Mario Puzo Quotations

Finance is a gun. Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.

I have always believed helping your fellow man is profitable in every sense, personally and bottom line.

A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.

He was a degenerate gambler. That is, a man who gambled simply to gamble and must lose. As a hero who goes to war must die. Show me a gambler and I'll show you a loser, show me a hero and I'll show you a corpse.

Like many businessmen of genius he learned that free competition was wasteful, monopoly efficient. And so he simply set about achieving that efficient monopoly.

Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.

What we think of as our sensitivity is only the higher evolution of terror in a poor dumb beast. We suffer for nothing. Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.

The only wealth in this world is children, more than all the money, power on earth.

I believe in America. America's made my fortune.

A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a thousand men with guns.

I'll make him an offer he can't refuse (The Godfather)

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.

Fredo you're my older brother and I love you. But don't ever take sides against the family...

Every man has but one destiny" Veto Corleone

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

I find the only thing that really stands up, better than gambling, better than booze, better than women, is reading.

I will make you an offer you cannot refuse

No, that's not possible," Michael said. "Killed, yes; jail, no.

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.

Take the gun. Leave the cannoli.

ِAn offer you can't refuse

He had long ago learned that society imposes insults that must be borne, comforted by the knowledge that in this world there comes a time when the most humble of men, if he keeps his eyes open, can take his revenge on the most powerful. It was this knowledge that prevented the Don from losing the humility all his friends admired in him.

I like to drink wine more than I used to. Anyway, I'm drinking more.

Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.

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

God seemed to be having a hard time killing him, and he'd be damned if he was going to make the job easy for mere mortals

‎"But you're the toughest son of a b!&€# i've ever seen.You never let anybody get near you.You never let anybody know what you really think.

it's just business nothing personal...

Power wears out those who do not have it.

Any man can turn traitor.

Power isn't everything ...its the only thing.

Michael: Barzini will set me up through somebody close... that, supposedly, I won't suspect. Hagen: Somebody like me. Michael: You're Irish, they won't trust you. Hagen: I'm German-American. Michael: To them that's Irish.

The other Dons in the room applauded and rose to shake hands with everybody in sight and to congratulate Don Corleone and Don Tattaglia on their new friendship. 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. That was friendship enough in this world, all that was needed.

Every family has bad memories.

Yet, he thought, if I can die saying, "Life is so beautiful," then nothing else is important. If i can believe in myself that much, nothing else matters.

It can be argued that man's instinct to gamble is the only reason he is still not a monkey up in the trees.

She emptied her mind of all thought of herself, of her children, of all anger, of all rebellion, of all questions. Then with a profound and deeply willed desire to believe, to be heard, as she had done every day since the murder of Carlo Rizzi, she said the necessary prayers for the soul of Michael Corleone.

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

Falling in love is great but being in love is a disaster

Even as a young man, Vito Corleone became known as a "man of reasonableness." He never uttered a threat. He always used logic that proved to be irresistible. He always made certain that the other fellow got his share of profit. Nobody lost. He did this, of course, by obvious means. Like many businessmen of genius he learned that free competition was wasteful, monopoly efficient. And so he simply set about achieving that efficient monopoly.

Some honorable men spend their whole life preparing for a supreme act of treachery

All gamblers are paranoid, though they call it superstition.

The fact of the matter is that I wanted to hold a grudge in some funny kind of way.Against everybody.

Time erodes gratitude more quickly than it does beauty!

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.

Never show anger at slight,Tell nothing.Earn Respect from everyone by deeds,not Words.Respect the members of your Blood Family.Gambling was Recreation,Not a way to earn a Living.Love your Father,your Mother, your Sister but beware of Loving any other Woman than your Wife.And a Wife was a woman who bore your Children.And once that happened to You,your Life was Forfeit to give them their daily bread

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Do you believe a man can truly love a woman and constantly betray her?Never mind physically but betray her in his mind,in the very "poetry of his soul".Well,it's not easy but men do it all the time.

I want to tell you a story. I have no other vanity.

Friendship and money: oil and water.

Not having to worry about money is almost like not having to worry about dying.

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.

Actions defined a man; words were a fart in the wind

We are all honorable men here, we do not have to give each other assurances as if we were lawyers.

there was no greater natural advantage in life than having an enemy overestimate your faults, unless it was to have a friend underestimate your virtues.

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

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

Revenge is a dish that tastes best when served cold.

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.

Life is like a box of Hand grenades,You never know what will blow you to kingdom come

Never get angry. Never make a threat. Reason with people.

Let us be separated by wars and pestilence, death, madness but not by the passing of time.

Tell my father I wish to be his son.

Accidents don't happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult.

Even the strongest man needs friends.

The truth now.He was disappointed in human beings.He had seen too many betrayals,too many pitiful weaknesses,too much greed for money and fame.The falseness between lovers,husbands and wifes,fathers,sons,mothers,daughters

Never let a domestic quarrel ruin a day's writing. If you can't start the day fresh, get rid of your wife.

We don't know if capital punishment is a deterrent, but we know that men we execute will not murder again.

In Sicily, women are more dangerous than shotguns.

If anything in this life is certain...if history has taught us anything, it's that you cn kill anyone.

Oh, what a wicked world it is that drives a man to sin.

Gambling is not as destructive as war or as boring as pornography. It is not as immoral as business or as suicidal as watching television. And the percentages are better than religion.

Santino, never let anyone outside the family know what you are thinking. Never let them know what you have under your fingernails. I think your brain is going soft from all that comedy you play with that young girl. Stop it and pay attention to business. Now get out of my sight.

We are a family, and the loyalty of the family must come before anything and everyone else. For if we honor that commitment, we will never be vanquished-but if we falter in that loyalty we will all be condemned.

I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can afford to be careless, but not men.

There are things that have to be done and you do them and you don't talk about them. You don't try to justify them. They can't be justified. You just do them. Then you forget them.

Why should I be afraid now? Strange men have come to kill me ever since I was twelve years old.

The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, lies in its loyalty to each other.

Great men are not born great, they grow great . . .

Many young men started down a false path to their true destiny. Time and fortune usually set them aright.

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.

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.

Love is like the little red toy wagon you get for your Christmas or your sixth birthday. It makes you deliriously happy and you just can't leave it alone. But sooner or later the wheels come off. Then you leave it in a corner and forget it. Falling in love is great. Being in love is a disaster

What is past is past. never go back. Not for excuses. Not for justification, not for happiness. You are what you are, the world is what it is.

When I was young, some women told me they loved me for my long eyelashes. I accepted. Later it was for my wit. Then for my power and money. Then for my talent. Then for my mind-deep. OK, I can handle all of it. The only woman who scares me is the one who loves me for myself alone. I have plans for her. I have poisons and daggers and dark graves in caves to hide her head. She can't be allowed to live. Especially if she's sexually faithful and never lies and always puts me ahead of everything and everyone.

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

Behind every successful fortune;There is Crime.