The Godfather quotes

View Quote Michael: How are you, Fredo? [to Kay] Fredo. This is my brother, Fredo. [to Fredo] This is Kay Adams.
Kay: Oh, hi.
Fredo: [drunk] How'ya doing? [kisses Kay in the cheeks] This is my brother, Mike.
Michael: Are you having a good time?
Fredo: Huh? Yeah... This is your friend, huh?

View Quote Michael: My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.
Kay: Do you know how naïve you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don't have men killed.
Michael: Oh. Who's being naïve, Kay?

View Quote Johnny Fontane: A month ago, he bought the movie rights to this book. A best seller - and the main character, it's a guy just like me, I, uh, I wouldn't even have to act, just be myself. [tearing up] Oh, Godfather, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.
Don Corleone: [shouts] You can act like a man!
[Don Corleone slaps Johnny]
Don Corleone: What's the matter with you? Is this how you turned out? A Hollywood finocchio that cries like a woman.
[Don Corleone imitates him sobbing]
Don Corleone: What can I do? What can I do? What is that nonsense. Ridiculous. You spend time with your family?
Johnny Fontane: Sure I do.
Don Corleone: Good. 'Cause a man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man. Come here...You look terrible. I want you to eat. I want you to rest a while. And in a month from now, this Hollywood bigshot's gonna give you what you want.
Johnny Fontane: It's too late, they start shooting in a week.
Don Corleone: I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse. Now, you just go outside and enjoy yourself, and uh, forget about all this nonsense. I want you, I want you to leave it all to me.

View Quote Tom Hagen: I was sent by a friend of Johnny Fontane's - his friend is my client, who'd give his undying friendship to Mr. Woltz, if Mr. Woltz would grant us a small favor.
Jack Woltz: Woltz is listening.
Tom Hagen: Give Johnny the part in that new war film you're starting next week.
Jack Woltz: [after laughing] And, uh, what favor would your friend grant Mr. Woltz?
Tom Hagen: You're gonna have some union problems; my client could make them disappear. Also, one of your top stars has just moved from marijuana to heroin...
Jack Woltz: Are you trying to muscle me?
Tom Hagen: Absolutely not.
Jack Woltz: Now listen here, you smooth-talking sonofabitch! 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 d**o, w*p, g**nea, gre**eball g***bas come out of the woodwork.
Tom Hagen: I'm German-Irish.
Jack Woltz: Well, let me tell you something, my kr**t-m**k 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 am not threatened.
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 await your call. By the way, I admire your pictures very much.

View Quote Jack Woltz: Why didn't you say you worked for Corleone, Tom? I thought you were just some cheap, two-bit hustler Johnny was running in trying to bluff me.
Tom Hagen: I don't like to use his name unless it's really necessary.

View Quote Jack Woltz: Just tell him he should ask me anything else. But this is one favor I can't give him.
Tom Hagen: He never asks a second favor when he's been refused the first, understood?
Jack Woltz: You don't understand. Johnny Fontane never gets that movie. That part is perfect for him. It'll make him a big star. And I'm gonna run him out of the business, and let me tell you why...And let me be even more frank, just to show you that I'm not a hard-hearted man, and it's not all dollars and cents. She was beautiful, she was young, she was innocent. She was the greatest piece of ass I ever had, and I had 'em all over the world. And then Johnny Fontane comes along with his olive-oil voice and guinea charm. And she runs off. She threw it all away just to make me look ridiculous. And a man in my position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous! Now you get the hell outta here! And if that gumbah tries any rough stuff, you tell him I ain't no band leader! Yeah, I heard that story.
Tom Hagen: Thank you for the dinner, and a very pleasant evening. Now, if your car could take me to the airport... Mr. Corleone is a man who insists on hearing bad news immediately.

View Quote Tom Hagen: [to Don Corleone, about Virgil Sollozzo] He's known as 'The Turk.' He's supposed to be very good with a knife, but only in matters of business or some sort of reasonable complaint. His business is narcotics. He has fields in Turkey where they grow the poppies. And in Sicily, he has the plants to process them into heroin. Now, 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.
Sonny: There's a lot of money in that white powder.
Tom Hagen: Well, I say yes. There's 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. Now, with the money they earn, they can buy more police and political power - then they come after us. Now we have the unions, we have the gambling, and they're the best things to have. But narcotics is a thing of the future. And if we don't get a piece of that action, we risk everything we have - I mean not now, but ten years from now.

View Quote Don Corleone: Andiamo, Fredo. Tell Paulie to get the car. We're going.
Fredo: Okay, Pop, I'll have to get it myself, Pop. Paulie called in sick this morning.
Don Corleone: Huh?!
Fredo: Paulie's a good kid, I don't mind getting the car.

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

View Quote [Michael calls Sonny from a phone booth]
Michael: Sonny, Michael.
Sonny: Michael, where you been?
Michael: Is he all right?
Sonny: We don't know yet. There's all kinds of stories. He was hit bad, Mikey. Are you there?
Michael: Yeah, I'm here.
Sonny: Where you been? I was worried.
Michael: Didn't Tom tell you? I called.
Sonny: No. Look, come home, kid. You should be with Mama, ya hear?
Michael: Alright.

View Quote Sollozzo: Your boss is dead. I know you're not in the muscle-end of the family, Tom, so I don't want you to be scared. I want you to help the Corleones, and I want you to help me. Yeah, we got him outside his office just about an hour after we picked you up. Drink it. So now it's up to you to make the peace between me and Sonny. Sonny was hot for my deal, wasn't he? And you knew it was the right thing to do.
Tom Hagen: Sonny'll come after you with everything's he got.
Sollozzo: That'll be his first reaction, sure. That's why 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, you gotta talk to the caporegimes, that Tessio and that Fat Clemenza. It's good business, Tom.
Tom Hagen: I'll try, but even Sonny won't be able to call Luca Brasi off.
Sollozzo: Yeah, well, let me worry about Luca. You just talk to Sonny and the other two kids.
Tom Hagen: I'll try my best.
Sollozzo: Good. Now, you can go. I don't like violence, Tom. I'm a business man. Blood is a big expense.

View Quote [Sonny opens a package to find two fish wrapped in Luca's bulletproof vest.]
Sonny: What the hell is this?
Pete Clemenza: It's a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.

View Quote Sonny: How's Paulie?
Pete Clemenza: Oh, Paulie... won't see him no more.

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 [Michael is being drilled for a "hit" on Sollozzo and Capt. McCluskey]
Pete Clemenza: All right, you just shot 'em both. Now what do you do?
Michael Corleone: Sit down and finish my dinner.