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.
Mario PuzoYou 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 PuzoWe don't know if capital punishment is a deterrent, but we know that men we execute will not murder again.
Mario PuzoMany young men started down a false path to their true destiny. Time and fortune usually set them aright.
Mario PuzoIt was from this experience came his oft-repeated belief that every man has but one destiny.
Mario PuzoWhat 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.
Mario PuzoLove 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 PuzoWe are all honorable men here, we don 't have to give each other assurances as if we were lawyers.
Mario PuzoLike many businessmen of genius he learned that free competition was wasteful, monopoly efficient. And so he simply set about achieving that efficient monopoly.
Mario PuzoSantino, 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.
Mario PuzoThe 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
Mario PuzoThe 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.
Mario PuzoMichael 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 PuzoNever let a domestic quarrel ruin a day's writing. If you can't start the day fresh, get rid of your wife.
Mario PuzoFredo, you're my older brother and I love you. But don't ever take sides against the Family again. Ever.
Mario PuzoHe 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.
Mario PuzoEven 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.
Mario Puzoโ"But you're the toughest son of a b!&โฌ# i've ever seen.You never let anybody get near you.You never let anybody know what you really think.
Mario PuzoIt 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 PuzoAnd in that fraction of a second before anything actually happened, Santino Corleone knew he was a dead man.
Mario PuzoI have always believed helping your fellow man is profitable in every sense, personally and bottom line.
Mario PuzoI spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can afford to be careless, but not men.
Mario PuzoWe 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