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

The Godfather: Part II is a 1974 film that portrays the early life & career of Vito Corleone, while his son Michael expands and tightens his grip on his crime syndicate in the 1950's.

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo.

Michael Corleone

  • See, all our people are businessmen. Their loyalty's based on that. One thing I learned from Pop was to try to think as people around you think. And on that basis, anything's possible.
  • [statement to Congressional hearing] In the hopes of clearing my family name in the sincere desire to give my children their fair share of the American way of life, without a blemish on their name and background, I have appeared before this committee, and given it all the cooperation in my power. I consider it a great dishonor to me personally to have to deny that I am a criminal. I wish to have the following noted for the record: That I served my country faithfully and honorably in World War II, and was awarded the Navy Cross for actions in defense of my country; that I have never been arrested or indicted for any crime whatsoever; that no proof linking me to any criminal conspiracy, whether it is called Mafia or Cosa Nostra or whatever other name you wish to give, has ever been made public. I have not taken refuge behind the Fifth Amendment, although it is my right to do so. I challenge this committee to produce any witness or evidence against me and if they do not I hope they will have the decency to clear my name with the same publicity with which they now have besmirched it.
  • I don't feel I have to wipe everybody out, Tom. Just my enemies.
  • [kisses Fredo] I know it was you Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!

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.
  • [to Don Ciccio, in Sicilian] My father's name was Antonio Andolini, and this is for you! [stabs him]

Don Fanucci

  • [to Vito, in Sicilian] Young man, I hear you and your friends are stealing goods, but you don't even send a dress to my house. No respect! You know I've got three daughters. This is my neighborhood. You and your friends should show me some respect. You should let me wet my beak a little. I hear you and your friends cleared $600 each. Give me $200 each, for your own protection, and I'll forget the insult. You young punks have to learn to respect a man like me! Otherwise the cops will come to your house and your family will be ruined.

Hyman Roth

  • If I could only live to see it, to be there with you. What I wouldn't give for twenty more years! Here we are, protected, free to make our profits without Kefauver, the goddamn Justice Department and the F.B.I. ninety miles away, in partnership with a friendly government. Ninety miles! It's nothing! Just one small step, looking for a man who wants to be President of the United States, and having the cash to make it possible. Michael, we're bigger than U.S. Steel.
  • I'm going to take a nap. When I wake up, if the money is on the table, I'll know I have a partner. If it isn't, I'll know I don't.
  • Good health is the most important thing. More than success, more than money, more than power.
  • [to Michael] There was this kid I grew up with; he was younger than me. Sorta looked up to me, you know. We did our first work together, worked our way out of the street. Things were good, we made the most of it. During Prohibition, we ran molasses into Canada... made a fortune, your father, too. As much as anyone, I loved him and trusted him. Later on he had an idea to build a city out of a desert stop-over for GI's on the way to the West Coast. That kid's name was Moe Greene, and the city he invented was Las Vegas. This was a great man, a man of vision and guts. And there isn't even a plaque, or a signpost or a statue of him in that town! Someone put a bullet through his eye. No one knows who gave the order. When I heard it, I wasn't angry; I knew Moe, I knew he was head-strong, talking loud, saying stupid things. So when he turned up dead, I let it go. And I said to myself, this is the business we've chosen; I didn't ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business! The two million in a bag in your room. I'm going in and take a nap. When I wake, the money's on the table, I'll know I have a partner. If it isn't, I'll know I don't.

Dialogue

Signora Andolini: [in Sicilian] All my respect, Don Ciccio. You killed my husband because he wouldn't give in to you. And his oldest son Paolo because he swore revenge. But Vito is only nine. And dumb-witted. He never speaks.
Don Ciccio: It's not his words I'm afraid of.
Andolini: He's weak. He couldn't hurt anyone.
Ciccio: But when he grows, he'll grow strong.
Andolini: Don't worry. This little boy can't do a thing to you.
Ciccio: When he's a man, he'll come for revenge.
Salvatore Tessio: [in Sicilian] Ehi Vito! Ma tu si sicuru ca iddu rici di sì? (Hey Vito! Are you sure he will say yes?)
Vito Corleone: [in Sicilian and English] Nun ti scantari (Do not worry): I make him an offer he don't refuse. Don't worry!
Senator Pat Geary: The Corleone family has done very well here in Nevada. You own, or you control, two major hotels in Vegas, one in Reno. The licenses were grandfathered in so there was no problem with the Gaming Commission. Now, my sources tell me that you plan to make a move against the Tropigala. They tell me that within a week you're gonna move Klingman out. That's quite an expansion. However, it will leave you with one little technical problem. Ahh! - the license will still be in Klingman's name...Well, let's cut out the bullshit. I don't want to spend any more time here than I have to. You can have the license - the price is $250,000, plus a monthly payment of five percent of the gross. Of all four hotels, Mr. Corleone.
Michael Corleone: Now the price for the license is less than $20,000, am I right?
Geary: That's right.
Michael: Now why would I ever consider paying more than that?
Geary: Because I intend to squeeze you. I don't like your kind of people. I don't like to see you come out to this clean country with your oily hair, dressed up in those silk suits, trying to pass yourselves off as decent Americans. I'll do business with you, but the fact is that I despise your masquerade, the dishonest way you pose yourself — yourself and your whole fucking family.
Michael: Senator, we're both part of the same hypocrisy, but never think it applies to my family.
Geary: I want your answer and the money by noon tomorrow. And one more thing. Don't you contact me again, ever. From now on, you deal with Turnbull.
Michael: Senator? You can have my answer now, if you like. My final offer is this: nothing. Not even the fee for the gaming license, which I would appreciate if you would put up personally.
Fredo Corleone: Sometimes I think I should have married a woman like you did. Like Kay. Have kids. Have a family. For once in my life, be more like Pop.
Michael Corleone: It's not easy to be a son, Fredo. It's not easy.
Hyman Roth: I heard you had some trouble. Stupid. People behaving like that with guns. The important thing is you're all right. Good health is the most important thing, more than success, more than money, more than power.
Michael Corleone: I came here because there's gonna be more bloodshed. I want you to know about it before it happens so that there's no danger of starting another war.
Roth: Nobody wants another war.
Michael: Frank Pentangeli came to my home, and he asked my permission to get rid of the Rosato brothers. When I refused he tried to have me killed. He was stupid; I was lucky. I'll visit him soon. The important thing is that nothing interfere with our plans for the future, yours and mine.
Roth: Nothing is more important. You're a wise and considerate young man.
Michael: And you're a great man, Mr. Roth. There's much I can learn from you.
Roth: Whatever I can do to help, Michael...You're young, I'm old and sick. What we will do together in the next few months will make history Michael, history. It's never been done before. Not even your father would dream that such a thing could be possible.
Michael Corleone: [in Cuba] I saw an interesting thing today. A rebel was being arrested, and rather than be taken alive, he pulled the pin on a grenade he had hidden in his jacket. He killed himself and the captain of the command.
Guest: Ah, the rebels are lunatics!
Michael: Maybe. But it occurred to me, the soldiers are paid to fight. The rebels aren't.
Hyman Roth: What does that tell you?
Michael: They can win.
Michael Corleone: You heard what happened in my home?
Frankie Pentangeli: Mike, I almost died myself - we was all so relieved.
Michael: [shouting] IN MY HOME! IN MY BEDROOM, WHERE MY WIFE SLEEPS! Where my children come and play with their toys! In my home! I want you to help me take my revenge.
Frankie: Michael, anything. What can I do?
Michael: Settle these troubles with the Rosato brothers.
Frankie: Mike, I don't understand! I don't...Look, I don't have your brain for big deals, but this is a street thing. That Hyman Roth in Miami, that - he's backing up those son-of-a-bitches.
Michael: I know he is.
Frankie: Then why? Why do you ask me to lay down to them, Mike?
Michael: It was Hyman Roth that tried to have me killed. I know it was him.
Frankie: Jesus Christ, Mike, Jesus Christ, look, let's get them all. Let's hit them all. Now while we got the muscle...
Michael: My father taught me many things here - he taught me in this room. He taught me - keep your friends close but your enemies closer. Now if Hyman Roth sees that I interceded in this thing, in the Rosato Brothers' favor, he's going to think his relationship with me is still good...That's what I want him to think. I want him completely relaxed and confident in our friendship. Then I'll be able to find out who the traitor in my family was.
  • Note: the bolded portion is ranked #58 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema. That portion has often been attributed to Sun Tzu and sometimes to Niccolò Machiavelli, but there are no published sources yet found which predate its use in this film. There is, however, an Italian proverb that follows closely: "Dagli amici mi guardi Iddio, che dai nemici mi guardo io!" – May God protect me from my friends, I protect myself from my enemies. Voltaire said, "God protect me from my friends, I'll take care of my enemies”.
Michael Corleone: I've always taken care of you, Fredo.
Fredo Corleone: Taken care of me? You're my kid brother, and you take care of me? Did you ever think about that? Huh? Did you ever once think about that? "Send Fredo off to do this. Send Fredo off to do that! Let Fredo take care of some Mickey Mouse nightclub somewhere! Send Fredo to pick somebody up at the airport!" I'm your older brother, Mike, and I was stepped over!
Michael: It was the way Pop wanted it.
Fredo: It ain't the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like everybody says, like dumb! I'm smart, and I want respect!
Michael: Is there anything you can tell me about this investigation? Any more?
Fredo: The Senate lawyer, Questadt, he belongs to Roth.
Michael: Fredo, you're nothing to me now. You're not a brother, you're not a friend. I don't wanna know you or what you do. I don't wanna see you at the hotels. I don't want you near my house. When you see our mother, I wanna know a day in advance so I won't be there. You understand?
Fredo: Mikey...
Michael Corleone: What do you want from me? Do you expect me to let you go? Do you expect me to let you take my children from me? Don't you know me? Don't you know that that's an impossibility, that that could never happen, that I'd use all my power to keep something like that from happening? Don't you know that? Kay, now in time, you'll feel differently. You'll be glad I stopped you now. I know that. I know you blame me for losing the baby. Yes, I know what that meant to you. I'll make it up to you, Kay. I swear I'll make it up to you. I'm gonna change. I'll change. I've learned that I have the strength to change. And you'll forget about this miscarriage. And we'll have another child. And we'll go on, you and I. We'll go on.
Kay Adams-Corleone: Oh, Michael. Michael, you are blind. It wasn't a miscarriage. It was an abortion. An abortion, Michael! Just like our marriage is an abortion, something that's unholy and evil. I didn't want your son, Michael! I wouldn't bring another one of you sons into this world! It was an abortion, Michael! It was a son, Michael! A son! And I had it killed because this must all end! I know now that it's over. I knew it then. There would be no way, Michael, no way you could ever forgive me, not with this Sicilian thing that's been going on for 2,000 years!
[discussing how to kill Hyman Roth]
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 anyone.
Tom Hagen: When a plot against the emperor failed, the plotters were always given a chance to let their families keep their fortunes. Right?
Frank Pentangeli: Yeah, but only the rich guys, Tom. The little guys got knocked off and all their estates went to the emperors — unless they went home and killed themselves. Then nothing happened, and the families — the families were taken care of.
Tom: That was a good break. A nice deal.
Frank: Yeah. They went home and sat in a hot bath, opened up their veins and bled to death, and sometimes they had a little party before they did it.

Cast

See also

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