“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.”

“God seemed to be having a hard time killing him, and he'd be damned if he was going to make the job easy for mere mortals”

“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.”

“Michael could never remember his father ever having uttered a word about death, as if the Don respected death too much to philosophize about it.”

“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.”

“A man who is not a father to his children can never be a real man,”

“Why should I be afraid now? Strange men have come to kill me ever since I was twelve years old.”