if you put up three, four thousand dollar investment, we can make fifty thousand distributing." So they can't resist. I want to control it as a business, to keep it respectable.
[slams his hand on the table

and shouts]
Don Zaluchi: I don't want it near schools! I don't want it sold to children! That's an infamia. In my city, we would keep the traffic in the dark people, the coloreds. They're animals anyway, so let them lose their souls.

Sonny: Hey, whaddya 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. Why? Because he slapped ya in the face a little bit? 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. C'mere...
[kisses Michael's head]
Michael: Sonny...
Sonny: You're taking this very personal. Tom, this is business and this man is taking it very, very personal.