Michael Corleone: There are many things my father taught me here in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Tom Hagen: It would be like trying to kill the President; there’s no way we can get to him.
Michael Corleone: Tom, you know you surprise me. If anything in this life is certain – if history has taught us anything – it’s that you can kill *anybody*.

Michael: [speaking to Carlo] Only don’t tell me you’re innocent. Because it insults my intelligence and makes me very angry.

 

Michael: Well, when Johnny was first starting out, he was signed to this contract with a big-band leader. And as his career got better and better he wanted to get out of it. Now, Johnny is my father’s godson. My father went to see the bandleader, and offered him $10,000 to let Johnny go, but the bandleader said no. So the next day, my father went to see the bandleader again, only this time with Luca Brasi. Within an hour, the bandleader signed the release, with a certified check of $1,000.

Kay: How did he do that?

Michael: My father made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Kay: What was that?

Michael: Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract.

[Kay stares at Michael in disbelief]

Michael: That’s a true story. [pause] That’s my family, Kay, it’s not me.

“Now you listen to me, you smooth talking son-of-a-bitch. Let me lay it on the line for you and your boss, whoever he is. Johnny Fontane will never get that movie. I don’t care how many dago guinea wop greaseball goombahs come out of the woodwork.”

 

Woltz: …just tell him he should ask me anything else. But this is one favor I can’t give him.

Hagen: He never asks a second favor when he’s been refused the first, understood?

“You don’t understand. Johnny Fontane never gets that movie. That part is perfect for him; it’ll make him a big star. And I’m gonna run him out of the business, and let me tell you why. Johnny Fontane ruined one of Woltz International’s most valuable proteges. For five years we had her under training. Singing lessons; acting lessons, dancing lessons. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on her. I was gonna make her a big star! And let me be even more frank, just to show you that I’m not a hard-hearted man, and it’s not all dollars and cents. She was beautiful; she was young, she was innocent. She was the greatest piece of ass I ever had, and I had’em all over the world! And then Johnny Fontane comes along with his olive-oil voice, and guinea charm. And she runs off. She threw it all away just to make me look ridiculous! And a man in my position can’t afford to be made to look ridiculous! Now you get the hell outta here! And if that goombah tries any rough stuff, you tell him I ain’t no band leader!”

―Jack Woltz

 

[Vito returns years later to Sicily and meets Don Ciccio, the man who murdered Vito's family]
Don Ciccio: I see you took the name of the town. What was your father’s name?
Vito Corleone: Antonio Andolini.
Don Ciccio: You’ll have to speak up. I can’t hear you
Vito Corleone: My father’s name was Antonio Andolini… and this is for you.
[stabs him]

Vito Corleone: [in Italian] Do me this favor. I won’t forget it. Ask your friends in the neighborhood about me. They’ll tell you I know how to return a favor.

Vito Corleone: I make him an offer he don’ refuse. Don’ worry.

 

[speaking to himself, practicing his speech]
Luca Brasi: Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your home on the wedding day of your daughter. And may their first child be a masculine child.
[then, starting over]

Sonny: What the hell is this?
Clemenza: It’s a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.

Sonny: Hey, listen, I want somebody good – and I mean very good – to plant that gun. I don’t want my brother coming out of that toilet with just his dick in his hands, alright?
Clemenza: The gun’ll be there.Sonny: [laughing] What are you gonna do? Nice college boy, didn’t want to get mixed up in the family business. Now you want to gun down a police captain. Why? Because he slapped you in the face a little? What do you think this like the Army where you can shoot ‘em from a mile away? No you gotta get up like this and, badda-bing, you blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit. C’mere.
[Kisses Michael on the head]
Sonny: You’re taking this very personal. Tom, this is business and this man is taking it very, very personal.

Fredo Corleone: Every time I put my line in the water I said a Hail Mary, and every time I said a Hail Mary I caught a fish.

Michael: I’ve always taken care of you, Fredo.
Fredo Corleone: Taken care of me? I’m your older brother, Mike, and you’re taking care of me? Did you ever think about that?

Fredo Corleone: You know when I was your age, I went out to fishing with all my brothers and my father, and everybody. And I was, I was the only one who caught a fish. Nobody else could catch one except me. You know how I did it? Every time I put the line in the water I said a Hail Mary and every time I said a Hail Mary I caught a fish. You believe that? It’s true, that’s the secret. You wanna try it when we go out on the lake?

 

Lo fundamental de la vida está en El Padrino. Tom Hanks ya lo decia en Tienes un e-mail: cualquier duda, cualquier problema que surja, ya ha sido resuelto en el mítico título de Francis Ford Coppola.

“Algún día, y puede que ese día nunca llegue, acudiré a ti y tendrás que servirme. Pero hasta entonces, amigo, acepta mi ayuda en recuerdo de la boda de mi hija.” – Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando)

“Bonasera, Bonasera, ¿qué he hecho para que me trates con tan poco respeto? Si hubieras mantenido mi amistad, los que maltrataron a tu hija lo habrían pagado con creces. Porque cuando uno de mis amigos se crea enemigos, yo los convierto en mis enemigos. Y a ese le temen”. Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando)

“Hablas de venganza. ¿Va la venganza a devolverle a su hijo? ¿Va a devolverme a mí el mío?” – Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando)

“Mira lo que han hecho con mi hijo…” – Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando)

“Le haré una oferta que no podrá rechazar” -Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) a Johnny Fontane