I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.

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

Great men are not born great, they grow great . . .

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

Accidents don't happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult.

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.

And in that fraction of a second before anything actually happened, Santino Corleone knew he was a dead man.

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 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

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.

I have no such powers. If I did I would be more merciful than God, believe me.

If you believe that you are not omnipresent, omniscient, and ultimately omnipotent, then you are deluded.

There is something distinguished about even his failures they sink not trivially but with a certain air of majesty like a great ship its flags flying full of holes.

I love being famous. It's almost like being white.

Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion go hand in hand.

I cannot explain something that no one has ever figured out.

Ilene Weiss and I went to Girls High together.

For somebody who loves foreign policy, being Secretary is the best job in the world - but it doesn't happen twice.

The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice -- and always has been.

Remember, Jesus says: Those who are the last here will be the first in my kingdom of God.

The cat does not negotiate with the mouse.