“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.”

“No, that's not possible," Michael said. "Killed, yes; jail, no.”

“That's like bringing a guy up from the minors to pitch the World Series.”

“I don't trust society to protect us, I have no intention of placing my fate in the hands of men whose only qualification is that they managed to con a block of people to vote for them.”

“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.”

“Many young men started down a false path to their true destiny. Time and fortune usually set them aright.”

“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.”