The Godfather

Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than government. It is almost the equal of family.

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.”

Revenge is a dish that tastes best when it is cold,

Women and children can afford to be careless, men cannot.

man has only one destiny.”

He claimed that 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.

And this too showed how the Mafia in Sicily was cancerous to the society it inhabited. Merit meant nothing. Talent meant nothing. Work meant nothing. The Mafia Godfather gave you your profession as a gift.

Michael Corleone understood for the first time why men like his father chose to become thieves and murderers rather than members of the legal society. The poverty and fear and degradation were too awful to be acceptable to any man of spirit

“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. But I’m old‑fashioned, you’re the new modern generation, don’t listen to me.”

But great men are not born great, they grow great, and so it was with Vito Corleone.