Quotes from The Godfather

“I'll make him an offer he can't refuse.”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“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, quote from The Godfather

“Great men are not born great, they grow great . . .”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“Revenge is a dish that tastes best when served cold.”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“A friend should always underestimate your virtues and an enemy overestimate your faults”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“The lawyer with the briefcase can steal more money than the man with the gun.”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“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.”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“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, quote from The Godfather

“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, quote from The Godfather

“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, quote from The Godfather

“Accidents don't happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult.”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“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, quote from The Godfather

“Never let anyone know what you are thinking.”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“Many young men started down a false path to their true destiny. Time and fortune usually set them aright.”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“Behind every successful fortune there is a crime.”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“Time erodes gratitude more quickly than it does beauty!”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

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

-Don Vito Corleone”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“Why should I be afraid now? Strange men have come to kill me ever since I was twelve years old.”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“A man who is not a father to his children can never be a real man,”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“We are all honorable men here, we do not have to give each other assurances as if we were lawyers.”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

“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, quote from The Godfather

“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, quote from The Godfather

“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, quote from The Godfather

“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, quote from 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.”
― Mario Puzo, quote from The Godfather

About the author

Popular quotes

“It’s just a thing. You deal with it."
"As in, one damn thing after another?"
"Yes, very like.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Komarr

“Be so good as to cease to cast yourself in fictions. Pinch yourself, or slap yourself across the face if that's what it takes, but understand, please, that you are nonfictional, and this is real life.”
― Salman Rushdie, quote from Shalimar the Clown

“Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire said that the following five attributes marked Rome at its end: first, a mounting love of show and luxury (that is, affluence); second, a widening gap between the very rich and the very poor (this could be among countries in the family of nations as well as in a single nation); third, an obsession with sex; fourth, freakishness in the arts, masquerading as originality, and enthusiasms pretending to be creativity; fifth, an increased desire to live off the state. It all sounds so familiar. We have come a long road since our first chapter, and we are back in Rome.”
― Francis A. Schaeffer, quote from How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture

“Olgun?, she asked, her tone again little more than a
breath.
"Dogs?"
A pause, an answer.
"Ah. And do you think you should maybe do something
about that?"
Self-satisfied gloating.
"You already did." It wasn't a question.
Another affirmative.
Widdershins sighed.
"I hope you didn't hurt them."
Olgun sent a flash of horror running through her, so strong
that she felt herself shudder.
"All right, I'm sorry!, she hissed. I know you like dogs. I
know you wouldn't hurt them! I wasn't thinking!"
The god sniffed haughtily.”
― quote from Thief's Covenant

“He is not simply looking into the mirror because he is transfixed by what he sees. Rather, the artist’s success depends as much as anything on his powers of detachment, on de-narcissizing himself… Freud… studied his own dreams not because he was a “narcissist,” but because he was a student of dreams. And whose were at once the least and most accessible of dreams, if not his own?”
― Philip Roth, quote from My Life as a Man

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.