- Michael Corleone: My father taught me many things here - he taught me in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
- [about the unrest in Cuba]
- Michael Corleone: I saw a strange thing today. Some rebels were being arrested. One of them pulled the pin on a grenade. He took himself and the captain of the command with him. Now, soldiers are paid to fight; the rebels aren't.
- Hyman Roth: What does that tell you?
- Michael Corleone: They could win.
- [Vito returns years later to Sicily and meets Don Ciccio, the man who murdered Vito's family]
- Don Ciccio: I see you took the name of the town. What was your father's name?
- Vito Corleone: Antonio Andolini.
- Don Ciccio: You'll have to speak up. I can't hear you
- Vito Corleone: My father's name was Antonio Andolini... and this is for you.
- [stabs him]
- Michael Corleone: If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it is that you can kill anyone.
- Senator Pat Geary: I don't like your kind of people. I don't like to see you come out to this clean country in your oily hair, dressed up in those silk suits, and try to pass yourselves off as decent Americans. I'll do business with you, but the fact is that I despise your masquerade. The dishonest way you pose yourself. Yourself and your whole fucking family.
- Michael Corleone: Senator, we're both part of the same hypocrisy. But never think it applies to my family.
- Michael Corleone: C'mon Frankie... my father did business with Hyman Roth, he respected Hyman Roth.
- Frank Pentangeli: Your father did business with Hyman Roth, he respected Hyman Roth... but he never *trusted* Hyman Roth!
- [Geary is demanding a large bribe for a gaming license]
- Senator Pat Geary: I want your answer and the money by noon tomorrow. And one more thing. Don't you contact me again, ever. From now on, you deal with Turnbull.
- Michael Corleone: Senator? You can have my answer now, if you like. My final offer is this: nothing. Not even the fee for the gaming license, which I would appreciate if you would put up personally.
- Hyman Roth: There was this kid I grew up with; he was younger than me. Sorta looked up to me, you know. We did our first work together, worked our way out of the street. Things were good, we made the most of it. During Prohibition, we ran molasses into Canada... made a fortune, your father, too. As much as anyone, I loved him and trusted him. Later on he had an idea to build a city out of a desert stop-over for GI's on the way to the West Coast. That kid's name was Moe Greene, and the city he invented was Las Vegas. This was a great man, a man of vision and guts. And there isn't even a plaque, or a signpost or a statue of him in that town! Someone put a bullet through his eye. No one knows who gave the order. When I heard it, I wasn't angry; I knew Moe, I knew he was head-strong, talking loud, saying stupid things. So when he turned up dead, I let it go. And I said to myself, this is the business we've chosen; I didn't ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business!
- Kay Corleone: Oh, Michael. Michael, you are blind. It wasn't a miscarriage. It was an abortion. An abortion, Michael. Just like our marriage is an abortion. Something that's unholy and evil. I didn't want your son, Michael! I wouldn't bring another one of you sons into this world! It was an abortion, Michael! It was a son Michael! A son! And I had it killed because this must all end!
- [Michael's eyes begin to bulge]
- Kay Corleone: I know now that it's over. I knew it then. There would be no way, Michael... no way you could ever forgive me not with this Sicilian thing that's been going on for 2,000 years.
- [Michael loses control. He slaps Kay across the face. She falls onto the couch]
- Michael Corleone: Bitch! You won't take my children!
- Kay Corleone: I will.
- Michael Corleone: You WON'T TAKE MY CHILDREN!
- Kay Corleone: They're my children too.
- Connie: Michael, I hated you for so many years. I think that I did things to myself, to hurt myself so that you'd know - that I could hurt you. You were just being strong for all of us the way Papa was. And I forgive you. Can't you forgive Fredo? He's so sweet and helpless without you. You need me, Michael. I want to take care of you now.
- Michael: I've always taken care of you, Fredo.
- Fredo Corleone: Taken care of me? You're my kid brother and you take care of me? Did you ever think about that? Hah? Did you ever once that about that?
- Michael Corleone: [discussing the incident regarding the two unknown gunmen who fired through Michael's bedroom window earlier] You heard what happened in my home?
- Frank Pentangeli: Mike, I almost died myself. We was all so relieved...
- Michael Corleone: [interrupts] In my HOME! IN MY BEDROOM WHERE MY WIFE SLEEPS! Where my children come and play with their toys. In my home.
- Tom Hagen: When a plot against the Emperor failed... the plotters were always given a chance... to let their families keep their fortunes. Right?
- Frank Pentangeli: Yeah, but only the rich guys, Tom. The little guys got knocked off and all their estates went to the Emperors. Unless they went home and killed themselves, then nothing happened. And the families... the families were taken care of.
- Tom Hagen: That was a good break. A nice deal.
- Frank Pentangeli: Yeah... They went home... and sat in a hot bath... opened up their veins... and bled to death... and sometimes they had a little party before they did it.
- Vito Corleone: [in Italian] Do me this favor. I won't forget it. Ask your friends in the neighborhood about me. They'll tell you I know how to return a favor.
- Fredo Corleone: I'm your older brother, Mike, and I was stepped over!
- Michael Corleone: That's the way Pop wanted it.
- Fredo Corleone: It ain't the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm smart and I want respect!
- Michael Corleone: Fredo, you're nothing to me now. You're not a brother, you're not a friend. I don't want to know you or what you do. I don't want to see you at the hotels, I don't want you near my house. When you see our mother, I want to know a day in advance, so I won't be there. You understand?
- [Ordering drinks in a Havana cafe]
- Fredo Corleone: Uno... por favor...
- [to Michael]
- Fredo Corleone: How do you say "banana daiquiri"?
- Michael Corleone: "Banana daiquiri."
- [during the play 'Senza Mamma']
- Genco Abbandando: Vito, how do you like my little angel? Isn't she beautiful?
- Vito Corleone: She's very beautiful. To you, she's beautiful. For me, there's only my wife and son.
- [Kay is threatening to take the children away]
- Michael: Don't you know that I would use all of my power to prevent something like that from happening?
- Fredo Corleone: You know when I was your age, I went out to fishing with all my brothers and my father, and everybody. And I was, I was the only one who caught a fish. Nobody else could catch one except me. You know how I did it? Every time I put the line in the water I said a Hail Mary and every time I said a Hail Mary I caught a fish. You believe that? It's true, that's the secret. You wanna try it when we go out on the lake?
- Al Neri: Our friend and associate Hyman Roth is in the news. The High Court of Israel turned down his request to live there as a returning Jew. He landed in Buenos Aires last night offering a "gift" of a million dollars if they'd let him stay. They said no. His passport's been invalidated, except for his return trip to the States.
- Tom Hagen: He'll try Panama next.
- Michael Corleone: Panama won't take him. Not for a million, not for ten million.
- Don Fanucci: Young man, I hear you and your friends are stealing goods. But you don't even send a dress to my house. No respect! You know I've got three daughters. This is my neighborhood. You and your friends should show me some respect. You should let me wet my beak a little. I hear you and your friends cleared $600 each. Give me $200 each, for your own protection. And I'll forget the insult. You young punks have to learn to respect a man like me! Otherwise the cops will come to your house. And your family will be ruined. Of course, if I'm wrong about how much you stole, I'll take a little less. And by less, I only mean - a hundred bucks less. Now don't refuse me. Understand, paisan? Understand, paisan?... Tell your friends I don't want a lot. Just enough to wet my beak. Don't be afraid to tell them!
- Hyman Roth: I'm going in to take a nap. When I wake, if the money's on the table, I'll know I have a partner. If it isn't, I'll know I don't.
- Michael Corleone: Anthony, I'm going to be leaving very early tomorrow.
- Anthony Corleone: Will you take me?
- Michael Corleone: No, I can't.
- Anthony Corleone: Why do you have to go?
- Michael Corleone: Because I have to do business.
- Anthony Corleone: I could help you.
- Michael Corleone: Someday you will.
- Frank Pentangeli: Hey, what's with the food around here? A kid comes up to me in a white jacket, gives me a Ritz cracker, and uh, chopped liver, he says, 'Canapes'. I said, uh, 'can of peas, my ass, that's a Ritz cracker and chopped liver!'
- Johnny Ola: Hyman Roth always makes money for his partners. One by one, our old friends are gone. Death, natural or not, prison, deported. Hyman Roth is the only one left, because he always made money for his partners.
- Kay: It made me think of what you once told me: "In five years the Corleone family will be completely legitimate." That was seven years ago.
- Michael Corleone: I know. I'm trying, darling.
- [last lines]
- [flashback - Don Vito Corleone's birthday in 1941]
- Fredo Corleone, Tom Hagen, Santino, Connie, Salvatore "Sally" Tessio, Theresa Hagen, Carlo Rizzi: Surprise!
- [singing]
- Fredo Corleone, Tom Hagen, Santino, Connie, Salvatore "Sally" Tessio, Theresa Hagen, Carlo Rizzi: For he's a jolly good fellow/For he's a jolly good fellow/For he's a jolly good fellow/ Which nobody can deny...
- Tom Hagen: It would be like trying to kill the President; there's no way we can get to him.
- Michael Corleone: Tom, you know you surprise me. If anything in this life is certain - if history has taught us anything - it's that you can kill *anybody*.
- Hyman Roth: If I could only live to see it, to be there with you. What I wouldn't give for twenty more years! Here we are, protected, free to make our profits without Kefauver, the goddamn Justice Department and the F.B.I. ninety miles away, in partnership with a friendly government. Ninety miles! It's nothing! Just one small step, looking for a man who wants to be President of the United States, and having the cash to make it possible. Michael, we're bigger than U.S. Steel.
- Hyman Roth: Good health is the most important thing. More than success, more than money, more than power.
- Hyman Roth: [his last words] I'm a retired investor living on a pension. I came home to vote in the Presidential Election because they wouldn't give me an absentee ballot.
- [Seconds later, Rocco walks up to Roth and shoots him in the stomach, killing him]
- Michael Corleone: I've always taken care of you Fredo.
- Fredo Corleone: Taken care of me? You're my kid brother and you take care of me? Did you ever think about that, huh? Did you ever ONCE think about that? "Send Fredo off to do this; Send Fredo off to do that." "Let Fredo take care of some Mickey Mouse nightclub somewhere." "Send Fredo to pick somebody up at the airport." I'm your older brother Mike and I was stepped over.
- [first lines]
- Title Card: The godfather was born Vito Andolini, in the town of Corleone in Sicily. In 1901 his father was murdered for an insult to the local Mafia chieftain. His older brother Paolo swore revenge and disappeared into the hills, leaving Vito, the only male heir, to stand with his mother at the funeral. He was nine years old.
- [gunshots and screams]
- Woman: [subtitled from Italian] They've killed the boy! They've killed young Paolo! They've killed your son Paolo!
- [subtitles from Sicilian Italian]
- Vito Corleone: [picks up baby Michael, kisses him, holds him] Michael, your father loves you very much. Very much.