Цитаты из книги Крестный отец

Ничего личного. Только бизнес.

Есть вещи, которые приходится делать — их делаешь, но о них никогда не говоришь. Их не пытаешься оправдать. Им нет оправданий. Их просто делаешь, и все. И забываешь.

Говорить людям "нет" надо так, чтобы твое "нет" звучало как "да". Вообще надо избегать слова "нет" с людьми, которых любишь. Во всяком случае, использовать отказ как можно реже, а если уж совсем некуда деваться - пусть сами придут к мысли о полной бесперспективности, пусть сами додумаются до твоего "нет".

Всегда лучше когда друзья недооценивают твои достоинства, а враг преувеличивает недостатки

The statesman forced to go to war, the lawyer forced to go to law.

But there are times when the most extreme measures are justified.

Don Corleone, still not fully conscious of what had happened to him the day before, in terrible pain, yet smiled benevolently on his youngest son, wanting to tell him, but it was too much effort, “Why should I be afraid now? Strange men have come to kill me ever since I was twelve years old.”

Clemenza went out to see what was happening. When he came back he was holding Luca Brasi’s bulletproof vest in his hands. Wrapped in the vest was a huge dead fish...The fish means that Luca Brasi is sleeping on the bottom of the ocean...It’s an old Sicilian message.

Sollozzo is a proven man, they know he can make the operation go on a big scale. Alive he’s money in their pockets, dead he’s trouble.

The Don always taught that when a man was generous, he must show the generosity as personal.

Don Corleone himself was not angry. 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.

All his years in America, Amerigo Bonasera had trusted in law and order.

Behind every great fortune there is a crime.  - Balzac

Он никогда не мог сразу после ссоры с [бывшей женой] Вирджинией искать близости с другой женщиной.

Она попалась свыкнуться с мыслью, что человек, которого она любила, - расчетливый, холодный убийца. И что узнала она об этом из самого надежного источника - от его матери.

A man who is not a father to his children can never be a real man.

Frienship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than government. It is almost the equal of family. Never forget that. If you had built up a wall of friendships you wouldn't have to ask me to help.

За всяким большим состоянием кроется преступление.