Goodfellas quotes

View Quote For most of the guys, killings got to be accepted. Murder was the only way that everybody stayed in line. You got out of line, you got whacked. Everybody knew the rules. But sometimes, even if people didn't get out of line, they got whacked. I mean, hits just became a habit for some of the guys. Guys would get into arguments over nothing and before you knew it, one of them was dead. And they were shooting each other all the time. Shooting people was a normal thing. It was no big deal. We had a, we had a serious problem with Billy Batts. This was really a touchy thing. Tommy had killed a made guy. Batts was part of the Gambino crew and was considered untouchable. Before you could touch a made guy, you had to have a good reason. You had to have a sitdown, and you better get an okay, or you'd be the one who got whacked.

View Quote If you're part of a crew, nobody ever tells you that they're going to kill you. It doesn't happen that way. There weren't any arguments or curses like in the movies. So your murderers come with smiles. They come as your friends, the people who have cared for you all of your life, and they always seem to come at a time when you're at your weakest and most in need of their help.

View Quote It made him sick to have to turn money over to the guys who stole it. He'd rather whack 'em. Anyway, what did I care? I wasn't asking for anything and besides, Jimmy was making nice money with me through my Pittsburgh connections. But still, months after the robbery they were finding bodies all over. When they found Carbone in the meat truck, he was frozen so stiff it took them two days to thaw him out for the autopsy.

View Quote Police Detective: [to Henry] Hey, your pals are here. You don't want to talk to me, you're gonna have a ****ing problem all night 'cause I'll be on you like shit. New York State. Twenty five ****ing years, pal.
[The detectives bring in the utensils Henry used to make coke]
Police Detective: What, were you guys grocery shopping? What, are we going to make a cake? Gonna make a ****ing cake? Got anything good in there or what?
[A detective tastes the residue in a pan]
Police Detective: Is it good?
[Detective smiles and nods]
Police Detective: Ha ha ha ha. Bye bye, dickhead. Ha ha ha. See you in Attica, dick.

View Quote Well, we weren't married to nine-to-five guys, but the first time I realized how different was when Mickey had a hostess party. They had bad skin and wore too much make-up. I mean, they didn't look very good. They looked beat-up. And the stuff they wore was thrown together and cheap. A lot of pant suits and double knits. And they talked about how rotten their kids were and about beating them with broom handles and leather belts. But that the kids still didn't pay any attention. After a while, it got to be all normal. None of it seemed like crimes. It was more like Henry was enterprising and that he and the guys were making a few bucks hustling, while the other guys were sitting on their asses waiting for hand-outs. Our husbands weren't brain surgeons. They were blue-collar guys. The only way they could make extra money, real extra money, was to go out and cut a few corners. We were all so very close. I mean, there were never any outsiders around. Absolutely never. And being together all the time made everything seem all the more normal.

View Quote Tommy: Just don't go busting my balls, Billy, okay?
Billy Batts: Hey, Tommy, if I was gonna break your balls, I'd tell you to go home and get your shine box. [to his friends] Now this kid, this kid was great. They, they used to call him Spit Shine Tommy.

View Quote [to Henry] Everybody gets pinched. But you did it right. You told 'em nothing and they got nothing...I'm proud of you. You took your first pinch like a man and you learned the two greatest things in life. Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut.

View Quote Henry: [narrating] And then there was Jimmy Two Times, who got that nickname because he said everything twice, like:
Jimmy Two Times: I'm gonna go get the papers, get the papers.

View Quote In this day and age, what the **** is this world coming to? I can't believe this, prejudice against--a Jew broad--prejudice against Italians.

View Quote But still I couldn't hurt him. How could I hurt him? I couldn't even bring myself to leave him. The truth was that no matter how bad I felt I was still very attracted to him. Why should I give him to someone else? Why should she win?

View Quote Even before I first wandered into the cabstand for an after-school job, I knew I wanted to be a part of them. It was there that I knew that I belonged. To me, it meant being somebody in a neighborhood that was full of nobodies. They weren't like anybody else. I mean, they did whatever they wanted. They double-parked in front of a hydrant and nobody ever gave them a ticket. In the summer when they played cards all night, nobody ever called the cops.

View Quote Hundreds of guys depended on Paulie and he got a piece of everything they made. And it was tribute, just like in the old country, except they were doing it here in America. And all they got from Paulie was protection from other guys looking to rip them off. And that's what it's all about. That's what the FBI could never understand. That what Paulie and the organization does is offer protection for people who can't go to the cops. That's it. That's all it is. They're like the police department for wise guys.

View Quote For us to live any other way was nuts. Uh, to us, those goody-good people who worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to work every day, and worried about their bills, were dead. I mean they were suckers. They had no balls. If we wanted something we just took it. If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again.

View Quote It took me about a week of sneaking around before I could unload the Pittsburgh stuff, but when I did, it was a real score. I started using Sandy's place to mix the stuff and even with Sandy snorting more than she mixed, I could see that this was a really good business. I made twelve thousand dollars in my second week. I had a down payment on my house and things were really rolling. All I had to do was every once in a while was tell Sandy that I loved her. But it was perfect, I'm telling ya. As long as I kept getting the stuff from Pittsburgh, I knew Paulie would never find out. Within a couple of weeks, it got to be so big I needed some help. So I got Jimmy and Tommy to come in with me.

View Quote As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. To me, being a gangster was better than being President of the United States.