Mario Puzo Quotes

The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, lies in its loyalty to each other.

A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.

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.

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.

A friend should always underestimate your virtues and an enemy overestimate your faults

Friendship and money: oil and water.

Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.

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.

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 . . .

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.

Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.

The only wealth in this world is children, more than all the money, power on earth.

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Finance is a gun. Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.

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.

In Sicily, women are more dangerous than shotguns.

Behind every successful fortune;There is Crime.

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

Santino, never let anyone outside the family know what you are thinking. Never let them know what you have under your fingernails. I think your brain is going soft from all that comedy you play with that young girl. Stop it and pay attention to business. Now get out of my sight.

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

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.

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

I have always believed helping your fellow man is profitable in every sense, personally and bottom line.

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 doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.

Never get angry. Never make a threat. Reason with people.

Even the strongest man needs friends.

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.

I'll make him an offer he can't refuse.

If anything in this life is certain...if history has taught us anything, it's that you cn kill anyone.

Oh, what a wicked world it is that drives a man to sin.

Like many businessmen of genius he learned that free competition was wasteful, monopoly efficient. And so he simply set about achieving that efficient monopoly.

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.

We don't know if capital punishment is a deterrent, but we know that men we execute will not murder again.

Revenge is a dish that tastes best when served cold.

Not having to worry about money is almost like not having to worry about dying.

I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can afford to be careless, but not men.

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

Actions defined a man; words were a fart in the wind

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.

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.

Never let a domestic quarrel ruin a day's writing. If you can't start the day fresh, get rid of your wife.

Life is like a box of Hand grenades,You never know what will blow you to kingdom come

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.

Tell my father I wish to be his son.

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

Power wears out those who do not have it.

It's just business nothing personal.

I like to drink wine more than I used to. Anyway, I'm drinking more.