Цитаты из книги Крестный отец

Великими, как известно, не рождаются - великими становятся.

Умолчав об истинных своих чувствах: облегчении, что он избавился от надобности очередной раз утверждаться в качестве непревзойденного любовника,  соответствовать в жизни богоподобному образу, в котором представал на экране. От надобности наблюдать, как его дама в ответ силится тоже вести себя так, словно бы он и впрямь соответствует этому образу, силится придать вполне обыденному, заурядному акту значимость бог весть какого события.

Ты жил, как дурак, - и не удивительно, что остался в дураках.

Дон Корлеоне никогда не оставляет своих друзей в беде.

- Сколько вам понадобится на это времени? - Десять минут, - сказал Жюль. Это было неправдой, но он всегда верил в то, что лгать людям полезно. По правде говоря, медицина и правдивость плохо уживаются друг с другом.

Она нисколько не стремилась разделять со своими мужчинами их неприятности - они-то разве стремились разделять женские тяготы?

Пусть усвоит, что неоткуда ждать милосердия, кроме как от семьи что семья вернее и надёжнее, чем общество.

Решиться - вот в чем загвоздка. Трудней всего - решиться.

I loved it, I loved being an abortionist. I don’t believe that a two-month fetus is a human being so no problems there.

He was in a good humor. Slapping the spoiled little bitch around always made him feel good. It dissolved some of the frustration he felt at being treated so badly by the Corleones.

Lawyers can steal more money with a briefcase than a thousand men with guns and masks.

He owed Fanucci no personal debt of gratitude, they were not blood relatives, he did not love Fanucci. Why, then, should he give Fanucci seven hundred dollars?

What he really hated were the ones who had started screwing at twelve and were all fucked out by the time they were twenty and just going through the motions and some of them were the prettiest of all and could fake you out.

And your Godfather has more brains than Jack Woltz. He doesn’t go up to these people and put a gun to their heads and say, ‘Vote for Johnny Fontane or you are out of a job.’ He doesn’t strong-arm where strong-arm doesn’t work or leaves too many hard feelings. He’ll make those people vote for you because they want to.

“These things have to happen once every ten years or so. It gets rid of the bad blood. And then if we let them push us around on the little things they wanta take over everything. You gotta stop them at the beginning. Like they shoulda stopped Hitler at Munich, they should never let him get away with that, they were just asking for big trouble when they let him get away with that.”

She had never felt so close to him, never so much in love and if someone had told her she would not see Michael again until three years passed, she would not have been able to bear the anguish of it.

Michael, bewildered, said. “What the hell does that fish mean?” It was Hagen the Irisher, the Consigliere, who answered him. “The fish means that Luca Brasi is sleeping on the bottom of the ocean,” he said. “It’s an old Sicilian message.”

He tickled Khartoum’s belly and said with sincere admiration, “Look at that cock on him. I should have such a cock.”

Hagen had learned the art of negotiation from the Don himself. “Never get angry,” the Don had instructed. “Never with people.”

You lived like a fool and you have come to a fool’s end.