The Sicilian Quotes

“Life is Beautiful”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“When we are children, when we are young, it is natural to love our friends, to be generous to them, to forgive their faults.. But as we grow old and have to earn our bread, friendship does not endure so easily. We must always be on our guard. Our elders no longer look after us, we are no longer content with those simple pleasures of children. Pride grows in us – we wish to become great or powerful or rich, or simply to guard ourself against misfortune.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“A man’s first duty is to keep himself alive. Then comes what everyone calls honor.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“...what is written on paper affects history. But not life. Life is a different history.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“My dear Guiliano," he said, "how is it that you and Don Croce do not join together to rule Sicily? He has the wisdom of age, you have the idealism of youth.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“It was not intelligent to damage the ego of a young boy. You can, with some impunity, insult an older man who has already been humiliated by life itself and will not take to heart the small slights of another human being. But a young man thinks these offences mortal.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“Again it was like the English he so much admired, those people who could be so subtly rude that you basked in their insults for days before you realized they had mortally wounded you.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“Tell the truth, all Sicilians prefer smelling the shit of their villages to the best perfumes in Paris. What am I doing here? I could have escaped to Brazil like some others. Ah, we love where we are born, we Sicilians, but Sicily does not love us.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“Michael looked around the beautiful garden with its many colored flowers, fragrant lemon trees, the old statures of the gods dug from ancient ruins, other newer ones of holy saints, the rose-colored walls across the villa. It was a lovely setting for the examination of twelve murderous apostles.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“he sells the souls in his keeping to the devil.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“A belief in one's own virtue is far more dangerous than a belief in one's cunning.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“As bread is sweet to us,” he said, “so is the blood of the poor to the rich who drink it.” It”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“The government in Rome with its legal forms demanded the truth. The priest in the confessional box commanded the truth under pain of everlasting hell. But truth was a source of power, a lever of control, why should anyone give it away?”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“For the first time the Don showed annoyance. He poured another glass of anisette and drank it down. He pointed a finger at his son. "You want to learn," he said. "Now listen to me. A man's first duty is to keep himself alive. Then comes what everyone else calls honor. This dishonor, as you call it, I willingly take upon myself. I did it to save your life as you once took on dishonor to save mine. You would have never left Sicily alive without Don Croce's protection. So be it. Do you want to be a hero like Guiliano, a legend? And dead? I love him as the son of my dear friends, but I do not envy him his fame. You are alive and he is dead. Always remember that and live your life not be be a hero but to remain alive. With time, heroes seem a little foolish."

Michael sighed. "Guiliano had no choice," he said.

"We are more fortunate," the Don said.

It was the first lesson Michael received from his father and the one he learned best. It was to color his future life, persuade him to make terrible decisions he could never have dreamed of making before. It changed his perception of honor and heroism. It helped him survive, but it made him unhappy. For despite the fact that his father did not envy Guiliano, Michael did.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“The man who plays alone never loses.’ ” Guiliano”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“Ah, we love where we are born, we Sicilians, but Sicily does not love us.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“Mafia,” in Arabic, means a place of sanctuary, and the word took its place in the Sicilian language when the Saracens ruled the country in the tenth century”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“Don Croce immediately led him into the garden, for like all Sicilians he ate his meals out of doors when he could.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“Always remember that and live your life not to be a hero but to remain alive. With time, heroes seem a little foolish.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“the Don never held a grudge that impaired his future profits.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“He said to the cardinal, "I'm a peasant, not instructed in the ways of heaven. But I have never broken my word. And you, a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, with all your holy garments and crosses of Jesus, lied to me like a heathen Moor. Your sacred office alone will not save your life.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“truth was a source of power, a lever of control, why should anyone give it away?”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“For the Sicilian believes that vengeance is the only true justice, and that it is always merciless.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“That is Sicily,” the Don said. “There is always treachery within treachery.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“A belief in one’s own virtue is far more dangerous than a belief in one’s cunning.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“they would never shame a statue of the Virgin Mary, but in the hot blood of vendetta they would shotgun the Pope himself for breaking omerta,”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“Preparing the communal evening meal sometimes caused arguments. Every village in Sicily had a different recipe for squid and eels, disagreed on what herbs should be disbarred from the tomato sauce. And whether sausages should ever be baked.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“The Communists and Socialists, those misguided liberals, must be fought against, and that takes money.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“The two men, one so huge, one so tiny, left the cemetery together. Terraced gardens girdled the sides of the surrounding mountains with green ribbons, great white rocks gleamed, a tiny red hawk of Sicily rode down toward them on a shaft of sunlight.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian

“He reminded him that whatever sins were committed here on earth, no man must forget that eternal forgiveness awaited him if he were a proper Christian.”
― Mario Puzo, The Sicilian