Ray LiottaQuotes

Henry Hill: See, the hardest thing for me was leaving the life. I still love the life. And we were treated like movie stars with muscle. We had it all, just for the asking. Our wives, mothers, kids, everybody rode along. I had paper bags filled with jewelry stashed in the kitchen. I had a sugar bowl full of coke next to the bed. Anything I wanted was a phone call away. Free cars. The keys to a dozen hideout flats all over the city. I'd bet twenty, thirty grand over a weekend and then I'd either blow the winnings in a week or go to the sharks to pay back the bookies. Didn't matter. It didn't mean anything. When I was broke I would go out and rob some more. We ran everything. We paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now it's all over. And that's the hardest part. Today, everything is different. There's no action. I have to wait around like everyone else. Can't even get decent food. Right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I'm an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.

Henry Hill: It was easy for all of us to disappear. My house and cars were either registered in the name of my wife or my mother-in-law. My driver's license and social security number were phony. I never voted; never paid taxes. My birth certificate, arrest sheet, and my service record from the Army were all that existed to prove to the government I was ever alive.

Henry Hill: If you're part of a crew, nobody ever tells you that they're going to kill you. It doesn't happen that way. There weren't any arguments or curses like in the movies. So your murderers come with smiles. They come as your friends, the people who have cared for you all of your life, and they always seem to come at a time when you're at your weakest and most in need of their help.

Henry Hill: For a second, I thought I was dead, but when I heard all the noise I knew they were cops. Only cops talk that way. If they had been wiseguys, I wouldn't have heard a thing. I would've been dead.

Henry Hill: [about Tommy's murder] It was revenge for Billy Batts, and a lot of other things. And there was nothing that we could do about it. Batts was a made man and Tommy wasn't. And we had to sit still and take it. It was among the Italians. It was real greaseball shit. They even shot Tommy in the face so his mother couldn't give him an open coffin at the funeral.

Henry Hill: You know, we always called each other goodfellas. Like you said to, uh, somebody, "You're gonna like this guy. He's all right. He's a good fella. He's one of us." You understand? We were goodfellas. Wiseguys. But Jimmy and I could never be made because we had Irish blood. It didn't even matter that my mother was Sicilian. To become a member of a crew you've got to be one hundred per cent Italian so they can trace all your relatives back to the old country. See, it's the highest honor they can give you. It means you belong to a family and crew. It means that nobody can fuck around with you. It also means you could fuck around with anybody just as long as they aren't also a member. It's like a license to steal. It's a license to do anything. As far as Jimmy was concerned with Tommy being made, it was like we were all being made. We would now have one of our own as a member.

Henry Hill: [after the [[w:Lufthansa heist|Lufthansa heist; showing a montage of dead gangsters; police surround a truck, open it to see a dead man hanging on a hook like a meat husk] It made him sick to have to turn money over to the guys who stole it. He'd rather whack em. Anyway, what did I care? I wasn't asking for anything and besides, Jimmy was making nice money with me through my Pittsburgh connections. But still, months after the robbery they were finding bodies all over. When they found Carbone in the meat truck, he was frozen so stiff it took them two days to thaw him out for the autopsy.

Henry Hill: See, you know when you think of prison, you get pictures in your mind of all those old movies with rows and rows of guys behind bars...But it wasn't like that for wiseguys. It really wasn't that bad. Excepting that I missed Jimmy. He was doing his time in Atlanta...I mean, everybody else in the joint was doing real time, all mixed together, living like pigs. But we lived alone. And we owned the joint.

Henry Hill: Saturday night was for wives, but Friday night at the Copa was always for the girlfriends.

Henry Hill: [Henry and Jimmy are dangling a man who owes Paulie money over the lion enclosure at the Tampa Zoo] They must really feed each other to the lions down there because the guy gave the money right up and we got to spend the rest of the weekend at the track. Then I couldn’t believe what happened, when we got home, we were all over the newspaper. At first I didn’t even know why we got picked up but then I found out that the guy we roughed up turned out to have a sister working as a typist for the FBI. I couldn’t believe it. Of all the fucking people. She gave up everybody; Jimmy, me, even her brother. Took the jury six hours to bring us in guilty. The judge gave Jimmy and me ten years like he was giving away candy.

Henry Hill: For most of the guys, killings got to be accepted. Murder was the only way that everybody stayed in line. You got out of line, you got whacked. Everybody knew the rules. But sometimes, even if people didn't get out of line, they got whacked. I mean, hits just became a habit for some of the guys. Guys would get into arguments over nothing and before you knew it, one of them was dead. And they were shooting each other all the time. Shooting people was a normal thing. It was no big deal. We had a serious problem with Billy Batts. This was really a touchy thing. Tommy'd killed a made guy. Batts was part of the Gambino crew and was considered untouchable. Before you could touch a made guy, you had to have a good reason. You had to have a sitdown, and you better get an okay, or you'd be the one who got whacked.

Henry Hill: Now the guy's got Paulie as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the bill? He can go to Paulie. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. But now the guy's gotta come up with Paulie's money every week, no matter what. Business bad? "Fuck you, pay me." Oh, you had a fire? "Fuck you, pay me." Place got hit by lightning, huh? "Fuck you, pay me." Also, Paulie could do anything. Especially run up bills on the joint's credit. And why not? Nobody's gonna pay for it anyway. And as soon as the deliveries are made in the front door, you move the stuff out the back and sell it at a discount. You take a two hundred dollar case of booze and you sell it for a hundred. It doesn't matter. It's all profit. And then finally, when there's nothing left, when you can't borrow another buck from the bank or buy another case of booze, you bust the joint out. You light a match.

Henry Hill: For us to live any other way was nuts. Uh, to us, those goody-good people who worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to work every day and worried about their bills were dead. I mean they were suckers. They had no balls. If we wanted something, we just took it. If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again.

Henry Hill: One day some of the kids from the neighborhood carried my mother's groceries all the way home. You know why? It was outta respect.

Henry Hill: Hundreds of guys depended on Paulie and he got a piece of everything they made. And it was tribute, just like in the old country, except they were doing it here in America. And all they got from Paulie was protection from other guys looking to rip them off. And that's what it's all about. That's what the FBI could never understand. That what Paulie and the organization does is offer protection for people who can't go to the cops. That's it. That's all. They're like the police department for wiseguys.

Henry Hill: My father was always pissed off. He was pissed that he made such lousy money, he was pissed that my kid brother Michael was in a wheelchair, he was pissed that there were seven of us living in such a tiny house. After awhile he was mostly pissed because I hung around the cab stand. He knew what went on at that cab stand, and every once in a while I'd have to take a beating. But by then I didn't care. The way I saw it everybody takes a beating sometime.

Henry Hill: Paulie might've moved slow, but it was only because Paulie didn't have to move for anybody.

Henry Hill: As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. To me, being a gangster was better than being President of the United States. Even before I first wandered into the cabstand for an after-school job, I knew I wanted to be a part of them. It was there that I knew that I belonged. To me, it meant being somebody in a neighborhood that was full of nobodies. They weren't like anybody else. I mean, they did whatever they wanted. They double-parked in front of a hydrant and nobody ever gave them a ticket. In the summer when they played cards all night, nobody ever called the cops.

Hannibal Lecter: Paul, would you like to say grace?

Paul Krendler: [in drugged, lobotomized stupor] God bless every one of us, even white trash like Starling.

Hannibal Lecter: [[Paul of Tarsus|Apostle Paul] I don't think the ] could have put it any better. He hated women too.

Paul Krendler: What the fuck...

Hannibal Lecter: [walks in from behind''] Good, you brought the wine.

Paul Krendler: [Lecter smothers him with a dish cloth] Oh God--

Mason Verger: What do you think?

Paul Krendler: I could have handled this.

Mason Verger: Oh, coulda, woulda, shoulda. I mean what do you think about the money?

Paul Krendler: Five.

Mason Verger: Oh, let's just toss it off like five'! Let's say it with the respect it deserves.

Paul Krendler: Five hundred thousand dollars.

Mason Verger: Well, that's better, but not much. Will it work?

Paul Krendler: It'll work. Won't be pretty.

Mason Verger: What ever is?

Mason Verger: Cocksucker!

Clarice Starling: Paul, what is it with you? I told you to go home to your wife, was that wrong?

Paul Krendler: Don't flatter yourself, Starling. That was a long time ago. Why would I hold that against you? Besides, this town is full of cornpone country pussy.

Paul Krendler: Jesus, Starling! What are you doing sitting there in the dark?

Clarice Starling: Thinking about cannibalism.

Capt. T.C. Doyle: Does anybody else here know how to work an elephant?

Capt. T.C. Doyle: (upset, on the boat) I should be on a top secret mission with crack commandos but instead, I'm in an episode of McHale's Navy starring Dumbo, Mr. French, and the Three Stooges!

Capt. T.C. Doyle: (after the elephant ceremony, to Cahill) When you're standing on a roof with your brother in Fort Lauderdale, I think you're really gonna enjoy the view.

French Paul: It was a 12-ton Herman and Ziegler safe, Mister D. It was impossible to break into.

Macha: Well, it wasn't f***ing impossible to move, now, was it, Paul?

Macha: You got a big mouth, on small head “Sunshine”!

Macha: Why don't you just fucking rape me, Paul?

Macha: So how exactly did this one manage to disarm and overpower a four-time national bodybuilding champion? Drag him half a block, throw him over six-foot wall, and then fed him to his own gun?

Rebecca Payne: If you give in to this guy, there's gonna be guns in every hospital in the country. What, you think Mr. Archibald's the only one who has a sick child? Have you checked out the HIV ward? There's a whole floor full. People get sick, they die. That's the way it goes. I'm faced with decisions like this every single day.

Chief Gus Monroe: The fact remains, though, that there's a man threatening to kill innocent people because you refuse to help a son.

Rebecca Payne: The fact is that there are 50 million people in this country without medical insurance. If you like to change it, you should call your congressman.

Jack: You're going to pay a disobedience fee of $10,000! Plus another $40,000 to rebuild the bar! And if you want to see your friend alive again, do not call the cops! If you're not here in half an hour to settle this, I'm going to take the fine out on your friend's legs! I'm going to break them with this tire iron!

Dudley: Don't bring the money! I'm a computer programmer! I don't need my legs!

Jack: Fine! I'll break his hands!

Dudley: Oh, damn it. Bring the money!

Fred Jung: Let me tell you something, George: you'd have been great at anything.

Fred Jung: Money isn't real, George. It doesn't matter. It only seems like it does.

Fred Jung: Sometimes you're flush and sometimes you're bust, and when you're up, it's never as good as it seems, and when you're down, you never think you'll be up again, but life goes on.

Syd: No, I'm not leaving without that cocaine!

Syd: They are gonna come after me, my family, if I don't get them every penny's worth.

Syd: When the plane's going down, the pilot knows where to dump our load and we just go and get it.

Henry: Paulie may have moved slow, but it was only because Paulie didn't have to move for anybody.

Henry: [narrating] Jimmy was the kind of guy that rooted for bad guys in the movies.

Henry: You're a pistol! You're really funny. You're really funny!

Tommy: What do you mean I'm funny?

Henry: It's funny, you know. It's a good story, it's funny, you're a funny guy!

Tommy: [dangerously] What do you mean? You mean the way I talk? What?

Henry: It's just, you know, you're just funny. It's funny, the way you tell the story and everything.

Tommy: Funny how? I mean, what's funny about it?

Anthony: Tommy, no, you got it all wrong —

Tommy: Oh, oh, Anthony. He's a big boy, he knows what he said. [to Henry] What did ya say? Funny how?

Anthony: You're right.

Henry: Just —

Tommy: What?

Henry: Just, ya know, you're funny.

Henry: As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.