Mario Puzo
Puzo was born in a poor family of Neapolitan immigrants living in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York. Many of his books draw heavily on this heritage. After graduating from the City College of New York, he joined the United States Army Air Forces in World War II. Due to his poor eyesight, the military did not let him undertake combat duties but made him a public relations officer stationed in Germany. In 1950, his first short story, The Last Christmas, was published in American Vanguard. After the war, he wrote his first book, The Dark Arena, which was published in 1955.
At periods in the 1950s and early 1960s, Puzo worked as a writer/editor for publisher Martin Goodman's Magazine Management Company. Puzo, along with other writers like Bruce Jay Friedman, worked for the company line of men's magazines, pulp titles like Male, True Action, and Swank. Under the pseudonym Mario Cleri, Puzo wrote World War II adventure features for True Action.
Puzo's most famous work, The Godfather, was first published in 1969 after he had heard anecdotes about Mafia organizations during his time in pulp journalism. He later said in an interview with Larry King that his principal motivation was to make money. He had already, after all, written two books that had received great reviews, yet had not amounted to much. As a government clerk with five children, he was looking to write something that would appeal to the masses. With a number one bestseller for months on the New York Times Best Seller List, Mario Puzo had found his target audience. The book was later developed into the film The Godfather, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The movie received 11 Academy Award nominations, winning three, including an Oscar for Puzo for Best Adapted Screenplay. Coppola and Puzo collaborated then to work on sequels to the original film, The Godfather Part II and The Godfather Part III.
Puzo wrote the first draft of the script for the 1974 disaster film Earthquake, which he was unable to continue working on due to his commitment to The Godfather Part II. Puzo also co-wrote Richard Donner's Superman and the original draft for Superman II. He also collaborated on the stories for the 1982 film A Time to Die and the 1984 Francis Ford Coppola film The Cotton Club.
Puzo never saw the publication of his penultimate book, Omertà, but the manuscript was finished before his death, as was the manuscript for The Family. However, in a review originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Jules Siegel, who had worked closely with Puzo at Magazine Management Company, speculated that Omertà may have been completed by "some talentless hack." Siegel also acknowledges the temptation to "rationalize avoiding what is probably the correct analysis -- that [Puzo] wrote it and it is terrible."
Puzo died of heart failure on July 2, 1999 at his home in Bay Shore, Long Island, New York. His family now lives in East Islip, New York.
“He'd always been a man who followed his head and not his heart.The heart was just a bloody motor.The head was meant to drive”
“The lawyer with the briefcase can steal more money than the man with the gun.”
“Revenge is a dish that tastes best when served cold.”
“They made it personal when they shot Pop. It is not business, it's personal.”
“I'll make him an offer he can't refuse.”
“One lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns ...”
“Never show anger at slight, tell nothing. Earn respect from everyone by deeds, not Words. Respect the members of your Blood Family. Gambling was Recreation, not a way to earn a Living. Love your Father, your Mother, your Sister but beware of Loving any other Woman than your Wife. And a Wife was a woman who bore your Children. And once that happened to You, your Life was Forfeit to give them their daily bread”
“The 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”
“Life is like a box of Hand grenades,You never know what will blow you to kingdom come”
“Michael: Barzini will set me up through somebody close... that, supposedly, I won't suspect.Hagen: Somebody like me.Michael: You're Irish, they won't trust you.Hagen: I'm German-American.Michael: To them that's Irish.”
“Love 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”
“Oh, what a wicked world it is that drives a man to sin.”
“I'll tell you the only real truth. Cunt is where it all begins and where it all ends. Cunt is the only thing worth living for. Everything else is a fake, a fraud and just shit.”
“Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”
“Never get angry. Never make a threat. Reason with people.”
“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.”
“No, that's not possible," Michael said. "Killed, yes; jail, no.”
“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.”
“Why should I be afraid now? Strange men have come to kill me ever since I was twelve years old.”
“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.”
“Macht ist nur die leere Erhöhung des eigenen Willens über den Willen anderer.”
“going to the mattresses”
“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”
“Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than the government. It is almost the equal of family.”
“Every man has but one destiny”
“Fredo you're my older brother and I love you. But don't ever take sides against the family...”
“She emptied her mind of all thought of herself, of her children, of all anger, of all rebellion, of all questions. Then with a profound and deeply willed desire to believe, to be heard, as she had done every day since the murder of Carlo Rizzi, she said the necessary prayers for the soul of Michael Corleone.”
“Many young men started down a false path to their true destiny. Time and fortune usually set them aright.”
“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.”
“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.”
“We are all honorable men here, we do not have to give each other assurances as if we were lawyers.”
“it's just business nothing personal...”
“A friend should always underestimate your virtues and an enemy overestimate your faults”
“I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.”