- Lefty: [standing next to Donnie's car at night] There's the boss. And, under him, there's the skipper. You know how this works?
- Donnie Brasco: Yeah, it's like in the army.
- Lefty: Bullshit. The army is some guy you don't know telling you to go whack some other guy you don't know.
- FBI Technician: [sitting on the floor of a motel room, reserved for the FBI] What's "Forget about it"?
- Donnie Brasco: "
- [lying on the couch]
- Donnie Brasco: Forget about it" is, like, if you agree with someone, you know, like "Raquel Welch is one great piece of ass. Forget about it!" But then, if you disagree, like "A Lincoln is better than a Cadillac? Forget about it!" You know? But then, it's also like if something's the greatest thing in the world, like, "Minghia! Those peppers! Forget about it!" But it's also like saying "Go to hell!" too. Like, you know, like "Hey Paulie, you got a one-inch pecker?" and Paulie says "Forget about it!" Sometimes it just means "Forget about it."
- Lefty: [while walking with Donnie to meet up with other crime family members] When I introduce you, I'm gonna say, "This is a friend of mine." That means you're a connected guy. Now if I said instead, this is a friend of ours that would mean you a made guy. A Capiche?
- Lefty: [standing next to Donnie's car at night] A wise guy's always right; even when he's wrong, he's right.
- Lefty: [to Annette, after having been sent for] And listen to me, if Donnie calls... , tell him... if it was gonna be anyone, I'm glad it was him. All right?
- Sonny Black: [sees the front page of a newspaper entitled "The Nation mourns", while sitting by the pool] How can John Wayne die?
- Lefty: Fuckin' Indians got him.
- Joe Pistone: [to Maggie in their garage] All my life I've tried to be the good guy, the guy in the white fucking hat. And for what? For nothing. I'm not becoming like them; I am them.
- Jilly: [referring to Donnie, while getting shaved in a barber shop] Look, Left, I said I knew him. I didn't say I fucked him.
- [Lefty is cooking dinner in his kitchen]
- Lefty: Punch of salt.
- Donnie Brasco: [watching him from behind him] Punch?
- Lefty: Punch. Punch of salt.
- Donnie Brasco: Punch or pinch?
- Lefty: Punch, punch. Not pinch. What'd I say? I say pinch?
- Donnie Brasco: Nah, you said... you said punch.
- Lefty: Sometimes you don't make no fuckin' sense, Donnie.
- Donnie Brasco: You think I'm a rat...?
- Lefty: [to Donnie while in his car, before putting a loaded revolver to his head] How many times have I had you in my house? If you're a rat, then I'm the biggest mutt in the history of the Mafia.
- Donnie Brasco: [to Maggie in their garage] If I come out alive, this guy, Lefty, ends up dead. That's the same thing as me putting the bullet in his head myself.
- Lefty: [to Donnie's while in his car] When they send for you, you go in alive, you come out dead, and it's your best friend that does it.
- Japanese Waiter: Take your shoes off.
- Joe Pistone: [while concealing a wire in his shoe] Take my shoes off? You take your pants off, what the fuck.
- Maggie Pistone: God, why do you hate me when I love you so much?
- Donnie Brasco: [standing in front of each other in their garage] You think I hate you? I don't hate you. This job is eating me alive. I can't breathe anymore. And if I come out, this guy Lefty dies. They're gonna kill him because he vouched for me. Because he stood up for me. I live with that every day. That's the same thing if I put the bullet through his head myself, you understand? I spend all these years trying to be the good guy, you know? The man in the white fuckin' hat. For what? For nuthin'. I'm not becoming like them, Maggie, I am them.
- Lefty: [to Donnie's while in his car] Why'd you pay for that drink? A wiseguy never pays for his drinks.
- Donnie Brasco: [referring to Bruno, to Lefty, while in his car] Twenty years you know a guy, you fuckin' whack him out just like that over a lounge? That's beautiful.
- Lefty: [to Donnie, while sitting in his living room] A guy like you don't touch a made guy, you know what I did yesterday? I went in front of the skippers, I'm going on the record with you, nobody can touch you now, I'm your man, Jesus Christ couldn't touch you because I represent you, keep your nose clean, be a good earner follow the rules, and who knows? Maybe one day they open the books you get straightened out, become a wise guy, a made guy, I'd die with you Donnie.
- Donnie Brasco: [to his fellow wiseguys, after he punches a former district attorney that recognized Joe Pistone] Fuckin' asshole, he grabbed my cock!
- Lefty: [to Donnie in a bar] You're gonna walk out on me? You don't walk out on me. I walk out on you.
- Lefty: [to Donnie's while in his car] Who the fuck am I? Who am I? I'm a, a spoke on a wheel. And so was he, and so are you.
- Sonny Black: [in a bar] You guys think this funny, I'm a skipper now, I got to answer, fifty grand month, kick up to Rusty, every month, one day I'm going to die and I'm going to be here in the same bar with all the same fucking guys, talking about the same fucking scams, never amount to nothing, cause that's how I'll know I'll be sent to fucking hell
- Lefty: [sees the front page of a newspaper, to Donnie's while in his car] Whackin' the boss... another thing I get left out of.
- Sonny Black: You know what we do when we find that rat, right, Lefty?
- Lefty: 'Could be I found him already.
- Lefty: [to Donnie in a bar] In all the five boroughs, I'm known, forget about it, I'm known all over the fucking world, anybody asks about Lefty from Mulberry Street, you're pissing up the world fucking street my friend
- Lefty Ruggiero: [to Donnie, in his kitchen] Anywhere you go, all around the world, all the best cooks are men.
- Lefty: [to Donnie, after having been sent for] If anything should happen to me... make sure Annette gets the car.
- Nicky: [while waiting with other crime family members for the boss to arrive] The good news is, my dick is now a popsicle!
- [Lefty is banging a parking meter very loudly with a hammer, on a table in a bar]
- Sonny Black: Hey, will you fuckin' stop that?
- Lefty: How am I gonna get this thing open?
- [looks back at the meter]
- Lefty: Open Sesame!
- Donnie Brasco: [Joe's kids are giving him the silent treatment, while making them eggs for breakfast] I bet you can't get through breakfast without saying three words
- Daughter: [beaming up at him] You lose!
- Lefty: [standing outside the club King's Court before it opens] I'm tellin' ya, Donnie... nothin' but nothin' but right.
- Tim Curley: [referring to her husband, Joe Pistone] to Maggie, in her home, Standard procedure is that he has to check in with us every day, he might miss a day or two here and there, it was three weeks ago, we can't tell you because we don't know, there's war going on in the mafia family where Joe is undercover, three leaders of a rival faction have been murdered, he's right in the line of fire, not because he's one of us because he's one of them, who he's close to, they're all the top dogs now, it's not a problem we anticipated, we have got to pull him out
- Donnie Brasco: [Lefty tends to the pigeon coops on the roof of his building. Donnie's alongside him] Did you know there used to be falcons in New York?
- Lefty: They got everything in this fucking city.
- Donnie Brasco: Peregrine falcons. They lived across the river.
- Lefty: In Queens?
- Donnie Brasco: In the Palisades
- Lefty: The Palisades is in Jersey, Donnie.
- Donnie Brasco: I'm saying that's why there's so many pigeons now. The falcons used to hunt 'em and kill 'em off.
- Lefty: I love these fuckin' pigeons. I'd die before I'd let anybody touch these pigeons.
- Donnie Brasco: These falcons could read a newspaper from a mile up.
- Lefty: A bird could read a newspaper?
- Donnie Brasco: I'm saying their eyesight.
- Donnie Brasco: [while carrying bags and coolers onto the boat] Hey Richie, what are you trying to do, get me killed with that fucking suit?
- Richard 'Richie' Gazzo: What?
- Donnie Brasco: That fucking car, purple fucking car. Don't say the word plotz, you understand?
- Richard 'Richie' Gazzo: Yeah, yeah.
- Lefty: [sees the front page of a newspaper documenting another crime boss was murdered, to Donnie while in his car] I never hear from my boss until he dies, then my whole life gets turned upside down!
- Lefty Ruggiero: [to Donnie, standing outside the club King's Court before it opens] Thirty years I'm busting my hump. What have I got?
- Lefty: [to Donnie, sitting on the couch in his home] She's a good woman, Annette. One broad, that's enough for anyone.
- [last lines, after being awarded with a medal and a check]
- Maggie Pistone: Joe... It's over, honey. Come on, come home.
- Lefty Ruggiero: [repeated line when attempting to avoid the question that's asked to him] ain't the question.
- Nicky: [playing Gin] Look at this hand. This ain't a hand. This is a fuckin deformed Creature from the Black fuckin Lagoon's claw I got here.
- Lefty Ruggiero: [said with a mixture of regret and indignation] Twenty six guys I clipped.
- [Lefty complains]
- Lefty Ruggiero: Do I get upped? No, they pass me by!
- Donnie Brasco: You know something?
- [Donnie soon boasts, when he meets FBI agents in a place the mob would never look, a kosher restaurant]
- Donnie Brasco: I got him. I got my hooks in the guy.
- [referring to Lefty Ruggiero]
- Donnie Brasco: [Lefty Ruggiero is explaining Mafia code to Donnie Brasco] If I say you're a friend of mine, that means you're connected. If I say you're a friend of ours, that means you're a made guy. If I introduce you, I'm responsible for you. Anything wrong with you, I go down.
- Sonny Black: That Santo Trafficante is something else, boy, I'll tell ya
- Donnie Brasco: Is that right? He's a good old guy?
- Sonny Black: Oh, forget about it, that mother fucker had this all to himself for fifty fuckin years and it's still a cow town. It could be like Vegas down here. Forget about Sonny Red and his trucks in Jersey, Florida this is all I want.
- Donnie Brasco: Let me tell you something: Sonny Red's freezing his nuts off right now.
- Sonny Black: [laughs] that's for sure. All I need is the start up money from Rusty then we all get rich.
- Donnie Brasco: What'd you think? Are we heading back to New York pretty soon or what?
- Sonny Black: Not you, I want you to represent me down here. I want you to be my man in Florida, get that club going, you know King's Court. You didn't think I knew about that did you? I think I'm going to send the lion down here with you and keep that big pussy in the parking lot.
- Donnie Brasco: You know Sonny I really appreciate the offer but I got a lot things going on in New York
- Sonny Black: Lefty's a dynamite guy there's no doubt about it, he looked after me when I was in the can and that's something I don't forget, something I will never ever forget.
- Donnie Brasco: Yeah, he's a stand up guy. He really cares about you too.
- Sonny Black: Yeah, I know he does, but the problem is you think he's helping you but his hurting you. He gets in those two or three whines in you know what I'm saying?
- Donnie Brasco: Yeah I don't want to be stepping on nobody's toes, if it wasn't for lefty...
- Sonny Black: [Interrupts him] no, that's it, you belong to me now. That's it.