"A great Mafia Don lay dying, loved for his fair and impartial judgment, his help to those in need, and his implacable punishment of those who dared to oppose his will."
"No philandering youth could leave the daughter of a poor peasant without Don Zeno persuading him into holy matrimony."
"Never did a poor man come to his house for money and go away empty-handed."
"If they were related to his cosca, his clan, their dreams were fulfilled."
"I can die with a clear conscience if I can see my son to safety."
"His eyes are as green as olives that spring from my best trees."
"In sickness and in health, in unhappiness and despair, Don Zeno remained a true friend to all."
"Never dribble when you can pass. Never quit when you’re twenty points down in the last quarter."
"He was the boy’s father. Who knew him better?"
"A country as rich as America should not be so indifferent to the poor, no matter what their faults."
"Gratitude is the least lasting of virtues and that gifts must always be replenished."
"The laws from Rome could never justify the traditions of Sicily and had no authority; Don Zeno would overrule them, no matter what the cost."
"He has the Sicilian sensibility—romantic, musical, happy. Yet if someone offends him, he doesn’t forget."
"A chief tenet of that protocol was a complete lack of mercy."
"That’s the stuff you have to learn. He was telling me that he’s not completely defenseless, that he was keeping an eye on me."
"It has always been the case that individuals must sacrifice to further the advance of civilization and their particular society."
"Astorre accepted this as the courtesy of one adult to another."
"He generated his own individual power by his intelligence and by his complete lack of mercy."
"All coscas regulated crime. They would not tolerate lazy good-for-nothings burglarizing innocent citizens who paid their cosca dues."
"Fissolini laughed. 'Good food gives courage. To show my respect for His Excellency I prepared this meal myself. I used my mother’s special spices.'"
"Astorre was eating lustily. He had never tasted anything so delicious as this grilled lamb."
"Don Aprile said to Fissolini sternly yet kindly, 'It’s been a wonderful night—the food, the mountain air, your company. I look forward to the fresh dew in the country.'"
"Fissolini sighed. 'You must understand, Excellency, I am a poor man. Certainly I can take what I want in my province, but Sicily is such a cursed country that the rich are too poor to support men like myself.'"
"Astorre sang to the bandits, who were enchanted and complimented him, ruffling his hair affectionately."
"Astorre closed his eyes to fall asleep immediately on the ground next to the Don. 'Stay beside me,' the Don said, as he reached his arms around the boy."
"Astorre thought about this. 'Do my cousins know about her?'"
"Marcantonio said, 'That is what our audience believes. We have to give it to them.'"
"Valerius considered this. 'The country that produces the most steel wins the war, simply that.'"
"Nicole believed capital punishment would eventually destroy humanity."
"Nicole was resolute. She did not flinch. 'Dad, to domesticate animals, you don’t let them eat raw meat. You don’t let them get a taste of it or they want more. The more we kill, the easier it gets to kill.'"
"Nicole looked boldly into her father’s eyes. 'I don’t believe he had free will,' she said."
"The greatest virtue of humanity is mercy,' Nicole said. 'An enlightened society does not execute a human being, and it refrains from punishment as much as common sense and justice allows.'"
"The Don put his cigar down on a nearby rock. 'I accept your blessing, but you must understand. Bianco came to save me, and you are expected to do the same duty. I pay him a sum of money, and I will do the same for you every year.'"
"I'm not selling you something. This concerns the safety of your brother and sister. And you."
"You can't let other men impose their will on you or life's not worth living."
"Drugs were the salvation of the human spirit, the refuge of those damned to despair by poverty and mental illness."
"Who could blame a man whose poverty entered his dreams to purchase a few hours of relief by using drugs?"
"If you no longer believed in God, society, your own worth, what were you supposed to do? Kill yourself?"
"Drugs kept people alive in a realm of dreams and hope."
"War is a win-lose situation. You are much better off to win a war. Losing is an unthinkable horror."
"I've decided not to appoint you one of my deputies here in Washington. Not at the present time. For these reasons. You are enormously street-smart, and there is still work to be done in the field."
"Virtue always had to tread a very thin line."
"We just have to look for dead bodies turning up."
"Don't take unnecessary risks. Remember, drug people in South America and Sicily are linked with Portella, and they are reckless fellows."
"You cannot send six billionaires to prison. Not in a democracy."
"Those companies deliberately broke a federal law for financial gain and breached the security of the United States."
"Setting the killer free is an insult to the life of that agent."
"You have to learn the strokes and serve when you’re a kid."
"How fortunate you are to be parted from the woman you love. True ecstasy."
"Not half, but I would hope some. It’s an honor to give His Excellency a little pocket money."
"It’s possible for a headstrong man to be loyal, but it is not so easy for him to keep himself out of trouble."
"After you decide to kill a man, never speak to him. It makes things embarrassing for both of you."
"A man of respect cannot flaunt an injury inflicted by an enemy."
"Jesus was, after all, a man, and so cannot be fully trusted."
"Against all probabilities. And he didn’t want Franky to die like that, piece by piece."
"We had taken the shot and lost. And it was the end of the story."
"The broker is a guy named Heskow, and he lives in a town called Brightwaters, just past Babylon."
"That’s a lot of info to give a guy you think is full of shit."
"He left to drive back to New York. The snow had turned to rain, and it rinsed the countryside of snow."
"For like Don Aprile, he felt deeply that mercy could only come from God."
"The dream jumped to his return home after the exam, and his mother hugged and kissed him."
"I could be a university professor teaching people how to get rich without breaking the law and resorting to violence."
"Everybody gets rich, and nobody gets hurt or winds up in jail."
"The real test would come from men like Heskow, Portella, Tulippa, and Cilke."
"But now he felt an elation that he had never experienced before. A feeling that he was back in a world in which he belonged."
"Banks are the name of the game, you must have banks on your side."
"And yet—and yet, he had never thought it would come to murder."
"Gender loyalty was stronger than racial loyalty."
"A cop today doesn’t worry much about bullets. That’s part of the deal. He has to worry about the civil liberties groups, the citizens and the criminals who sue for damages."
"In a funny way, she would be doing her job. But the final argument was that it had so little risk and such a big payoff."
"Di Benedetto sighed. 'Fucking twenties,' he said."
"The explosion sent a shower of glass over the mall. It was raining glass."
"I love to read and I love those books. But they are not good TV."
"I could never leave Sicily. I live like a queen here."
"I’m not the man to sell the banks after they killed your father and my uncle."
"You have a right to these documents. But you have no right to any tape, even if it existed."
"For billions of dollars one must take risks. Or what are we in business for?"
"Hell, we tape everything, even our coffee-and-doughnut orders."
"On the best day of your life you couldn't put me in jail."
"Under executive order of the president, I’m authorized to hold you and your client for forty-eight hours without legal counsel, as a threat to national security."
"Hey, this is getting more and more like Sicily."
"We have to solve the question: Do we get the banks or not?"
"You don’t know who I really am. We’re not kids anymore."
"I don’t believe him or his reports. Astorre, I really do think I still love you."
"This weakness in men had existed since the beginning of recorded time."
"When one changes one’s country, one must always change one’s hat."
"Why do you put up with them? Why don’t you let me take care of you instead?"
"I hear you, but there’s a lot you don’t know."
"We can’t adjust what we believe just because it causes us pain."