Mario Puzo
He was a degenerate gambler. That is, a man who gambled simply to gamble and must lose. As a hero who goes to war must die. Show me a gambler and I'll show you a loser, show me a hero and I'll show you a corpse.Collection: War
What we think of as our sensitivity is only the higher evolution of terror in a poor dumb beast. We suffer for nothing. Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.Collection: Death
Friendship and money: oil and water.Collection: Money
Finance is a gun. Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.Collection: Finance
The only wealth in this world is children, more than all the money, power on earth.Collection: Money
A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.Collection: Men
Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.
I have always believed helping your fellow man is profitable in every sense, personally and bottom line.
I believe in America. America's made my fortune.
Like many businessmen of genius he learned that free competition was wasteful, monopoly efficient. And so he simply set about achieving that efficient monopoly.
Even the strongest man needs friends.
The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, lies in its loyalty to each other.Collection: Family
What is past is past. never go back. Not for excuses. Not for justification, not for happiness. You are what you are, the world is what it is.Collection: Past
Behind every successful fortune;There is Crime.Collection: Successful
A friend should always underestimate your virtues and an enemy overestimate your faultsCollection: Enemy
Great men are not born great, they grow great . . .Collection: Greatness
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.Collection: Block
When I was young, some women told me they loved me for my long eyelashes. I accepted. Later it was for my wit. Then for my power and money. Then for my talent. Then for my mind-deep. OK, I can handle all of it. The only woman who scares me is the one who loves me for myself alone. I have plans for her. I have poisons and daggers and dark graves in caves to hide her head. She can't be allowed to live. Especially if she's sexually faithful and never lies and always puts me ahead of everything and everyone.Collection: Lying
There are things that have to be done and you do them and you don't talk about them. You don't try to justify them. They can't be justified. You just do them. Then you forget them.Collection: Trying
Never get angry. Never make a threat. Reason with people.Collection: Anger
I want to tell you a story. I have no other vanity.Collection: Vanity
Not having to worry about money is almost like not having to worry about dying.Collection: Inspirational
We are a family, and the loyalty of the family must come before anything and everyone else. For if we honor that commitment, we will never be vanquished-but if we falter in that loyalty we will all be condemned.Collection: Loyalty
Many young men started down a false path to their true destiny. Time and fortune usually set them aright.Collection: Destiny
In Sicily, women are more dangerous than shotguns.Collection: Shotguns
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 disasterCollection: Falling In Love
A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.Collection: Real
Time erodes gratitude more quickly than it does beauty!Collection: Gratitude
Actions defined a man; words were a fart in the windCollection: Men
Falling in love is great but being in love is a disasterCollection: Falling In Love
I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can afford to be careless, but not men.Collection: Children
Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.Collection: Inspirational
Yet, he thought, if I can die saying, "Life is so beautiful," then nothing else is important. If i can believe in myself that much, nothing else matters.Collection: Beautiful
Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.Collection: Real
Fredo, you're my older brother and I love you. But don't ever take sides against the Family again. Ever.Collection: Brother
Every family has bad memories.Collection: Family
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.Collection: Lying
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.Collection: Father
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.Collection: Like Me
ِAn offer you can't refuse.Collection: Refuse
No, that's not possible," Michael said. "Killed, yes; jail, no.Collection: Jail
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.Collection: Enemy
Tell my father I wish to be his son.Collection: Father
Gambling is not as destructive as war or as boring as pornography. It is not as immoral as business or as suicidal as watching television. And the percentages are better than religion.Collection: War
We are all honorable men here, we don 't have to give each other assurances as if we were lawyers.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Beautiful
It can be argued that man's instinct to gamble is the only reason he is still not a monkey up in the trees.Collection: Science
Some honorable men spend their whole life preparing for a supreme act of treacheryCollection: Men
Life is like a box of Hand grenades,You never know what will blow you to kingdom comeCollection: Blow
Never let a domestic quarrel ruin a day's writing. If you can't start the day fresh, get rid of your wife.Collection: Writing