Puzo Quotes & Sayings

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

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. — Mario Puzo

it's just business nothing personal... — Mario Puzo

None of us here want to see our children follow in our footsteps, it's too hard a life. — Mario Puzo

Great men have allied themselves with the angels at a terrible price to themselves. Evil men indulge their slightest whim for small satisfactions while accepting the fate of burning in Hell. — Mario Puzo

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

The Don considered a use of threats the most foolish kind of exposure; the unleashing of anger without forethought as the most dangerous indulgence. No one had ever heard the Don utter a naked threat, no one had ever seen him in an uncontrollable rage. It was unthinkable. — Mario Puzo

That night a bomb exploded in the Corleone Family mall in Long Beach, thrown from a car that pulled up to the chain, then roared away. That night also two button men of the Corleone Family were killed as they peaceably ate their dinner in a small Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village. The Five Families War of 1946 had begun. — Mario Puzo

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

Life is a comical business, and there is
nothing funnier than love traveling through time. — Mario Puzo

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

Jack Woltz: Now you listen to me, you smooth-talking son-of-a-bitch, 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 dago guinea wop greaseball goombahs come out of the woodwork!
Tom Hagen: I'm German-Irish.
Jack Woltz: Well, let me tell you something, my kraut-mick 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 have not threatened you. — Mario Puzo

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

Wasn't it true that Sometimes the greatest misfortunes brought unforseen rewards? -Don Corleone — Mario Puzo

It's more important that you grow up to be a man," he said, "than to be a genius. — Mario Puzo

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

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

Destiny had decided that he was to become a Don and had brought Fanucci to him to set him on his destined path. — Mario Puzo

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. Michael — Mario Puzo

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

Falling in love is great but being in love is a disaster — Mario Puzo

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. — Mario Puzo

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 — Mario Puzo

Not to be rich, but to have money; to have money like a wall to put your back to, and then face the world. — Mario Puzo

Santino, come here. What's the matter with you? I think your brain is going soft with all that comedy you are playing with that young girl. Never tell anyone outside the Family what you're thinking again. Go on. — Mario Puzo

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. — Mario Puzo

All gamblers are paranoid, though they call it superstition. — Mario Puzo

Revenge is a dish that tastes best when served cold. — Mario Puzo

A man's primary duty in life is to earn his own living, but to what purpose if he did not have a wife and children? — Mario Puzo

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. — Mario Puzo

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. — Mario Puzo

You know, it's a funny thing. You can smoke yourself to death, drink yourself to death, work yourself to death, and even eat yourself to death. But that's all acceptable. The only thing you can't do medically is screw yourself to death, and yet that's where they put all the obstacles. — Mario Puzo

Listen to me. I will tell you the truth about a man's life. I will tell you the truth about his love for women. — Mario Puzo

Mercy is a vice, a pretension to powers we do not have. Those who give mercy commit an unpardonable offense to the victim. And that is not our duty here on earth. — Mario Puzo

Great men are not born great, they grow great . . . — Mario Puzo

They made it personal when they shot Pop. It is not business, it's personal. — Mario Puzo

The story you are holding was first published in 1969, which was, as you may know, a very interesting year. — Mario Puzo

Do not count on the gratitude of deeds done for people in the past,you must make them grateful for things you will do for them in the future. — Mario Puzo

Tom, don't let anybody kid you. It's all personal, every bit of business. Every piece of shit every man has to eat every day of his life is personal. They call it business. OK. But it's personal as hell. You know where I learned that from? The Don. My old man. The Godfather. If a bolt of lightning hit a friend of his the old man would take it personal. He took my going into the Marines personal. That's what makes him great. The Great Don. He takes everything personal Like God. He knows every feather that falls from the tail of a sparrow or however the hell it goes? Right? And you know something? Accidents don't happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult. — Mario Puzo

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. — Mario Puzo

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

In Sicily, women are more dangerous than shotguns. — Mario Puzo

What would the world come to if people kept carrying grudges against all reason? That has been the cross of Sicily, where men are so busy with vendettas they have no time to earn bread for their families. — Mario Puzo

I believe in friendship and I'm willing to show my friendship first. — Mario Puzo

Every man has one destiny, — Mario Puzo

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

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

Power isn't everything ...its the only thing. — Mario Puzo

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 — Mario Puzo

She cannot return your love. She does not live in our world. She does not even live in the world of animals. She lives on a different star, absolutely alone. — Mario Puzo

He made no empty promises, nor the craven excuse that his hands were tied by more powerful forces in the world than himself. — Mario Puzo

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 — Mario Puzo

Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment. — Mario Puzo

Tell my father I wish to be his son. — Mario Puzo

You can't let other men impose their will on you or life's not worth living. — Mario Puzo

You talk about vengeance. Is vengeance going to bring your son back to you or my boy to me? I forgo the vengeance of my son. But I have selfish reasons, my youngest son was forced to leave this country because of this Sollozzo business. All right, now I have to make arrangements to bring him back here safely cleared of all these false charges. But I'm a superstitious man and if some unlucky accident should befall him, if he should get shot in the head by a police officer, or if should hang himself in his jail cell, or if he's struck by a bolt of lightening, then I'm going to blame some of the people in this room, and that I do not forgive. But, that aside, let me say that I swear, on the souls of my grandchildren, that I will not be the one to break the peace we have made here today. — Mario Puzo

There are things that have to be done and you do them and you never talk about them. You don't try to justify them. They can't be justified. You just do them. Then you forget it. — Mario Puzo

Tell the truth, all Sicilians prefer smelling the shit of their villages to the best perfumes in Paris. What am I doing here? I could have escaped to Brazil like some others. Ah, we love where we are born, we Sicilians, but Sicily does not love us. — Mario Puzo

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

A man who is not a father to his children can never be a real man — Mario Puzo

Life is Beautiful — Mario Puzo

Neri was content, satisfied that he lived in a world that properly rewarded a man who did his duty. — Mario Puzo

Leave the gun, take the cannoli. — Mario Puzo

Among reasonable men problems of business could always be solved. — Mario Puzo

Nothing was more calming, more conducive to pure reason, than the atmosphere of money. — Mario Puzo

Did Jack Woltz have the balls to risk everything, to run the chance of losing all on a matter of principle, on a matter of honor; for revenge? — Mario Puzo

The art of this was to ignore all insults, all threats; to turn the other cheek. — Mario Puzo

Luca Brasi was such a man. But he was such an extraordinary man that for a long time nobody could kill him. Most of these people are of no concern to ourselves but a Brasi is a powerful weapon to be used. The trick is that since he does not fear death and indeed looks for it, then the trick is to make yourself the only person in the world that he truly desires not to kill him. He has only that one fear, not of death, but that you may be the one to kill him. He is yours then. — Mario Puzo

Lawyers can steal more money with a briefcase than a thousand men with guns and masks.
-Don Vito Corleone — Mario Puzo

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. — Mario Puzo

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. — Mario Puzo

Writing, like gambling, was always a big part of my life," he used to say. "Both gave me sanctuary from the world. And you never really had to kill someone to get what you wanted. You just had to beat fate. — Mario Puzo

Every family has bad memories. — Mario Puzo

I'll tell you the only real truth. Cunt is where it all begins and where it all ends. Cunt is the only thing worth living for. Everything else is a fake, a fraud and just shit. — Mario Puzo

Friendship and money: oil and water. — Mario Puzo

Raw brilliance needs long years of hard work to develop properly. — Mario Puzo

Your enemies always get strong on what you leave behind. — Mario Puzo

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. — Mario Puzo

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. — Mario Puzo

Mothers are like cops. They always believe the worst. — Mario Puzo

He was not a bad man, he was a good husband and father, but constant worry about his investments, about the money he earned, about the inevitable expenses that came with being a man of property had worn his nerves to a frazzle so that he was in a constant state of irritation — Mario Puzo

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 — Mario Puzo

..for Justice, we must go to Don Corleone. — Mario Puzo

The lawyer with the briefcase can steal more money than the man with the gun. — Mario Puzo

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

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

At that moment Sonny noticed that the other car had not kept going but had parked a few feet ahead, still blocking his way. At that same moment his lateral vision caught sight of another man in the darkened tollbooth to his right. But he did not have time to think about that because two men came out of the car parked in front and walked toward him. The toll collector still had not appeared. And then in the fraction of a second before anything actually happened, Santino Corleone he knew he was a dead man. And in that moment his mind was lucid, drained of all violence, as if the hidden fear finally real and present had purified him. — Mario Puzo

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. — Mario Puzo

Anybody. She uses her body like I use the loose — Mario Puzo

You lived like a fool and you have come to a fool's end. — Mario Puzo

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. — Mario Puzo

Forgive. Forget. Life is full of misfortunes. — Mario Puzo

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

Kurt Cilke liked dogs because they could not conspire. They could not hide hostility, and they were not cunning. They did not lie awake at night planning to rob and murder other dogs. Treachery was beyond their scope. — Mario Puzo

Ah, men understand friendship more than we woman. — Mario Puzo

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

Genius had its rewards. — Mario Puzo

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

I do not seek it or desire it. If I must, I will accept the punishment for all my sins. — Mario Puzo

A man's first duty is to keep himself alive. Then comes what everyone calls honor. — Mario Puzo